The Justice, October 29, 2013 by The Justice

ARTS Page 20

FORUM Grant marriage equality in all states 11

META MUSICAL

SPORTS Swimmers post top finishes at Rochester 16 The Independent Student Newspaper

the

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 9

www.thejustice.org

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

ADMINISTRATION

COMIC RELIEF

Collins leaving after 27 years ■ Mark Collins will leave the

University, effective at the end of this calendar year, after a distinguished career. By TATE HERBERT JUSTICE EDITOR

Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins will leave Brandeis effective at the end of this calendar year, according to an email announcement sent to the Brandeis community on Friday by Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Steven Manos. While neither Manos’ email nor Collins cited a specific reason for the departure, Collins did express

Waltham, Mass.

his gratitude to the University. “I’ve heard from a lot of people since Friday, and I’m just incredibly humbled by what I’ve heard from people in email and in person,” said Collins in an Collins interview with the Justice. “It’s been a great run for 27 years here. And I just thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m very much optimistic about the future.” According to Manos’ email, Collins “has chosen to take advantage of other professional opportunities” after his term at Brandeis comes to a

See COLLINS, 7 ☛

BRIEF Marder elected to national IOM Prof. Eve Marder ’69 (BIOL), the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience and the head of the Division of Science, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, according to an Oct. 21 BrandeisNOW press release. Marder was elected to the IOM on Oct. 1 as part of a cohort of 70 new members and 10 new foreign associates. She is the third Brandeis faculty to be elected to the Institute. Prof. Stuart Altman (Heller) was elected in 1996, and Prof. Emeritus Gregory Petsko (BCHM) was elected in 2001. Election to the IOM is conducted by current members. Marder conducts research on the modulation of neural networks, using the nervous system of crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs as models. Her research has been recognized with her past elections to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she served as the president of the Society for Neuroscience in 2008. Earlier this year, Marder won the 2013 Gruber Neuroscience Prize and was appointed to the scientific advisory board of the Brain Research through Advanc-

ing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, a project launched by the Obama administration to enhance neuroscience research. In an email Marder to the Justice, Marder commented on her election to the IOM. “It is a great honor,” she wrote, “and I am appreciative of the respect of my peers that it signals.” Marder also wrote that she does not expect her election to the IOM to impact her work on the advisory committee of the BRAIN Initiative. The IOM defines itself on its website as “an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public.” The website further explains that “many of the studies that the IOM undertakes begin as specific mandates from Congress; still other are requested by federal agencies and independent organizations.” —Phil Gallagher

ANNIE FORTNOW/the Justice

Student Activities hosted comedian Judah Friedlander in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center on Friday night. For full coverage of the event, see Arts page 20.

ACADEMICS

Cuts affect doctoral programs ■ The economic downturn

led GSAS to decrease University-funded students. By MARISSA DITKOWSKY JUSTICE EDITOR

Since its peak in 2009, Ph.D. programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences have experienced a decline in the number of students enrolled due to cuts in funding from the University after the economic downturn. According to Associate Dean for Enrollment and Marketing at GSAS David Cotter, the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering Committee, otherwise known as CARS, chaired by the then-Dean of Arts and Sciences Prof. Adam

Jaffe (ECON), assessed the Ph.D. programs during the 2009 to 2010 academic year and set new target numbers for enrollment. These departments had until this year to begin using these reduced target numbers, according to Cotter. “In effect, there has been an overall reduction in doctoral students. There’s absolutely no way around that. There definitely has been. It was strategic, and it was pointed,” said Cotter. Target numbers are defined as the desired amount of Ph.D. students within a program during one given year. For example, if a target number for a specific department is 10 students, about two to three students could be accepted in one year, depending upon how many students are currently enrolled in the program and will remain for the

See GSAS, 7 ☛

Building Bridges

Overtime agony

Ranking released

A new program hopes to create cohesion on campus.

 The Judges fell to UMass Boston in their only game of the week.

 U.S. News ranked fourth in the number of alumni who go into public service.

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

following year, due to the fact that students do not have to complete the degree in a set amount of years. However, according to Cotter, in the sciences, the average amount of time it takes to receive a Ph.D is five to five and a half years, while in the social sciences and humanities the average is about six and a half to seven years. Cotter said that GSAS had previously been working under a set of target numbers established in 2000, and that these target numbers are generally reassessed every 10 to 12 years. In fiscal year 2008, 85 Ph.D. students were enrolled in GSAS, and in 2009, 104 were enrolled. By 2010, GSAS enrolled only 66 students as a financial ramification from the economic crisis. That year, the CARS

Let your voice be heard! Submit letters to the editor online at www.thejustice.org

INDEX

SPORTS 16 ARTS SPORTS

17 16

EDITORIAL FEATURES

10 8

OPINION POLICE LOG

10 2

READER COMMENTARY 11

TUESDAY, OCTOber 29, 2013

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THE JUSTICE

NEWS WIRE BRIEF

Application will help to estimate aid WASHINGTON—A new online app called College Abacus is making it easier for students and their families to get estimates in advance of how much financial aid colleges and universities will give so that they can compare schools for costs. It comes at an opportune time, following the shutdown of many government programs because of the political standoff over the federal budget, which recently disabled College Navigator, a tool also designed to help families figure out college costs and operated by the Department of Education. Until about two years ago, financial aid was a mystery until a student got a college acceptance letter and a financial aid package. Change began in 2011, when the federal government required schools to offer online net price calculators, which compute a school’s full cost of attendance, minus estimated scholarships, based on family income and other information that individuals enter. College Abacus is a free, one-stop shop. It taps the net price calculators at three schools a student selects. Then, based on personal information entered once into College Abacus, the site retrieves the estimates. More schools can be entered, three at a time. The federal government’s College Navigator website offers a rougher estimate. For each school, it will give estimated net prices for several income levels. “Even if the government has stopped working, parents still need to find financial aid for their students to go to college,” said College Abacus co-founder Abigail Seldin. Finding out in advance which schools are likely to be affordable can bring peace to households in the spring, when most full-time students get their college decisions, Seldin said. It also can help reduce student debt. Referring to a popular travel accommodations search engine, Seldin calls College Abacus the kayak.com of net price calculators. It takes 10 minutes or more to copy financial information from a tax return and answer other questions on many net price calculators. College Abacus lets a user log in via Facebook, Googleplus or Twitter and save the data so that it only has to be done once. The free service isn’t without some glitches. It requires the patience to wait a few minutes for some estimates. In some cases, as when schools take their calculators down for revisions, College Abacus can’t get results. Seldin said her staff of 10 checks the school websites to make sure they’re working and that it should take no more than one week before the estimate will be produced on another try. Another issue with the estimates is the quality of the net price calculators. Many schools use a simple calculator developed by the Department of Education, rather than ones developed by the College Board and others that ask more detailed financial questions. One important question the Department of Education calculators don’t ask is the amount of parents’ assets. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid a form required of all students who hope to get financial aid, asks about assets, and schools use FAFSA information when they decide on aid amounts. College Abacus, in the details section of the estimates report, tells users what type of net price calculator a school offers. The National College Access Network, a nonprofit group that assists schools, mentoring groups and other organizations that help students get into college and do well once there, reviewed College Abacus when it was in a trial period last year and offered suggestions. College Abacus also won a $100,000 grant through College Knowledge Challenge, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Carrie Warick, director of policy and partnerships at the college access network, said the tool had two big benefits. “One is that it’s a big-time saver for students because it means they don’t have to go to every college website and answer the same questions over and over again,” she said. “The other is that many colleges don’t make the net price calculators readily available on their websites.”

POLICE LOG Medical Emergency

Oct. 20—A student at 164 Charles River Road called BEMCo to report flu-like symptoms. BEMCo and University Police responded. Following treatment, the student refused further care. Oct. 21—A student alerted University Police of the need to be transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital for a psychlogical evaluation. University Police then facilitated the transport of the student to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Oct. 21—A student notified BEMCo that she injured her knee outside Pearlman Hall. BEMCo responded and the student ultimately was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital. Oct. 23—A student reported severe abdominal pain to University Police. BEMCo responded, and the student was transported to Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Oct. 24—A student reported that her friend was feeling ill in a vehicle in Theater Lot. BEMCo responded to the student, who refused further care. Oct. 24—A student reported that a Boston University student injured his ankle in Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. BEMCo proceeded to treat the BU student, who refused further care. Oct. 24—A student in East Quad reported that she had a severe allergic reaction. BEMCo responded and treated the student, who refused further care. Oct. 25—A student in Usen Hall reported that she hurt her back after falling from her bunk bed. University Police and BEMCo responded, and the student was transported to NewtonWellesley Hospital. Oct. 26—A student on Charles River Road was reported to be intoxicated.

University Police and BEMCo responded and treated the student, with a signed refusal for further care. Oct. 26—A student reported that a person suffered a nose injury while playing on one of the athletic fields. University Police and BEMCo responded, and from there, the student refused further care.

Larceny

Oct. 20—A student in Scheffries Hall reported that money has been stolen twice from the wallet in her drawer over the past few weeks. University Police compiled a report of the theft and advised the student to store her money elsewhere. Oct. 20—A student reported that her iPod was stolen during a party in the Foster Mods. University Police proceeded to compile a report of the theft. Oct. 23—A student reported the theft of a laptop in Shapiro

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS n The women’s soccer standings in Sports incorrectly ranked the teams. The University of Chicago should have been in fourth place, not New York University. (Oct. 22, p. 15) The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. Email editor@ thejustice.org.

Justice

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The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods. Editor in chief office hours are held Mondays from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Justice office. Editor News Forum Features Sports Arts Ads Photos Managing

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Harassment

Oct. 22 —A student notified University Police of harassment in the Shapiro Campus Center. University Police compiled a report of the incident.

Disturbance

Oct. 24—University Police received a report that there had been a loud disturbance and possible altercation in the Tower Lot. University Police responded, and discovered that 12 individuals had been involved in a fraternity scavenger hunt. Individuals were dispersed and a report was compiled on the incident. —compiled by Adam Rabinowitz

SENATE LOG

GENDER CONSCIOUS

—McClatchy Newspapers

Residence Hall. University Police compiled a report of the theft and advised Library and Technology Services to track the laptop’s location.

Senate recognizes clubs

ABIGAIL ROTHSTEIN/the Justice

Last Thursday, the Women’s Studies Research Center held an event focused on consciousness-raising to engage feminist activism. The lecture examined the benefits and pitfalls of using the Internet as a tool.

The Senate voted on the charter and recognition of several clubs at its meeting Sunday night. First, the Brandeis Consulting Club presented, seeking recognition and charter. The club aims to offer events, financial and management consulting and to make students aware of opportunities in the consulting industry. The Senate recognized and chartered the club. Next, Supply Club made a presentation seeking recognition and charter. Supply is a national organization that tries to improve “slums crises” by presenting educational opportunities, like building secondary community schools with curricula built around civil service and human rights. The Senate voted to recognize, but not charter, Supply Club. Student Representative to the Board of Trustees Alex Thomson ’15 announced that the Board of Trustees is meeting Thursday about financial aid and admission policy. After the clubs presented, Vice President Charlotte Franco ’15 gave her report. She discussed several pending events, including a “Student Union Serves” event, similar to the Midnight Buffet, but with food provided by Sodexo. Franco also met with representatives from Sodexo to discuss The Stein, which is slated to become a Guy Fieri On Campus. Several senators expressed reservations, with concerns about the food, cost, student interest and whether or not Fieri is an appropriate personality to represent Brandeis. A survey will be sent to the student body. In addition, Franco announced that this semester’s State of the Union address will be on Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. A Senate Money Resolution for white “nondenominational” holiday lights was passed on the condition that the Senate will first look into the University paying. The Senate also unanimously passed an SMR for money to print out pictures for the Student Union bulletin board in the Usdan Student Center. The Senate also passed two bylaw amendments, one stating that meeting agendas should be sent out on Fridays and another to write language that the Senate must meet once every two weeks at minimum, rather than once every ten days. —Sam Mintz, Tate Herbert and Rachel Hughes

ANNOUNCEMENTS With My Mind Set on Freedom

Patricia Hill Collins, an eminent scholar who has dedicated her career to understanding the intersections of race, gender and class, will give a lecture in conjunction with being awarded the fifth annual Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize for lasting and outstanding scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and religious relations. Collins is the author of seven books including the seminal Black Feminist Thought and is currently a distinguished university professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. The Gittler Prize was created by the late Professor Joseph B. Gittler to recognize outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations. The Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Endowed Fund at Brandeis supports this annual award. The lecture is hosted by the Office of the President. All are welcome to attend. Today from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall in Goldfarb Library.

Speaker: Dr. Dean Martin

Dr. Martin Dean of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies will discuss recent findings of the museum’s massive Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos project. Dean will outline some of the research methods and sources used and give a survey of the wide variety of forced labor camps and police-run camps to be covered in the forthcoming Volumes 5 and 6, devoted mainly to more than 30,000 forced labor sites across Europe. Tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Reading Room 303.

Tradition of Innovation in Orthodox Judaism

Rabbi Asher Lopatin will be speaking about “The Tradition of Innovation in Orthodox Judaism.” Lopatin is described as a forward thinker who is extremely prominent in the Jewish community. He is the author of numerous scholarly and popular articles in several

books and journals and has been the cochair of the Muslim-Jewish Community Building Initiative of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. Tomorrow from 8:15 to 10:15 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center Multipurpose Room.

The Now Project

The Now Project conference will bring together college students, professors, scholars and Jewish professionals to discuss interdenominational collaboration and dialogue in an effort to envision the Jewish future. The day will feature several facilitated panels, guest speakers and interactive breakout sessions led by Brandeis undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. The Now Project will serve as both an opportunity for learning from innovative Jewish leaders and scholars and a think tank for the next generation of engaged Jews. Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Hassenfeld Conference Center.

THE JUSTICE

BRIEF University ranked fourth in service According to an Oct. 21 Washington Monthly article, Brandeis is the fourth-ranked university out of the top 50 from the U.S. News and World Report for percentage of undergraduate students entering public service over the last 10 years. According to the report, 28.2 percent of Brandeis alumni work for organizations such as government agencies, nonprofit organizations or public education after graduation. The study used data from career networking website LinkedIn. The article listed several factors considered important for inspiring students to enter public service, including creating a culture or tradition of service, providing co-curricular opportunities for service and helping students pay for internships or fellowships. “Our namesake, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, the distinguished associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, embodied in action the ideals of academic excellence and social justice,” wrote Hiatt Career Center Direc-

tor Andrea Dine in an email to the Justice. “Brandeis ... continues to strive for these ideals and therefore attracts students who are self-motivated, compassionate, and curious, and are open to exploring new experiences and embracing new challenges,” she continued. Other New England schools are also high in the ranking, including Brown University at fifth and Yale University, ranked seventh. Dine also stated her belief that members of the Brandeis community feel strongly about bettering their surroundings. “It is their collective influence in the classroom, on campus, and in the community that helps students launch careers in public service,” she wrote. Dine wrote that she believes the commitment of Brandeis students is not limited to public service careers. “I am confident that all of our graduates are committed to improving the world in which we live, no matter their professional path.” —Sam Mintz

OBITUARY

Prof. emeritus dies at 85 ■ Prof. Emeritus Eugene C.

Black (HIST), who retired in 2006, is remembered by students and colleagues. By SAMANTHA TOPPER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Oct. 18, Prof. Emeritus Eugene C. Black (HIST) died at the age of 85, according to an Oct. 22 BrandeisNOW article. Black joined Brandeis’s history department in 1958 and remained a member of the faculty until 2006. Black’s expertise centered around modern history, primarily that of western and eastern Europe, according to Brandeis’ faculty guide. He received several awards and honors for his work, and wrote extensively on European history, with 14 works published between 1963 and 2003, when he published his last scholarly article, titled “The Diplomacy of Minority Rights 1918-1930.” A Boston native, Black attended the College of William and Mary, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts before joining the U.S. Air Force. Black served in the Korean War as a pilot before returning to Massachusetts to enroll at Harvard University, where he received his Master of Arts and Ph.D., according to BrandeisNOW. After graduating in 1958, Black came to Brandeis to become an instructor in the History department, where his presence inspired the creation of two internships in his name, according to BrandeisNOW. The E.C. Black Prizes offer students majoring or minoring in History a stipend of up to $1000 for historical research. Colleague Prof. Gregory Freeze (HIST) described Black in an email to the Justice as having played a “key role in building the History Department,” helping to “recruit first-rate faculty and build a de-

partment with a strong national reputation.” A dedicated teacher, Black was “very popular and engaged,” according to Freeze, “with substantial enrollments Black in demanding classes.” John Petrowsky ’73, a former student of Black’s, emphasized Black’s consideration, caring and dedication as a professor in an email to the Justice. Petrowsky recalled to the Justice a personal story, telling of how Black met with him personally each week to help him with writing. “Professor Black continued to help me on a weekly basis even during a sabbatical year, a year when he experienced a terrible personal tragedy. He was the single faculty member who took me aside and said, ‘You’re smart. You’re not fully literate. Let’s see what we can do.’ And he helped me to do it.” Deborah Valenze Ph.D. ’82, a professor of history at Barnard College and another of Black’s former students said she feels that she owes Black for his influence on her journey to becoming an historian. “He demonstrated a bold, comparative approach to history,” she said in an email to the Justice. “He was a strong mentor who always emphasized that teaching was a calling as important as scholarship.” According to BrandeisNOW, Black served as the chairman of both the graduate program in Comparative History and the History department several times. Dedicated to Brandeis and history, Black directed Ph.D. dissertations even after his retirement, working up until last year. A funeral service was held in Brookline, Mass. on Oct. 23, according to BrandeisNOW.

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013

CAMPUS SPEAKER

Scholar assesses Martin case in relation to racial research ■ Professor Robin Bernstein

of Harvard University used the Trayvon Martin case to explain racial innocence and guilt. By TATE HERBERT JUSTICE EDITOR

On Thursday afternoon, Brandeis students, staff and faculty packed the Rapaporte Treasure Hall in the Goldfarb Library to hear a presentation by Robin Bernstein, a professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, titled “Trayvon Martin and So Many More: Racial Innocence Today.” Prof. Chad Williams (AAAS), chair of the African and Afro-American Studies department, which sponsored the event in conjunction with the American Studies program, the Education program and the Sociology department, introduced Bernstein and the topic of her lecture. Bernstein, author of the awardwinning book Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, discussed the changing conceptualization of race and childhood in America, particularly the ideas of racial innocence and racial guilt. Trayvon Martin, who was 17 at the time of his death in 2012, was “at the moment of racial innocence and the blooming of racial guilt,” said Bernstein. She launched into her presentation with a personal anecdote, one which she said she had never told anyone until the previous night. The events she described “actually launched the line of questioning that eventually resulted in me writing Racial Innocence,” she explained. Bernstein depicted a scene in which she, an 11-year-old girl growing up in New York City in the late 1970s, witnessed a peculiar instance of harassment while riding the public bus on her way home from

school. She was sitting on the bus across from a white teenage girl and two black boys when the girl started to poke the boys, and lightly hit one of them on the head with a soft, spiral-bound notebook. “She was poking the boys, and she was laughing. The boys were laughing, too, but it was an uncomfortable laugh that was totally unlike the girl’s peals of laughter,” Bernstein recalled. She went on to describe how another passenger “verbalized the question that had been in my head. He asked the girl, ‘Do you know them?’ To which she replied, ‘No, I just think they’re funny.’” It was at this moment, said Bernstein, that she realized she “was witnessing something very wrong.” “On that bus in 1979, I saw what I would call, 25 years later, ‘racial innocence,’” she explained. Within the concept of racial innocence, she went on to identify key “lies and libels,” namely that the category of childhood does not include black juveniles, that black juveniles do not feel pain, and that, because of this, violence against them doesn’t matter. Bernstein then went on to discuss the Martin case, analyzing the ways in which Martin’s age and innocence were perceived by both the defendant, George Zimmerman and the jurors. “When Zimmerman called 911, he told the dispatchers that Martin seemed ‘about 19, his late teens.’ And moments later ... he referred to Martin as ‘a kid,’” Bernstein explained. However, in subsequent court appearances, Zimmerman said he thought that Martin was closer to himself in age, or slightly younger than 28. This was connected to a new “lie and libel” that developed in recent history, said Bernstein, that black youth are a criminal threat. Later in the discussion, she examined Florida’s Stand-Your-Ground

law, which was used to defend Zimmerman, from the perspective of a cultural historian. “The law legalizes violence based on fear, that is the experience of feeling threatened. And the experience of being threatened is inseparable from the history of race and age,” she said. “That’s why Stand-YourGround laws are inherently racial, are inherently racist.” In the question-and-answer session that followed, Bernstein addressed multiple queries about the relationship of racial innocence and fear to lynching in America in the late 19th century. Audience members also asked about the way that space plays a role with race and Stand-Your-Ground laws, as well as race and laws regarding the age of consent. Prof. Jerry Cohen (AMST), who attended the lecture, brought up some of the more specific aspects of the Martin case, and questioned Bernstein’s interpretation of the self-defense law. “Frankly, I’m not convinced you understand the Stand-Your-Ground law,” said Cohen, questioning whether it would have been used to defend Martin, rather than Zimmerman, had Martin lived. Williams eventually capped Cohen’s questioning of Bernstein to open up the floor to other audience members, including a student from Florida, who spoke about the local perception of the case. “I think ... what’s so important about Professor Bernstein’s work is, as a cultural historian, she’s able to provide a historical context for these type of conversations,” said Williams in an interview with the Justice. “Even though people may have different opinions, different interpretations, I think it’s always important to go back to the historical record ... I think it’s important to analyze the textual evidence to have an informed opinion about these different matters.”

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RAFAELLA SCHOR/the Justice

EXAMINING FEAR AND RACE: Harvard University Professor Robin Bernstein discussed her research on race Thursday.

Advertise in theJustice and reach the entire Brandeis community! Run your ad for the rest of the semester and receive a 25-percent discount. Perfect for advertising local businesses or club events.

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THE JUSTICE

Educator lectures on bigger picture of Israel conflict

founder of the Middle East Learning Academy, spoke at Brandeis last Tuesday. By jay feinstein JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Last Tuesday, Hillel, the Brandeis Zionist Alliance and the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee co-sponsored an event titled “Israel 101: Understanding the Middle East with Iftah Burman,” which aimed to provide an informed historical perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the event, Burman, founder of the Middle East Learning Academy, explained the history of Israel from 1917 to today. Burman chronologically described events, including various wars and attempts at peace, from the point of view of Palestinians, Israelis and members of neighboring Arab countries. Burman said his intent was to be as neutral as possible because the story of the Middle East is consistently told from biased perspectives. “You don’t get the whole picture that way,” Burman said. “The goal is to get as much information into this as possible.” For example, Burman explained that while Israel’s 1948 war is called the “War of Independence” by Israelis, it is called “Nakba,” an Arabic word describing the worst possible thing that can happen, by Palestinians. Also, while Israel’s 1967 war is called “The Six Day War” by Israelis, it is called “Naksah,” a word that means failure in Arabic, by Palestinians. For every event that Burman described, he discussed the intentions and reactions of both sides. For example, every party involved in Israel’s 1973 war had a different

goal. “[Israel’s] was to keep its territories and prevent loss of lives, Syria’s goal was to liberate territory by force that was taken by force and Egypt’s objective was to get the Sinai Desert by any means to prove it had the upper hand,” Burman said. He ended his talk with a discussion of the Arab Spring. He said it brought a new mindset to the Middle East. “People of the Middle East realize that their priority is to provide for themselves and live peacefully with neighbors,” he said. “Maybe they’re not going to be singing ‘Kumbaya’ by [the] campfire, but at least they might hate each other a little less.” Hillel Israel Programs Coordinator Hannah Leeman ’16, who spearheaded the event’s organization, said in an interview with the Justice that one of the reasons for the event is that since Brandeis’s conversation about Israel has elevated to such a high level, Israel is not always accessible to the everyday student. “This event ... was the first of a series of events coming this year to try and open the conversation to everyone on campus, not just those who are already experts in what is going on, and to get more people involved and talking about Israel.” First-year Representative for the Brandeis University Conservative Organization Allison Marill ’17 said in an interview with the Justice that the event provided a good background on Israel. “I found that in high school, they didn’t talk much about Israel. Because of that, a lot of people only know about what’s in the news right now,” she said. “It’s good to look at the history to see why things are the way they are. [Burman] did a good job explaining how Israelis feel and how Palestinians feel, which provides for a good understanding of the conflict.”

Investigative? Inquisitive? Interested?

Write for News! Contact Marissa Ditkowsky at news@thejustice.org

TUESDAY, OCTOber 29, 2013

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

campus speaker

■ Iftah Burman, the

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RAFAELLA SCHOR/the Justice

EXPLAINING THE LAW: Lund University Professor Christoffer Wong led a discussion on international judicial appointments.

Discussion covers the appointment of judges ■ Christoffer Wong, a law

professor at Lund University in Sweden, focused his talk on academics in the court. By Sarah rontal JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

A discussion with Law Professor Christoffer Wong of Sweden’s Lund University last Tuesday brought together a small group of Brandeis students and faculty interested in discussing ethics of the appointment of judges to the International Criminal Court. Many attendees mentioned their involvement with the University’s Brandeis in the Hague program, a program in the Netherlands that introduces students to international courts. The International Criminal Court, apart from the United Nations system, is an “[i]ndependent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,” according to the ICC website. The court has 18 judges distributed between the appeals, pre-trial and trial chambers. According to the website, it is governed by the Rome Statute, which is the treaty that established the ICC and was written in 1998. The statute was ratified by 60 countries in 2002 including the United Kingdom, France and Germany. As of July 2012, 122 countries are States Parties to the Rome Statute, according to the website. The United States, however, has not yet ratified the statute. Wong’s presentation focused on the role of academics in the ICC courtroom, demonstrating their faults and merits as ICC judges. He also discussed how ICC requirements could better reflect increasing variation among academics studying law. At a recent conference on humanitarian law at Lund University, participants raised concerns regarding the qualifications of current ICC judges. According to Wong, the issue is raised at many forums. Objections to the judges’ qualifications included claims that they were too old and that too many were diplomats without formal criminal law backgrounds. Wong said the objec-

tions “actually [sparked] my own existential crisis … because if you can criticize the diplomats, how about the academics?” Both academics and diplomats appear to be eligible to be appointed as ICC judges according to Article 36 of the Rome Statute, said Wong. “It doesn’t actually set any common standard for the ICC,” he said, other than requiring candidates to be, quoting from the statute text, “persons of high moral character, impartiality and integrity, who possess the qualification required in the their respective states for appointment to the highest judicial offices.” Wong explained that qualifications vary from state to state. While some states would appoint judges on a merit basis, the appointment of others may be “dictated by political elites.” Special ICC requirements decide the legal background of appointed judges. They require a minimum of nine judges who have criminal law experience and a minimum of five who have international law experience, explained Wong. Diplomats and scholars of international humanitarian law and human rights law are therefore eligible to be appointed as ICC judges within the smaller, international law category. It is important to note, however, that this ratio based on experience is subsidiary to gender and geographical requirements, according to Wong. Leigh Swigart, director of Programs in International Justice and Society at the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, recalled that the first Japanese judge on the ICC bench was a non-lawyer diplomat. According to an article written in 2010 for The Guardian, Japanese judge Fumiko Saiga is regarded by experts as an example of an unqualified judge, without “a law degree or any legal qualifications.” “They wanted so much to have Japan to be a member of the court that they took that nomination,” Swigart said. Neither Swigart nor Wong, however, suggested such radical displacement of experiential requirements was common. Scholars appear to be disadvantaged in several ways by the ICC qualifications for judge appointment. Wong found that cases brought to the ICC in recent years

have revealed the need for greater participation of academics on the bench. The requirement of fewer judges with international law experience than criminal law experience reflects an outdated assumption that only the appeals chamber, one of the three chambers of the ICC, would require academic, as opposed to administrative, skills, he explained. Major issues of jurisdiction and permissibility entering a second chamber, the pre-trial chamber, have required extensive reasoning of laws and attention to detail that befits academics more so than criminal law-trained judges, said Wong. Despite the benefits that academics could provide, Wong admitted several weaknesses of scholars on the bench. First, legal academics sitting as judges may face ethical issues surrounding their independent work because in international courts, scholarship may be used as law, said Wong. Unlike national law, he explained, which depends heavily on interpretations and precedents, “[i]nternational law is really law of the states. It really has no permanent court or legislature that actually defines what international law is.” A further weakness Wong said he observed was a tendency some academics may feel to ask irrelevant questions in pursuit of answering their research topics. He suggested such behavior was at the expense of a case. The field of law in academics is evolving in ways that make the 1998 Rome Statute outdated, according to Wong and Director of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life Daniel Terris, who participated in the discussion. Current international criminal law scholars would be placed in the criminal law department and would not count toward the ICC’s “international law” quota that allows international humanitarian and human rights scholars to become judges, explained Wong. This was not acknowledged in the 1998 statute, explained Terris, because the court was “too young.” “Nobody had a deep knowledge of international criminal law when that statute was drawn up,” he said. Wong, for these reasons, declared that it was necessary to revise the ICC’s statute in regard to its requirements for judges.

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COLLINS: Years of work by SVP to be recognized CONTINUED FROM 1 close. “At present I’m just exploring options,” said Collins, when asked about these opportunities. “I’m actually ... going to go to Florida in January for a month or two and spend some time thinking about what I may want to do in the future.” Collins joined Brandeis in 1987 as purchasing manager, according to Manos’ email, and rose through the ranks, gradually taking on more responsibility in the facilities and campus operations areas. He was promoted to senior vice president in 2010. “Mark [Collins] has been a tireless advocate for making Brandeis a more attractive campus and for modernizing our facilities,” wrote Manos of Collins’ work. “His number one goal was to contribute to making Brandeis a safe and comfortable environment for our ... community of faculty, students, staff, neighbors, and visitors,” Manos continued.

Other administrators also spoke about Collins' time at the University and his dedication. “The Brandeis campus owes a great deal to Mark’s stewardship and strong relationships across all segments of our community,” the email continued, quoting University President Frederick Lawrence. “He has been responsible for providing the most essential and often least appreciated services to the campus and we are grateful for all that he has done.” There will be a reception in Collins’ honor during the week of Dec. 2, according to the email. An announcement will be made with more specific details in the coming weeks. At the Student Union Senate’s regular Sunday meeting, Student Union Vice President Charlotte Franco ’15 urged senators to attend the reception. “I hope that we can all conjure up support to have as many students go and show support for Mark Collins, because he really has been a really big advocate for the student body during his tenure here,” she said.

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PICKING UP CHICKS

JOSH HOROWITZ/the Justice

A petting zoo was held on Sunday on the lawn in front of the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Admissions Center. Alice Meng ’15 and Zach Reid ’15 are pictured with the animals.

GSAS: Effects of cuts seen in undergrad courses CONTINUED FROM 1 numbers were put in place, and in 2011, enrollment increased to 92, and to 95 in 2012. However, that number decreased again to 83 in 2013 and 84 in 2014. The numbers, according to Cotter, increased briefly in 2011 and 2012 as remaining at the enrollment numbers after the major decrease in 2009 would “obliterate the Ph.D. reputation,” Cotter said.

Deciding funding for Ph.D. students

According to Cotter, the economic issue with maintaining Ph.D. programs is that students are generally fully funded, receiving “a tuition scholarship, a fellowship that varies based upon the field of study they’re in, and health insurance benefits” from the University. Ph.D. students receive full funding from the University to cover the cost of attendance from the first to third years of their fellowships, and the University waives the continuation fee for Ph.D. students in their fourth and fifth years. The only cost that Ph.D. students must cover, according to Cotter, is a continuation fee of $1,378 should they exceed five years in the program. The lowest stipend that the University provides is an annual stipend of $20,400, according to Cotter. However, there are also Ph.D. students who receive all of their funding external to the University, such as through outside grants or the government. These students, according to Cotter, are not taken into account when meeting target numbers. The GSAS typically does not accept unfunded students who pay their own tuition, according to Cotter. Often times, when unfunded students are accepted, it takes them longer to complete their doctoral degrees because they often have to get a job or take out more loans, said Cotter. The decrease in the Ph.D. programs at GSAS “was done as a costsaving measure during the financial downturn,” Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan Birren wrote in an email to the Justice. “These budgets are set each year through a process involving the Integrated Planning and Budget Committee … in which the finances of the masters and Ph.D. programs are assessed and a budget is set based on the needs and costs,” Birren wrote.

Cotter explained that in an economic downturn, as people lose their jobs, “they reshuffle their life priorities,” and a lot of them return to school. However, according to Cotter, this downturn has lasted for so long that universities across the country are starting to see a negative impact to enrollment. Cotter said that the Ph.D. in humanities has been “particularly hard-hit across the country.” While many Ph.D. candidates will be looking for full-time tenure-track faculty positions at colleges or universities after they complete their degree, “we have a situation in which universities have decreased their hiring in certain humanist areas, and colleges, quite honestly, are concerned about flooding the market with too many Ph.D. students that don’t have a place to go,” said Cotter. Such factors were taken into account by the CARS committee when readjusting target numbers and deciding how many Ph.D. students the University should fund.

The effects on teaching fellows

Regardless of the source of students’ funding, all Ph.D. students must have taught or been a teaching assistant for a minimum of two courses in order to receive a doctoral degree; however, this number varies based upon the program. According to Cotter, students in the social sciences, humanities and the creative arts are required to assist in teaching or teach at least six times. “What that [requirement] does for us is it allows us to project out to say that you are going to be here for five years and you are going to teach six times, so it allows us to figure out how many teaching assistants are going to be here within a given semester,” Cotter said. Cotter added that departments do hire additional course assistants to cover their courses, often utilizing the same pool of doctoral students. A Ph.D. student’s work as a teaching fellow or teacher is always compensated, even if it is a part of the minimum requirement for receiving the degree, Cotter said. After the minimum requirement is reached, however, Ph.D. students are granted additional compensation if they continue to teach or assist in teaching. The decline in Ph.D. students, however, has been visible in the number of TA and graduate teach-

ers placed in undergraduate classes in departments such as the History department, for which, according to department chair Prof. Jane Kamensky, students in their second and third years serve as teaching fellows. In the History department in particular, only Ph.D. students may serve as TFs, according to Kamensky. Not all departments, however, have implemented such a policy, although those departments that do uphold such a policy have experienced the effects of the decline in Ph.D. students. “A declining number of Ph.D. students on campus will certainly affect undergraduate education, as Ph.D. students add immensely to the intellectual life of our campus, stimulate faculty research, and support large classes as teaching fellows,” wrote History graduate program director Prof. Michael Willrich in an email to the Justice. “It’s very much on the radar screen of our office and in the Arts and Sciences’ dean’s office that there is an increase in the undergraduate population and there is a decrease, and now a leveling off, of doctoral enrollment,” said Cotter. “It’s very clear that we need to be providing more than adequate instruction and service to Brandeis undergraduates because that is Brandeis, and that is what undergraduates come here for.”

Concerns about program size

The Ph.D. in History is one of the programs that Cotter suggested “should be larger.” According to Cotter, multiple factors were taken into account when deciding target numbers for each specific program. He explained that the English program, for example, is larger than the History program because English doctoral students help teach undergraduate writing courses such as the University Writing Seminar. Cotter said that Chemistry and Biology also require a higher number of Ph.D. students due to the fact that the University has to staff a lot of teaching fellows for introductory courses. “We have a very strong [History] program and it’s, in my opinion, much too small. … [W]e all agree the program needs to be larger, it’s just we don’t know where to find the money for it because it’s a costly, costly venture to do it,” said Cotter. According to Cotter, the size of the faculty was also taken into ac-

count when setting the new target numbers, as well as research publications of the faculty, as Ph.D. students often serve to assist professors with research. In addition, the state of the job market for doctoral candidates and the number of undergraduate courses needed to be served by doctoral candidates are taken into account. According to the Registrar’s website, for fall 2013, there are currently 18 undergraduate History courses taught by 14 professors. Ten additional courses are cross-listed in History. There are about 100 total undergraduate History majors, according to Kamensky. According to Cotter, there is an insignificant difference between the number of doctoral students funded by the University in the sciences and the humanities. According to Cotter, several smaller departments in the social sciences, such as Anthropology, Sociology and Politics, average about 10 students each, while in the life sciences as a whole, which lumps together programs such as Biochemistry, Biophysics, Molecular Cell Biology and Neuroscience, the average amount of Ph.D. students is about 21 to 22. While these average numbers for University-funded spots in the Ph.D. program do not take into account students accepted using outside funding from grants, “our programs across the board are too small to notice a level of inequity,” Cotter said.

Reviewing current programs

This year, GSAS will begin reviewing Ph.D. programs in tandem with the Dean of Arts and Sciences departmental reviews, according to Cotter. The reviews will assess each program in terms of how modern and up-to-date the curriculum and course work is, student advising and mentoring, recruitment, placement, success in the workforce and outcomes for the students in the program, degree completion rate and attrition rate, benefits and burdens for the faculty and revenue and costs. “Personally, I believe that, with our doctoral programs, we’re in a state in which we can’t continue. We have to do something,” said Cotter. “I think that Brandeis needs … to start seriously looking into what a Ph.D. means, and to realize that we’re not just creating future faculty, that there are a number of other

really solid, positive and successful outcomes for a Ph.D. student that don’t involve becoming a university faculty member.” According to Birren, the GSAS budget is part of the overall arts and sciences budget, and “many resources (including faculty) are shared between the graduate school and the undergraduate component” of arts and sciences. The same decrease in Ph.D. enrollment did not apply to the Heller School for Social Policy and Management or the International Business School. Both the Heller School and IBS are independent from GSAS and rely on tuition revenue and donors to function, according to Senior Associate Dean at IBS F. Trenery Dolbear and Heller School Assistant Dean Lynn Davis. Neither school receives funds from the University, according to both Dolbear and Davis. At IBS, 27 Ph.D. students are currently enrolled, and enrollment has remained relatively consistent, although it has increased slightly over the past four years, according to data provided by IBS Communications Coordinator Adam ConnerSimons. At Heller, 131 Ph.D. students are currently enrolled, according to Davis. In 2010, there were 141 Ph.D. students enrolled, 144 in 2011 and 137 in 2012. According to Davis, Ph.D. students receive three years of funding through training grants, fellowships or foundation awards. Davis wrote in an email to the Justice that Ph.D. students are in residence for two years, although the amount of time to complete a dissertation varies by student. Students who do not complete their dissertations by the third year “would only be charged a post-residence fee, not tuition,” she wrote. This post-residence fee is $685 per year. The strategic plan, which was adopted by the Board of Trustees at their May meeting, noted that strengthening the graduate programs at Brandeis was a vital objective. “I hope that [University President Frederick Lawrence] and [Provost] Steve Goldstein [’78] are successful in working with donors to have them understand how important doctoral education is to be able to bring these programs up to a level at which they can really thrive,” said Cotter.

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VERBATIM | ROBERT FROST Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

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In 1998, Hurricane Mitch, the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, made landfall in Honduras.

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Recalling a storied past Prof. Jacob Cohen found a home in American Studies over 40 years ago By JAIME KAISER JUSTICE editoR

PHOTO COURTESY OF BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

STORIED INSTRUCTOR: Prof. Jacob ‘Jerry’ Cohen (AMST) has been teaching at Brandeis since 1960 and has experienced the evolution of the University over the decades.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARCHON

DIVERSITY DILEMMA: Cohen in the 1984 edition of Archon Yearbook, a critical time for the University, which Cohen explores in a book he is currently writing.

Prof. Jacob Cohen (AMST) is a man of many names. His legal birth name is “Jerome,” but his students call him “Jerry.” Arriving on campus only a little over a decade after the University’s founders in 1960, Cohen is a trove of insights on the history he teaches but has also lived. In 1960, Cohen arrived on campus to interview for a faculty position in the history department. Before joining the Brandeis faculty, Cohen taught at Yale University. Some questioned his decision to leave a school with such a storied academic reputation for a one that was still in its infancy. Yet for him, Brandeis was a natural choice. “My reasons for coming you could put on a Hallmark greeting card,” Cohen said. “My family—a Jewish family—a Zionist family, revered the name of Louis Brandeis. It was an absolutely natural fit.” Unlike the hiring process today, Cohen met with faculty members across all departments before he was offered a teaching position. “Every major campus intellectual came to speak with me. Everyone was interested in whom the University was hiring and who fit in with the intellectual community ... My heart was pounding, I was thrilled,” he said. Cohen says that his teaching style hasn’t changed one bit in all the years he’s taught. Although he often teaches lecture classes with around 100 students enrolled, he still reads, grades and writes lengthy comments on every paper by himself, a practice he reported is “really stupid and not very bright in terms of my time, as people tell me.” Although Cohen is on leave this semester, you may still see him around campus completing various tasks for a book he is writing entitled Inner-Most Part: Brandeis University and the Jewish Question. It will blend historical analysis and personal memoir in an exploration of Judaism and Brandeis as it attempts to understand what it means to be a “Jewishsponsored” university. Cohen’s book will address Brandeis’ complicated relationship with its Jewish roots, specifically the identity crisis the University underwent in the 1980s. “There was a conspicuous effort to un-Jew the place,” Cohen said. SAT scores were dropping and the administration felt pressure to diversify, a goal they slowly achieved since then, with over 50 percent of the population now being non-Jewish. This is not the first time Cohen has excused himself from teaching in pursuit of other ambitions. In 1963, only three years after he began his career at Brandeis, he left the University for what he considered a permanent separation at the time in order to, as he described it, save the world. “It didn’t work,” Cohen said. He had left academia to work with a civil rights organization called the Congress On Racial Equality,where he worked closely with the national director of the organization and edited its magazine.

Cohen joined CORE when the organization was very much centered on themes of equality and the notion that race doesn’t matter, as expressed in Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous speech, in which he stated “I look to a day where people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” But while Cohen was working there, the organization turned an ideological corner. “CORE underwent a dramatic change from the ideology of black and white integration to black separatism ... and black self-assertion.” In 1965, he left the organization. “I wasn’t supposed to be there,” Cohen said. Before Cohen returned to the University in 1968 as a faculty member of the newly formed American Studies department, he spearheaded an initiative called Upward Bound, which worked to get disadvantaged youth into college. When Cohen did return, he would do similar work as a creator and founding director of the Myra Kraft Transitional Year Program in April of 1968. Cohen got right back in the groove of what he likes doing: teaching. “Asking me which is my favorite course is like asking me which is my favorite kid and you know I’m not telling you and I’m not telling them,” Cohen said. “But of course I love them all equally,” he added. As early as 1971, Cohen began to teach a course about the 1960s, reported one year in the course guide as one of the best classes at Brandeis, and which addressed topics such as the civil rights movement and student radicalism on college campuses. Cohen will introduce a new course for the coming spring semester called “Digital Media and American Culture,” a topic Cohen says his students “know a tremendous [amount] about. Not so much how to think about it, but they really know what it means to be in that world.” Other courses Cohen teaches include “Sports in American Culture”, one on the future as it is depicted in American literature and a popular course on conspiracy theories. In fact, Cohen is a major enthusiast of conspiracies and one of the world’s foremost scholars on conspiracies around the John F. Kennedy assassination. Aside from his career at Brandeis, Cohen is a singer and has performed at various venues, including Carnegie Hall in 1995. He is also telepathic, or at least some people think so. He remarks fondly that he still gets a phone call from time to time from a student addressing him as “wizard,” another one of his many names. “Hello wizard!” they say and then, as if by magic, Cohen declares the exact playing card in the student’s hand for the amusement of everyone on the other side of the call. Cohen explained that this harmless game serves as a teaching moment between himself and his former students well after they have graduated. The trick is a mundane example of conspiracy theories. “Only we know the truth, and we both need to know in order for the lie to be effective,” Cohen said.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ARCHON

ACADEMIC COMMUNITY: Four members of the American Studies program today are (from left to right) Prof. Jacob Cohen and his colleagues Prof. Maura Farrelly, Prof. Stephen Whitfield and Prof. Joyce Antler.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF CYNTHIA JACKSON

c i o a s l g b a n i r g r i d e i rs r B

A new Israel trip program connects black and Jewish students By CASEY PEARLMAN JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A new program has arrived on campus this semester that is certainly unique to the Brandeis campus. While most students have heard of the Birthright program, in which eligible Jewish youth have the opportunity to visit Israel, this new program puts a cross-cultural twist on the traditional Israel trip. Brandeis Bridges is the collaborative effort of the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Brandeis Black Student Organization and Martin Luther King and Friends. Brandeis Bridges was created in an attempt to “cross cultural boundaries” and give the students involved an opportunity to “bond over what brings [them] together, rather than what separates [them].” According to its press release, the club includes “a diverse group of Brandeis University undergraduates,” five Black students and five Jewish students, who will travel together on a ten-day trip to Israel, January 2 to January 12, in an attempt to “bridge divisions between the Jewish and Black communities.” The ten students going on the trip include the four coordinators: Ryan Yuffe ’15 and Alex Thomson ’15, former Co-Presidents of the Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee, Cynthia Jackson ’16, president of MLK and Friends and Amaris Brown ’16, Co-President of The Women of Color Alliance, along with six other students. The six other students went through an application process and were officially selected last week. The six other students are Naomi DePina ’16, Dahlia Kushinsky ’17, Mokalani Mack ’16, Mira Kessler ’16, Amanda Anderson ’17, and

Gabby Hersch ’17. The Bridges website explains how the program relates to the founding principles of Brandeis University. The University was originally founded because, during the time it was created, elite universities were placing quotas on the number of admitted Jewish students. Because of the meaning behind its creation, Brandeis has always been dedicated to equality and has been striving to “bridge the gap between diverse communities and peoples.” The Brandeis Bridges Program has the opportunity to do just that between the Black and Jewish communities on campus. The group, selected by the Dean of Students Jamele Adams and the Director of Hillel Larry Sternberg, plan to host a variety of events through the semester both before and after their trip. Coordinator Ryan Yuffe ’15 noted in an email to the Justice that “one of the first events that is planned to take place once we return is a forum where the Bridges fellows can present their experiences to the Brandeis community.” In addition, he explained that there will be opportunities for the fellows to use their skills in theater, arts, and speaking to “show the Brandeis campus … how this can change the environment on campus.” All the events would be open to anyone who is interested. Cynthia Jackson, ’16, one of the founding fellows of the program, was first approached last spring. The former president of the MLK and Friends club approached her and asked if she would be interested in taking on a key role in the leadership aspect of the program. The previous MLK and Friends president as well as the leaders of the other clubs involved in the creation of the Bridges pro-

gram “looked around campus and saw that there was disparity between the Jewish and black groups … they don’t really interact,” Jackson said. They were inspired to create this club as a result of this realization. According to the program’s website, the founding members of the program, “saw that the black and Jewish communities at Brandeis have been for the most part distant, disengaged, and uninformed about each other’s respective passions and cultures.” The founders felt that the non-Jewish students do not completely understand the Jewish roots of the University and felt that there has been little interaction “with Black students, and therefore has not been exposed to the community’s passions, ideas, and culture.” Some of the program’s destinations include Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as well as Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites. Many of the sites they visit will also try to be areas with diverse communities so they can see how groups of different backgrounds can live together in “harmony.” In an email to the Justice, Ryan Yuffe explained, “the majority of the time is spent visiting sites that hold a special theme, such as the Ethiopian community, interfaith dialogue centers, Arab-Israeli communities, centers for civil-rights, refugee communities, and areas of great immigration absorption.” Dahlia Kushinsky ’17 is one of the fellows who were recently selected to go on the trip. After seeing signs around campus, Kushinsky decided to apply because the socially divided atmosphere of her high school disappointed her. “My high school was really extreme in its segregation. It was weird if you were sitting with someone that wasn’t the same race as you,” Kushinsky said.

Kushinsky has high hopes for the program. “I hope to gain a better understanding…of ways different groups of people can interact in positive ways,” she said. Kushinsky said she feels very strongly that “every person has something to teach us and if you’re staying away from certain people, you’re missing out. You’re being detrimental to yourself because you’re not learning from them and you’re not learning from their experiences” and because of these reasons, “you’re just not going to experience as much,” she said. Naomi DePina ’16 was another student selected to go on the trip. In addition to looking forward to bridging a gap between the African American and Jewish communities on campus, she said that she is excited to gain “insight on Jewish culture.” DePina hopes that the trip will provide her with a clearer understanding of Jewish traditions. When she returns from the trip and after actually experiencing her time in Israel, DePina wants to be able to “show my peers and my community, the African American community, that you can be friends with Jewish people; they do have things in common with you; its not just black people you have to talk to, ” she said The recently formed group of ten has not had much bonding time yet. However, all of the students are confident that they will become great friends by the time of their trip and look forward to helping to bridge the gap between the two communities on campus. “We are all very different but we get along very well,” Kushinsky said. Although they are not necessarily close with each other yet, Kushinsky added, “the potential is there and I think we will work together really well.”

RAFAELLA SCHOR/the Justice

CROSSING CULTURES: This-coming December, a group of 10 students, eight of whom are pictured above, will embark on a 10 day trip to Israel through a new program.

10 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 ● THE JUSTICE

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Established 1949, Brandeis University

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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 Henry Loughlin, Sports Editor Rachel Hughes, Arts Editor Emily Wishingrad, Acting Arts Editor Josh Horowitz and Olivia Pobiel, Photography Editors Rebecca Lantner, Layout Editor Celine Hacobian, Online Editor Brittany Joyce, Copy Editor Schuyler Brass, Advertising Editor

Garner student feedback in dining When the University agreed to terms with Sodexo, its new dining provider, last semester, the student body’s hopes were raised; dining improvements were finally going to be realized. After a few months of operation, little has been done to refashion dining at Brandeis University—but that is about to change. According to a Justice article last week, Sodexo has many long-term changes on the horizon that could both enhance and potentially hinder the dining experience for students on campus. This board would like to affirm the need to include student input on these decisions, as students have a clear perspective as to what they and their peers want in their dining experience. Meal plan reform may be the most significant of changes Sodexo and the University have planned. According to Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins, the University is considering plans to include more upperclassmen and residential students in meal plans, and that some variation of a meal plan might be made mandatory for all students living on campus, regardless of whether the dorm is equipped with kitchen facilities. Furthermore, according to Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel, those making these dining services decisions have discussed the idea of an unlimited number of meals per week for those on a given meal plan, unrestricted by a standard meal time. Sodexo also has plans to renovate and potentially expand both Sherman Dining Hall and Usdan Student Center, which also can alter the style of meal plans, as well as the cost. This board hopes that Sodexo and the University will garner student feedback in the decision-making process. Student Union President Ricky Rosen ’14 said that

Reforms must be for students

he and a group of students will be meeting with senior administrators to discuss the meal plan reforms in the next few weeks. We applaud Rosen’s effort, and we encourage him to engage the student body through feedback sessions and surveys. Because of the requirement to choose a meal plan when selecting housing in March, students must be made aware of all changes for the next academic year before they “check the housing box”— and opt into housing and a potential meal plan—on Sage on Jan. 21. This leaves approximately three months to finalize all these changes and yet, no student committee has been formed yet, no survey sent out and no feedback sessions of any kind have been organized. Changes to the dining services on campus should be based on the needs of students, and yet the broader student community has not been given an opportunity to give formal input in these decisions. This board is pleased to see Sodexo motivated to improve dining both physically and in its meal plans. It may very well be that all these changes are in the best interests of the students. By raising revenue for Sodexo through mandatory meal plans, the quality of food may concurrently improve. But a compulsory meal plan system that raises the price of meal plans, or mandates that students, even those who live in suites with kitchens, purchase a meal plan, may not be what the students truly want. The only way to decipher which dining changes are welcome by students, and which are not, is to ask them. Therefore, we hope that Sodexo includes students in these critical decisions.

TZIPORAH THOMPSON/the Justice

Views the News on

Earlier this month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a report measuring the literacy, numeracy and problem-solving abilities of people aged 16 to 65 from 24 countries. Americans were scored as weak to poor in all three areas, finishing ahead of only Italy and Spain in numeracy. The report concludes that while our foreign competitors are raising economic indicators like high school graduation rates from the previous generation, the U.S. has stood still. How can the U.S. buck this trend?

Prof. Dan Perlman (BIOL) Think back to the best teacher you ever had. A teacher who believed that you could produce work you never thought possible—and kept after you until you actually produced it—or one who shared a passion that ignited something deep within you. I believe that such luminous learning experiences form the essence of education. Unfortunately, today’s standardizedtest-driven educational system forces our best teachers to give up their passions and focus on all-too-ordinary goals. I work with many excellent K-8 teachers, and see how the joy has evaporated from their jobs over the past 15 years. By attempting to teacher-proof the classroom, we have squeezed the excellence out of our very best teachers. How can we fix the U.S. education system? Nurture and develop great teachers and let them share their passions and demand the best from their students. Every child should have at least one or two outstanding teachers in her lifetime. Prof. Dan Perlman (BIOL) is the associate provost of innovation in education.

Prof. Marya Levenson (ED) The comparison of the U.S. academic results with those of other countries is more complicated than this summary indicates. As Julian Ryan points out in the Oct. 24, 2013 Atlantic Cities blog, “American education isn’t mediocre, it’s deeply unequal.” On the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, Massachusetts was the highest scoring state (with math scores behind only Korea, Singapore, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong) and outranked 42 systems, while Alabama outperformed only 19 educational systems. So, what should we do? Our country needs to do more to address issues of inequality other than relying primarily on schools to address the impact of poverty, including high drop- and pushout rates. Excellent and accessible preschooling would be a good first step. We need to prepare teachers (as we do at Brandeis) with rich liberal arts educations and strong pedagogical preparation, teachers who will inspire and motivate their students. We also must reduce the excessive testing which is narrowing curriculum and instruction and not preparing graduates with the creative, problem-solving skills they will need to lead our democracy in the future.

Farewell to Collins In an email to the Brandeis community last week, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Steven Manos reported that Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins will be stepping down at the end of the calendar year. Aside from deans of University schools, Collins is one of the last members of the Jehuda Reinharz administration, along with Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement Nancy Winship and Senior Vice President and General Counsel Judith Sizer who remain at Brandeis. Collins has worked at Brandeis since 1987, serving in his current role since 2010. He has also notably made himself accessible to students, showing that he is directly concerned with the quality of student life on campus. This editorial board expresses gratitude for his 27 years of service to the University. He has devoted the majority of his professional life to ensuring that the Brandeis campus has been safe, aesthetically pleasing, and upto-date. Throughout his multitude of positions at the University, Collins has overseen key improvements in facilities services and student dining. In his current role, he was influential in the renovation of East Quad, the hiring of Sodexo as the University’s new dining services provider and the initiation of the construction of a new facility for the Lemberg Children’s Center. Collins has climbed the ranks at

Impacted student life

Brandeis to reach his current position, having also served as vice president for campus operations, associate vice president for university services, director of university services, director of materials management and purchasing manager. Often, the services that Collins oversaw can be taken for granted by the community, as they occur out of sight of the average student. Capital improvement projects to dormitories and the structure of meal plans for students are directly under the domain of the senior vice president for administration. Given this, we acknowledge the vital nature of Collin’s position and its importance in student affairs. Assuming that the University intends to hire a successor for Collins, this board awaits the search committee for that successor and hopes that there will be student input in the hiring process. Given the very direct impact of Collins’ position on student life, we encourage the search committee to include student representatives to ensure that the replacement has the same concern for students as Collins. The decision by the University administration to hold a reception in honor of Collins’ service reflects the high esteem by which his colleagues held him. His sincere concern for Brandeis is greatly appreciated, and we wish him well in his future endeavors.

Prof. Marya Levenson (ED) is the Harry S. Levitan Director of Teacher Education and professor of the practice of education.

Kofi Hodge ’15 The emphasis on the need to do well on standardized tests has prohibited many instructors from thoroughly teaching students skills necessary to excel on literacy, numeracy and problem-solving tests. Many things must be done in order to rectify the issues that plague the institution of schools. The teaching profession must be put on a pedestal, and the responsibility of educating should be recognized with more prestige. Teachers must be provided with adequate resources to provide valuable instruction, and students must be provided with teachers that have a wealth of cultural capital and experience. In addition, parent accountability must be as important as teacher accountability because the job of educating includes the parents and students as much as the teacher and the school. Under standards that don’t rely on aggregated data, teachers would be able to incorporate lessons that stimulate cognitive ability and foster students’ independent perspectives. This could potentially aid students on skills-based tests. Kofi Hodge ’15 is a Posse Scholar and an Education Studies major.

Stefani Gospodinova ’14 A simple solution to this problem is a better allocation of funding. The majority of school systems in the United States are consistently underfunded, causing them to pay teachers lower salaries and cut programs from their curricula. Money does not solve all problems, but it does in the case of education. One must understand that countries such as Germany whose test scores are much higher than those of the United States do not provide nearly the same luxuries that school kids in the U.S. receive. They do not have after school activities, free lunches or free transportation, all of which are necessary in a country as big as ours. Our government is set up in a way that local units make decisions on education, as every district is so vastly different. They have the ability to locate the problem, but lack the money to solve it. Stefani Gospodinova ’14 is an International and Global Studies and American Studies major.

THE JUSTICE

READER COMMENTARY Healthy and civil discussion needed In response to your article “Concept of social justice actually perpetuates societal injustice” (Oct. 22): In his 2010 commencement address at the University of Michigan, President [Barack] Obama noted the need for, “a basic level of civility in our public debate.” He went on to say, “We can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. ... You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives.” At Brandeis, we take particular pride in fostering an atmosphere that supports discourse and debate. There will always be topics, however, that we find particularly sensitive, especially when the views espoused challenge our community values or practices. These challenges are, perhaps, even more difficult to confront with civility in an online environment. Both student newspapers recently published opinion columns that highlight such challenges. It’s important to bear in mind that these sections of the paper are not considered areas of “reporting,” they are meant to foster discussion. Editorial boards often select pieces for publication precisely because they raise questions, and give weight to opinions that may be in the extreme minority. This is one of the strengths of freedom of the press—that minority views can be reviewed and debated, even when they are not accepted, or possibly even acceptable, to large portions of a community. There is, of course, a careful balance that must be struck between protecting the expression of minority opinion and establishing guidelines for communication that is unacceptable to a community in any forum. I will leave the debate of the drawing of such lines to another day and focus instead on the response to columns that, while challenging our values, are clearly not crossing these boundaries. In reviewing responses, online and elsewhere, to the recent columns, I was dismayed to see our community seeming to stray from what most would consider civil discourse. Comments became unfortunately personal regarding the authors. I was saddened to read comments on both sides of discussions on each topic about not feeling safe and felt I needed to share how much those concerns trouble me. Brandeis first and foremost is a community of scholars. Please be respectful of one another, and remember that whatever our disagreements, we should strive to maintain civility in our discourse. I am proud to be part of this amazing family, and hope that we will all continue to work together to ensure that no one at Brandeis, student, faculty or staff member, should ever feel unsafe. —Andrew Flagel Andrew Flagel is the senior vice president for students and enrollment.

—Khadijah Lynch ’16

Write to us

The Justice welcomes letters to the editor responding to published material. Please submit letters through our Web site at www.thejustice.org. Anonymous submissions cannot be accepted. Letters should not exceed 300 words, and may be edited for space, style, grammar, spelling, libel and clarity, and must relate to material published in the Justice. Letters from off-campus sources should include location. The Justice does not print letters to the editor and oped submissions that have been submitted to other publications. Op-ed submissions of general interest to the University community—that do not respond explicitly to articles printed in the Justice—are also welcome and should be limited to 800 words. All submissions are due Friday at 12 p.m.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013

College experience promotes entitlement By KAHLIL OPPENHEIMER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Why do we go to college? If I were to ask someone that nowadays, they would probably look at me as if I were unlearned and respond, “Why wouldn’t we go to college?” The benefits of college have become such deep seated truths for many of us that we’ve stopped questioning them. We’re told college is an investment. We borrow large sums of money now to make larger sums of money later. We’re told college is formative. We leave more intellectual and responsible; we are the saving generation. But are these assertions really true? And what are the implications if they are not? The whole investment argument is founded in receiving a degree. I think most of us agree that what’s actually important is what you learn in school, not a piece of paper saying you learned. But the degree unfortunately holds a lot of weight. With today’s online resources, you could teach yourself any subject just as well as any undergraduate might learn in school, but still be at a competitive disadvantage to them in the job market because you don’t have a degree—a piece of paper. Consequently, the whole desire for a degree has become more driven by our survival instincts than anything else. We are told we will not be successful in this world or have economic security (stable food, shelter, attractive partner, etc.) without a degree and so we convince ourselves that we need one. Now, that argument isn’t without its merits. According to a recent Huffington Post article, people with a college degree have half the unemployment rate of people with only a high school degree—though the article also points out that half of recent grads are working jobs that don’t actually require a degree. Even with this distinction, the competitive advantage in getting jobs with a degree makes it economically worth it. The degree is not the only thing we go to college for though; college is also supposed to prepare us for the real world both in intellect and responsibility. In my two months of living here so far, I am feeling prepared intellectually. All of my classes are engaging and challenging, and I’ve even been given the resources to start my own club about creating Android Apps, which is what I want to do professionally. In terms of responsibility, however, I could not feel farther from prepared. I feel more disconnected from the world than ever. People cook my food, wash my dishes, clean my bathroom—the only responsibility I can try to claim is doing my own laundry. My family also cooked

HANNAH KOBER/the Justice

my food, washed my dishes and cleaned my bathroom for most of my life, but I still had to communicate with them and acknowledge them on a human level. I have yet to see anyone talk to, let alone thank, the guy who cleans my bathroom. Granted, I’ve only lived here two months, but I’m skeptical whether this actually changes later on in college. This one-sided service breeds a scary amount of selfishness and entitlement. I talk with my friends about how atrocious those gated communities in, say, Florida—bubbles of homogenous wealth and culture—are. But is a college campus all that different? We’re separated from the rest of society; we’re fairly politically homogenous;

we’re all around the same age; and we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re the most in-tune with society that we’ll ever be. We’re choosing to exist in—and pay for—this bubble because we love it. We love being distant from the responsibilities of the real world. We love only having to focus on ourselves. We love being around other people who love those same things. The college degree alone might be worth the economic expenditure, but maybe the loans aren’t the most crippling debt we accrue. We leave college entitled and expecting life to be served to us on a silver platter. The scariest part is that with our “top-tier” degrees, it probably will be.

Citizens in all 50 states deserve marriage equality By CATHERINE ROSCH

Evaluate what should be published In response to your article “Concept of social justice actually perpetuates societal injustice” (Oct. 22): Twice this semester articles were written challenging the idea of diversity and the concept of social justice in attempts to advocate for the false rhetoric of “reverse racism” in which white people feel as though they are being discriminated against as people of color slowly begin to obtain basic human rights. Not only am I highly offended, but these articles had no facts to support their absurd claims and seemed more like students who are threatened by the implications made by “diversity” and “social justice,” uplifting disadvantaged communities and making sure all humans have basic rights. I am appalled and disappointed that the Justice would allow these things to be published, and as an African-American female at Brandeis, I feel very uncomfortable existing here. I can’t help but to think I am somehow a threat to privileged, cisgendered white males here. I have also felt very ashamed to be here and I cannot understand why. I am beginning to question the credibility of the Justice as a whole and wondering if the publishing of such absurdities is an attempt to fire up the student body and create drama. Either way, it is rather disgusting, and the Justice should review and refuse to publish such poorly crafted material, and also re-evaluate the content before distributing it. This newspaper represents all of us, and some are feeling left out. This is highly problematic and certainly tarnishes Brandeis’ reputation. There is obviously a lack of diversity on the Justice editorial team, because, if there wasn’t, such ludicrous and offensive material would not be printed. It’s disgusting.

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JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

On Monday, Oct. 21, New Jersey joined the other 14 states and the District of Columbia in recognizing legal, economic and social equality for same-sex couples by legalizing same-sex marriage. However, 14 states are not enough. Currently, 38 states legally define marriage as the union between a man and a woman, discriminating against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. Although the United States government does formally recognize marriage as the union of two consenting citizens, states are not required to recognize same-sex unions from other jurisdictions, which is a potential violation of Article IV of the United States Constitution. However, I am optimistic about the future of marriage equality in the United States. A poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News in March found that 58 percent of respondents support marriage equality. The same poll found that nearly a third of those who currently support marriage equality used to oppose it but had since changed their minds. Sixty five percent of younger voters, defined as those under the age of 30, support marriage equality—and that number is only growing. There are several states that are seemingly on the cusp of guaranteeing marriage equality to all their citizens. Legislation is currently making its way through the state house in Illinois, where Governor Pat Quinn has stated he will sign the bill. In Pennsylvania, groups of same-sex couples have sued for marriage equality and Attorney General Kathleen Kane has openly stated she will not defend the state’s ban. But by far the most promising state, and the most interesting state, for marriage equality is New Mexico. New Mexico is the only state

Fine Print

The opinions stated in the editorial(s) under the masthead on the opposing page represent the opinion of a majority of the voting members of the editorial board; all other articles, columns, comics and advertisements do not necessarily. For the Brandeis Talks Back feature on the last page of the newspaper, staff interview four randomly selected students each week and print only those four answers. The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. Operated, written, produced and published entirely by students, the Justice includes news, features, arts, opinion and sports articles of interest to approximately 3,500 undergraduates, 800 graduate students, 500 faculty and 1,000 administrative staff. In addition, the Justice is mailed weekly to paid subscribers and distributed throughout Waltham, Mass. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods. Advertising deadlines: All insertion orders and advertising copy must be received by the Justice no later than 5 p.m. on the Thursday preceding the date of publication. All advertising copy is subject to approval of the editor in chief and the managing and advertising editors. A publication schedule and rate card is available upon request. Subscription rate: $35 per semester, $55 per year.

in the country to not have a specific statute regarding the legality of same-sex marriage. As a result of the lack of clarity, clerks on the county can determine if they give marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Currently, eight counties, representing nearly 60 percent of the New Mexico population, give out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In addition, two cases, on opposing sides of the issue, are working through the state’s court systems. One case, brought forth by Republican officials, would block clerks from giving same-sex couples marriage licenses. The other, more traditional case has been brought by a group of same-sex couples in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Defense of Marraige Act ruling. Governor Susana Martinez, a Republican up for a tough re-election bid in 2014, has not stated her position on the issue. But, like the other states to recognize marriage equality, New Mexico is a more liberal state. These more progressive states will surely legalize same-sex marriage on their own volition. Other more conservative states will not. There are those who say same-sex marriage should be a state issue, and I vehemently disagree. All one has to do is look back to the American South before the Brown v. Board of Education decision or the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to see how some states choose to handle civil rights issues. While I’m not saying that the issue of marriage equality and civil rights are the same, there are certainly parallels. I do think it is troubling at best to assume that every single state, especially ones with a history of discriminating against certain minority groups, will willingly allow same-sex couples the same rights as straight couples. Not to name names or point fingers, but much of the South has not had a good record on civil rights issues, be it for racial or sexual minorities. Simply put, marriage is a civil rights issue, and history has shown that states cannot always be

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trusted to give civil rights to minority citizens. It is all well and good to say you support samesex marriage being a state issue, as opposed to a federal mandate, but unless you support it at the national level, you are still advocating that states should have the opportunity to discriminate against those who are LGBTQ. This is where the problem lies. There’s nothing wrong with states like California, New York, Vermont or Minnesota legalizing samesex marriage; in fact, it is what’s right. But what about couples who do not live in these states, who have jobs and homes and families in states that clearly are not going to legalize same-sex marriage? Or members of the armed forces, who may be in long-term relationships but cannot marry because of where they are stationed. Obviously, marriage equality is not the only issue facing the LGBTQ community, nor is it the most pressing issue. Look no further than violence and bullying, the high rates of homeless LGBTQ youth and legal discrimination against the trans communities in many states such as Texas, Illinois and Florida. However, marriage is an institution in the United States. Some say it is religious, others say it is historical or cultural—but I personally believe it goes beyond that. At its core, marriage is a declaration of love, of not imagining being with anyone else. Nobody should get different tax benefits, visitation or adoption and custody laws just because of who they love. It is not enough to watch liberal states legalize same-sex marriage while conservative states only make it harder for certain citizens. If we as a country truly value equality, and 58 percent of the country does, we should legalize same-sex marriage on a national level and give same-sex couples the same protections that any straight couple deeply in love enough to get married receive.

Editorial Assistants Photos: Morgan Brill, Rafaella Schor Sports: Avi Gold Staff Senior Writers: Jacob Moskowitz News: Jay Feinstein, Danielle Gross, Luke Hayslip, Ilana Kruger, Sarah Rontal, Scarlett Reynoso, Samantha Topper Features: Selene Campion Forum: Jennie Bromberg, Daniel Koas, Aaron Fried, Noah M. Horwitz, Max Moran, Kahlil Oppenheimer, Catherine Rosch, Naomi Volk Sports: Ben Freudman, Elan Kane, Daniel Kanovich Arts: Aliza Gans, Kiran Gill, Arielle Gordon, Zachary Marlin, Alexandra Zelle Rettman, Mara Sassoon, Aliza Vigderman

Photography: Jenny Cheng, Annie Fortnow, Wit Gan, Annie Kim, Abby Knecht, Bri Mussman, 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

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013

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THE JUSTICE

FORUM

Use climate engineering to slow global warming By MAX MORAN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Last summer, defying a United Nations mandate, a Canadian indigenous group poured large amounts of iron filings into part of the Pacific Ocean. They were attempting to soak up the carbon dioxide that was killing native algae and thus attract salmon back to the waters. Almost instantly, the Canadian government condemned the dump. This past summer was Northwest Canada’s most fruitful salmon year in history. It is almost certain that the iron filings were responsible for the growth of algae last year. It is worth noting that algae absorb more carbon dioxide than trees are capable of. In Canada, the algae bloom was visible from space. Was this just a fluke, or could Canada’s rogue scientists have taken the first, difficult steps onto a new battleground against climate change? At this point, there is little doubt within the scientific community about global warming. It’s real, it’s dangerous, and we’re responsible for it. Despite almost daily studies showing the mounting evidence for the climate problem, meaningful change toward a more sustainable lifestyle in the West—or at least in America— is as stagnant as the temperature is changing. As long as there’s money in the oil business, there will be no major changes in the way Americans receive their power anytime soon. And as National Public Radio recently reported, petroleum engineering is now the single most lucrative college major, with median incomes of $120,000 a year. If carbon emissions are maintained at their current level, then according to Science Magazine, Earth will reach carbon levels by the year 2100 that it has not seen for over five million years, when it was 29 degrees Fahrenheit hotter then it currently is. This will place the human species in climate conditions it has never before experienced, at an almost immeasurably fast rate. Even if humanity ceased all of their carbon emissions tomorrow, according to Tim Flannery, Australia’s former chief climate advisor, the planet would not begin to cool for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Our atmosphere is simply too overburdened. And until alternative energy businesses like First Solar and Q-nergy are household names like Shell and Sunoco, we shall continue to damage our thin, critical layer of ozone. Solving climate change will require something more serious than buying florescent bulbs and recycling water bottles. While a lasting solution to the problem must inevitably come from cleaner energy, more and more scientists are saying that it is time to consider the problem on another, more drastic front. Climate engineering is the application of human technology to the planet’s natural processes, using our scientific knowledge and technical ability to make the Earth’s many cycles work faster and better. It is using new fertilizers to help quickly redevelop forest areas we’ve destroyed. It is spraying volcanic aerosols to cool the earth or sulfate aerosols that make clouds brighter to deflect more sunlight. It is developing machines to suck carbon straight out of the atmosphere, to be safely stored or disposed of elsewhere. Strange as they may sound, all of these techniques are theoretically possible, and all are being considered. Climate engineering is often misnamed

HEE JU KANG/the Justice

“geo-engineering,” and more colloquially, “planet hacking.” The latter term may call to mind a James Bond villain plot, and indeed there is very little research into climate engineering for much the same reason: it sounds so odd. It defies much of what we believe to be true on an instinctive level. Humans shouldn’t interfere with the planet’s natural processes, because we would only make things worse. Consider that statement more closely. Humans have already vastly interfered with the Earth. If we hadn’t, we wouldn’t need to consider climate engineering in the first place. “Planet hacking” is not a villain’s plot, but a change in our relationship to Mother Earth, creating a responsible, reciprocal relationship with the planet. It means using many of the materials we mine from her to aid her. It shows that we know we have brought ourselves into our current ecological situation and are trying to remedy it. It is neither an easy way for oil companies to avoid changing their practices,

nor is it a cash-cow enterprise. If pursued, it would be a serious government initiative and a serious method of combating global warming. Climate engineering faces many of the usual problems of government initiatives, such as high cost. Most preclusive to the field, however, is the UN’s current moratorium on climate engineering under the Convention on Biological diversity. Only small-scale research experiments can be conducted in the field, and only so long as these experiments “do not harm biodiversity,” or species variation within an ecosystem. This is a tricky phrase, because all climate engineering is currently theoretical, so any externalities to other species are unknown. The Guardian reports that only about 12 nations have the economic and scientific abilities to enact climate engineering in the first place, and one of them, Russia, has already proposed more serious research and concluded a test on blocking sunlight with aerosols. Britain had planned a similar test,

but it was shut down due to an outcry from non-governmental organizations, fearing that climate engineering would provide an easy excuse for governments and companies to avoid having to reduce carbon emissions. This outcry is not necessarily unfounded. Climate engineering could be used as a political ploy. And it does sound weird to try to artificially alter the planet, and it could indeed cause more harm than help. But there is no way of knowing what will happen unless we try, unless we conduct controlled experiments into climate engineering technology and determine if it could help reverse the tide of global warming. It is not a replacement for sustainable living; rather, it is a stopgap, a way of buying time until more permanent change toward green energy and waste disposal is politically and economically viable. Alongside these green technologies, climate engineering could be a critical part of saving our species from the brink.

Classroom tracking perpetuates divide in achievement By ADAM RABINOWITZ JUSTICE EDITOR

Brookings Institution Brown Center on Education Policy Senior Fellow Tom Loveless unveiled an important development in American education in this past March, noting that “despite decades of vehement criticism and mountains of documents urging schools to abandon their use [of tracking,] it persists—and for the past decade or so, has thrived.” Tracking distinguishes students on the basis of academic ability, assigning each student to a level of instructional rigor. Yet, should Americans turn their back on this criticism of ability-based grouping? The Schott Foundation for Public Education noted in a 2009 study that the poorest neighborhoods of Harlem, the South Bronx and central Brooklyn, N.Y. languish with inexperienced teachers and limited resources in a lower track. Meanwhile, wealthier schools found in the Upper East Side and northeastern Queens thrive with highly educated instructors and ample funding. Doesn’t the existence of these two tracks seem fundamentally unjust? It is commendable for us to reinforce the potential of our high-achieving students—but in the process, we leave a whole cohort of racial and socioeconomic minorities with high potential in the dust. Tracking both within and between schools,

leaves minorities to toil in a vicious cycle of limited academic achievement, reduced self-esteem and racial inequity. There are those who will be quick to assert the utility of tracking—after all, it ensures that our high-achieving students do not have to adapt to the slower learning pace of others in the classroom. It allows for our nation to race ahead of countries that have now leapfrogged us in recorded levels of achievement in mathematics, science and critical reading. Yet, the majority of those high-achieving students are white and middle-class. How about black, Latino or Native American students? Sociologist Nora Hyland argues in a 2007 piece in Theory into Practice that “low-track classes tend to be primarily composed of low-income students, usually minorities, while upper-track classes are usually dominated by students from socioeconomically successful groups.” Therefore, when standardized testing arrived as a means to “track” students into high schools with differing performance levels, the racial and ethnic minorities did not have the necessary instruction to perform well. These students should receive the abundant resources of the high-achieving institutions, but instead, they are left to their own devices. This is where we see defeatism, resistance to academics and a turn toward self-destructive activities. Tony Samara of George Mason Uni-

versity conducted a study in 2007 that arrived to the conclusion that the majority of students noted “how disconcerting it is that these tracks are racially identifiable.” Joanne Yatvin, past president of the National Council of Teachers of English, summed it up best in a Washington Post article from this past June, asserting that, “in the end, low-level classes can be a self-fulfilling prophecy… kids say “Everybody thinks I’m dumb. I’ll show them just how dumb I can be!” If the alarm bells haven’t sounded already, they should now. Our national discourse is predicated on expanded educational access through affirmative action, cultural pluralism and racial equality. Yet, if anything, we’re backtracking from a diverse, multicultural learning environment. The best means, then, to move ahead is to reintegrate, establishing a heterogeneous learning environment for all. School districts can pool their resources into one cooperative school, providing the necessary framework for students who need personalized, individualized instruction. Robert Slavin, professor of education at Johns Hopkins University, thus asserted in a landmark 1992 study that this model “stresses the building of team scores by mutual cooperation … and sharing of responsibility for one another’s learning.” Formerly unprepared teachers can then be properly trained to interact with,

as well as instruct, children who have disparate educational abilities. Students formerly relegated to the “lower track” would have equal access to the same instructional and online resources that facilitate success. This inclusiveness, then, has the potential to empower these students to transcend the self-perpetuating cycle of racial inferiority and self-destructive behavior. Delia Garrity, in her 2004 text “Detracking with Vigilance,” studied the outcome of such de-tracking efforts in the Rockville, N.Y. school district. The results spoke for themselves. Garrity noted how “three years after homogeneous grouping was eliminated, the percentage of lowincome students who earned a Regents diploma increased from 22 percent to 71 percent.” Yes, that is a 49 percent jump in graduation rate in just three years. We see the great potential when every child— regardless of race or economic standing—is entitled to the opportunity of an equal education. It is up to us to silence the alarm for these tracked school districts, and also, halt our descent back into racial inequity. How do we get the majority of our students—and our nation— back on the right track? We de-track. Editor’s note: This article was originally written for AMST 55: Race, Ethnicity and Immigration in American Culture.

THE JUSTICE

CONTINUED FROM 16 game went to overtime. In the first overtime, Edalati sent a header wide, while Ledin sent two efforts—one of which was as time expired—wide. Though neither team could find the net in the first overtime, the second extra session saw the hosts land the killer blow. While attacking the Beacons’ end, the Judges were caught out on the counter attack. Having gained possession, Cristoforo sent the ball to Andrews, who found herself with just Savuto to beat. Yet, though Savuto did the correct thing for that situation and charged Andrews immediately, the UMass Boston attacker was able to round the goalkeeper and slotted into the empty net. Though the loss was obviously a heartbreaker for the Judges, they will look to rebound with crucial

MORGAN BRILL/Justice File Photo

Forward Michael Soboff ’15 dribbles around a Rochester defender during a game on Oct. 12. Yesterday, Soboff scored the lone goal as the Judges beat Mount Ida 1-0.

SWIMMING: Teams record strong performances in UAA Invitational with every meet will be paramount as the team has five first-years on the roster. Fabian was very optimistic about the future of Brandeis swimming this year following his most recent competition.

“We were very lucky this year to pull in the class of freshman that we did. They are all extraordinary and hard-working people,” Fabian said. “We are still trying to establish and set a high standard for Brandeis swimming and diving. We are working on recruiting to build

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013

WSOCCER: Late goal consigns Judges to loss

FORWARD FLAIR

CONTINUED FROM 16

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up our numbers as well as continuing to put in the work both in and out of the pool.” Both teams will look to improve in on Saturday, Nov. 9 with an away competition against Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Babson College.

University Athletic Association games this weekend. According to Savuto, the Judges are not hanging their heads, and she believes that her team still has a lot to play for despite suffering three consecutive tough losses. “Team morale has been very positive even after the loss [against the Beacons],” she said. “We all recognized that we have faced some challenging opponents and now it is time to turn things up a notch. We know that the last three games, all of them conference teams, are a huge chance for us to improve our standing and prove people wrong after our last few setbacks. This season is not over and I believe that we are capable of being resilient and finding success against whatever odds we face.” The Judges first play at home on Friday against Washington University in St. Louis at 4 p.m., before taking on the University of Chicago on Sunday at 11 a.m.

VOLLEYBALL: Team unable to pick up victory in matches CONTINUED FROM 16 hitter Hannah Brickley added 13 kills and eight digs for the victorious Bantams. In the Trinity match, outside hitter Si-Si Hensley ’14 led the team with 10 kills, 28 assists and 18 digs. Hood also contributed seven kills, 22 assists and nine digs for the Judges in the loss. After a 3-2 loss to Tufts at the Brandeis Invitational on Sept. 7, the Judges looked for vengeance against their regional opponent. The weekend would not provide a victorious reaction, as they dropped all three sets, losing by 25-17, 25-14 and 25-17 margins. Hood also led the team with eight kills and contributed 11 points while Hensley had six digs for the

Judges. For the match, though, Brandeis struggled on offense, tallying a -.016 kill percentage. Ultimately, Gutner-Davis said she believes that the Judges need to improve keeping consistent energy levels in order to achieve success. “Though we played with more energy at times or in certain sets this weekend, we didn't always stay consistent with our energy levels,” she said, “and we weren't always consistent with our play either.” “If we work to become a more consistent team,” she noted, "we will have more success.” The Judges will look to end the losing streak at home tonight against Lasell College before preparing to host a double-header this Saturday versus Endicott College and Connecticut College.

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013

RED SOX BRIEF

MEN’S SOCCER UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS Goals

2013-2014 Statistics Overall W L D Pct. 10 4 1 .700 11 2 1 .821 10 2 1 .808 8 4 2 .643 8 4 2 .643 6 4 4 .571 11 4 0 .733 6 5 3 .536

UAA Conf. W L D Emory 3 0 1 Rochester 3 1 0 Carnegie 3 1 0 Chicago 2 2 0 WashU 1 2 1 Case 1 2 1 JUDGES 1 3 0 NYU 0 3 1

Kyle Feather ’14 leads the team with nine goals. Player Goals Kyle Feather 9 Tyler Savonen 7 Michael Soboff 4 Evan Jastremski 3

Assists Michael Soboff ’15 leads the team with seven assists. Player Assists Michael Soboff 8 Ben Applefield 8 Kyle Feather 5

UPCOMING GAMES: Friday vs. WashU Sunday vs. Chicago Sat., Nov. 9 vs. NYU

WOMEN’S SOCCER UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

2013-2014 Statistics

Goals

UAA Conf. W L D WashU 4 0 0 Emory 3 1 0 Carnegie 2 1 1 Chicago 2 1 1 JUDGES 1 2 1 NYU 0 2 2 Rochester 0 2 2 Case 0 3 1

Overall W L D Pct. 13 1 0 .929 11 3 1 .767 8 2 2 .750 10 3 2 .733 9 5 1 .633 7 5 3 .567 5 5 4 .500 8 7 1 .531

UPCOMING GAMES: Friday vs. WashU Sunday vs. Chicago Sat., Nov. 9 vs. NYU

Dara Spital ’15 leads the team with nine goals. Player Goals Dara Spital 9 Sapir Edalati 8 Holly Szafran 3 Melissa Darling 2

Assists Dara Spital ’15 leads the team with six assists. Player Assists Dara Spital 6 Holly Szafran 3 Jessica Morana 2

VOLLEYBALL UAA STANDINGS

TEAM STATS

2013-2014 Statistics

Kills

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

W 22 20 24 22 21 14 9 8

Overall L Pct. 5 .815 9 .690 3 .889 4 .846 8 .724 15 .483 20 .310 22 .267

UPCOMING GAMES: Tonight vs. Lassell Friday vs. Endicott Friday vs. Connecticut College

Liz Hood ’15 leads the team in kills with 348. Player Kills Liz Hood 348 Si-Si Hensley 156 Carly Gutner-Davis 144 Rachael Dye 100

Digs Elsie Bernaiche ’15 leads the team in digs with 425. Player Digs Elsie Bernaiche 425 Si-Si Hensley 270 Liz Hood 249 Amaris Brown 166

CROSS COUNTRY Results from the Connecticut College Invitational held on Oct. 19.

TOP FINISHERS (Men’s)

TOP FINISHERS (Women’s)

RUNNER TIME Quinton Hoey 26:27.0 Jarret Harrigan 26:30.0 Michael Rosenbach 26:36.0 Grady Ward 26:57.0

RUNNER TIME Amelia Lundkvist 21:34.0 Maddie Dolins 22:03.0 Kelsey Whitaker 22:07.0 Victoria Sanford 22:20.0

UPCOMING EVENTS: Saturday at the UAA Championships in Pittsburgh. Saturday, Nov. 16 at the New England Division III Regional Champoinships

St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT

HEADING FOR HOME: St. Louis’ Allen Craig (top) jumps over Will Middlebrooks during the deciding moment of Saturday’s game.

Red Sox lose Game 3 in thrilling final play ■ After rallying to tie Game 3 with six outs to play, Boston fell 5-4 to St. Louis due to a highly contested ruling. By ADAM RABINOWITZ JUSTICE EDITOR

The St. Louis Cardinals were 90 feet away from victory—and a commanding 2-1 series lead—in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 3 of the World Series. Cardinals center fielder Jon Jay stepped up to the plate with runners on the corners, fully knowing that a fairly innocent fly ball would land the Cardinals in the driver’s seat of the World Series. The Red Sox sent closer Koji Uehara to the mound, their best hope for escaping a jam and sending the game into extra innings. Jay then put a ground ball into play that landed right in the glove of Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia then fired the ball off to Sox catcher Jared Saltamacchia for the surefire second out. From there, though, one of the most unconventional plays in World Series history unfolded. Saltalamacchia decided to nail St. Louis first baseman Allen Craig at third base

for the decisive third out. However, the ball went left of third baseman Will Middlebrooks and chaos ensued. Craig raced to home plate, but meanwhile, stumbled several times over Middlebrooks. The ball, meanwhile, sailed well ahead of Craig at home plate; the shocking call was safe. Just like that, after a rarely used obstruction call, Boston fell to a 2-1 deficit in the Fall Classic. The Red Sox had almost gotten away with a stunning victory too. Starter Jake Peavy struggled in four innings of work, surrendering two quick runs in the first inning and loading the bases twice. However, he did just enough to keep the Red Sox in striking distance. Left fielder Mike Carp and right fielder Daniel Nava put two runs on the board to tie the game. Red Sox manager John Farrell sent in relief pitchers Craig Breslow and Junichi Tazawa to take care of business, the same duo that has been nearly flawless in the postseason. On Saturday, though, the two unraveled, setting the scene for a pivotal two-run double from right fielder Matt Holliday. St. Louis then turned to its own formidable relief duo of Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal. Martinez and Rosenthal likewise buckled to the

pressure, ceding two runs to shortstop Xander Bogaerts and Nava. Third base umpire Jim Joyce rushed to defend the obstruction call. “With the defensive player on the ground, without intent or intent, it’s still obstruction,” Joyce explained following the game. “You’d probably have to ask Middlebrooks that one, if he could have done anything. But that’s not in our determination.” In Games 4 and 5, the Sox got revenge with two-run victories on both Sunday and last night. In the first game, left fielder Jonny Gomes hit a three-run homer in the sixth inning to make it 4-2 Boston, which ultimately proved to be the final score. Last night, the Sox went up 1-0 in the bottom of the first, before the Cards tied things up in the bottom of the fourth. Then, in the top of the seventh, catcher David Ross hit an RBI double and center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury followed immediately after with an RBI single to break the tie and give Boston a 3-1 advantage. For the second consecutive night, closing pitcher Koji Uehara proved the difference, allowing the Sox to keep their advantage en route to a monumental 3-1 victory. Boston will look to clinch the Series tomorrow night at Fenway Park in Game 6, which starts at 8:07 p.m.

BOSTON BRUINS BRIEF Bruins experience both sides of final-minute winners in home tests against San Jose and New Jersey After earning an impressive 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night, the Boston Bruins suffered from several mental mistakes and fell to the struggling New Jersey Devils in the final minutes of a 4-3 loss on Saturday night. Both games featured late goals but the signature scores came from opposite ends of the rink. Bruins center David Krejci scored with .8 seconds left on Thursday, but on Saturday, Boston gave up a 3-2 advantage with just under two minutes left, conceding two quick-fire goals in the last two minutes of the contest. Saturday’s game, ultimately, proved to be a back-and-forth affair. Despite leading after the first and second periods, the Bruins committed two crucial late penalties that led to goals from the Devils power play. The

Bruins’ inability to enforce the penalty kill, though, was a main factor in the defeat. Coach Claude Julien alluded to this critical struggle after the game. “To me, we had only one line going and too many mediocre guys,” said Julien following Saturday’s defeat. The Devils scored four power play goals over the duration of the game, leading coach Julien to assess the strengths and weaknesses of his special teams. When asked about missed opportunities, Bruins forward Jarome Iginla said that the team should have easily been able to fend off their opponents in the closing minutes. “Being at home we’d like to put them away, but we weren’t able to and they hung around and they got the power plays late and they [were able

to] take advantage of it.” The Devils scored on four of their seven power plays that night, two of which proved to be the most decisive goals in the final one minute, eight seconds left in the game. Bruins defensemen Torey Krug and Iginla each contributed a goal while left wing Milan Lucic scored in the final minute of the first period. The Devils received goals from center Adam Henrique and forward Damien Brunner in the first and second periods respectively. The visitors capped off the night with two additional power play goals in the final minutes from defensemen Marek Zidlicky and Andy Greene. On Thursday, the tenor of the game proved to be entirely different in a home match against the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks were undefeated in regulation, posting an 8-0-1 record

while the Bruins stood at 5-2-0. The Sharks also totaled more goals and shots per game, but in the end, the definitive offensive play came on the Bruins’ end of the rink. The Sharks took 16 shots in the first period while the Bruins could only muster three shots. However, Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask was at the top of his game, making save after save and preventing San Jose from getting on the score sheet. The second period proved to be a continuation of a battle of the net minders. Although the Bruins were able to muster up an offensive attack, Sharks goalie Antti Niemi was able to make several diving acrobatic saves and keep his squad in the game. As the period came to a close, though, Krejci flung a shot on net, which Iginla tipped in past Niemi for

the first goal of the night. The Sharks again came out firing, as 18 seconds into the second period, winger Patrick Marleau tipped a snapshot from defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic to tie the score at one apiece. Although the Sharks totaled 39 shots throughout the game, Rask was able to hold on to the shutout. As the third period came to an end, the game looked to go into overtime. However, as a last-ditch effort, Lucic was able to find forward Andrew McQuaid who fired a shot on net in the closing seconds. Krejci was then able to tip the puck past Niemi, winning the game with less than a second left on the clock. The Bruins will look to rebound tomorrow night in a road match against the Pittsburgh Penguins at 8 p.m. — Dan Rozel and Jonah Price

just

Sports

Page 16

GRAND STAGE FEATURES SOX The Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals concluded Game 3 of the World Series in a dramatic conclusion, p. 15.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Waltham, Mass.

KEEPING COMPOSURE

VOLLEYBALL

Squad endures grueling defeats

SWIMMING AND DIVING

Individual swimmers race well ■ Max Fabian ’15 took

home top honors in the 1650-yard freestyle against UAA opponents. By DANIEL KANOVICH JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

■ Close weekend matches

against Trinity, Smith and Tufts handed the team three consecutive defeats. By ELAN KANE JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

The volleyball squad lost their three matches this past weekend at the Smith College Volleyball Hall of Fame Invitational, falling to 9-20 on the season. The Judges lost 3-1 against Smith and 3-0 against Trinity College on Saturday. On Friday, Brandeis fell to local rival Tufts University by a 3-0 margin. The Judges lost the first two sets to the host Smith Pioneers 2515 and 26-24 respectively. However, they were able to regain their composure to take the third set by a 25-19 score. According to middle blocker Carly Gutner-Davis ’15, the Judges benefited from running a balanced offense that showed in the game against Smith. “This weekend we experimented with new and different lineups and people were playing in different positions. In the second set that we won against Smith, we came out strong and took a quick lead and went on a run, earning a lot of points early in the match," she said. Gutner-Davis also noted the improved results stemming from a more balanced offense. "We passed well and as a result, we were able to run a really balanced offense, with at least two or three attackers always available for hitting options. With such an unpredictable and balanced offense, we were able to get more kills and run a faster-paced game, which is more fun [for all],” Gutner-Davis said. Brandeis was not able to pull out another win, though, as the Pioneers won 25-16 in the deciding fourth set. Outside hitter Liz Hood ’15 led the squad with 17 kills while defensive stopper Amaris Brown ’16 led with 28 digs. Smith held Brandeis to just a .042 kill percentage in the first set and a .111 kill percentage overall. The Judges were forced into 22 attack errors over the four set match, a key component to their low overall kill percentage. Brandeis was swept earlier that day in the match versus Trinity. After losing by a 25-18 margin in the first set, the Judges played the Bantams close in the second set but eventually suffered a 25-23 defeat. Although Brandeis looked to keep the momentum going and keep pace with Trinity, the squad dropped the last set in a decisive 25-15 loss. Trinity saw composed performances from several players. Freshman setter Randi Whitman led the Bantams with 14 assists, 11 digs and two aces. Additionally, senior setter Amy Hackett provided 20 assists for her team, while senior outside

See VOLLEYBALL, 13 ☛

MORGAN BRILL/Justice File Photo

CHARGING DOWN THE PITCH: Forward Sapir Edalati ’15 battles a Bridgewater State player in Brandeis’ 3-0 win on Sept. 10.

Women drop contest in heartbreaking fashion ■ The Judges rallied from

a deficit to force overtime against UMass Boston before losing in the extra session. By HENRY LOUGHLIN JUSTICE EDITOR

With two minutes left in the second overtime in Thursday’s game at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the women’s soccer team was attacking their opponents’ end in hopes of finding a winner. However, this time, fortune was cruel to the Judges. After defending a cross, the Beacons countered. Senior forward Tayla Andrews finished off the move, scoring with one minute, 19 seconds left to play to give her team the victory, which resulted in a discouraging 2-1 defeat for Brandeis. Right from the start, the game was evenly matched. Beacons’ junior forward Krista Ledin had the first two shots of the game, putting her first effort wide

before seeing her second effort saved by goalkeeper Michelle Savuto ’15. At the other end, midfielder Mathilde Robinson ’16 had a shot stopped by UMass Boston sophomore goalkeeper Kristen Spain. The teams traded shots, as Ledin saw another effort saved by Savuto, while forward Holly Szafran ’16 had a corner kick that was cleared away. The Judges, led by a team-high five shots from midfielder Sara Isaacson ’16, continued to push for the opening goal. However, it would be the Beacons who struck first midway through the first half. Senior midfielder Amanda Pugliese played in a corner kick. The Judges failed to clear the ball and senior midfielder Sam Cristoforo made the most of the opportunity, putting the ball into the top of the net for a 1-0 lead. Despite losing top-scorer and Third Team All-American Dara Spital ’15 to an A.C.L. injury on Oct. 18, the Judges have been forced to change their formation to suit their

strengths. According to Savuto, the team has switched to a deep-lying 4-4-2 formation. “[Head Coach Denise Dallamora] hopes that by combining forwards [Szafran] and [Sapir] as strikers up top, our wing midfielders can set them up to score by winning the end line [and crossing the ball in]," Savuto explained. "We are changing things up to allow for more connective passing and a more focused attack," she said. "I'm confident that once we get used to it, we'll find success.” Given the tactical change of playing two strikers further up the pitch, it seems no coincidence that the Judges’ forward line got them back into the game. Positioned 30 yards from goal, Edalati spotted Spain off her line. Edalati took a touch before lofting a high shot long-range effort over Spain’s head and into the back of the net with 20 minutes, 26 seconds left in regulation. Neither team was able to find the net in the final 20 minutes, and the

See WSOCCER, 13 ☛

Both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams took part in the University Athletic Association Invitational held at the University of Rocheseter this weekend, along with host Rochester, New York University and Canisius College. Facing the top competition from three schools, rather than just one, Brandeis struggled to produce many victories given their numerical disadvantage. Even so, there were a few bright spots on the day. Max Fabian ’15, who picked up the only win on the men’s or women’s side of the meet, was positive about the competition. “This was our first multi-day invitational style meet of the season so I thought we did a great job as a team supporting one another and enjoying the experience and opportunity of racing great teams,” Fabian said. Fabian earned the Judges’ only win, which came in the 1650-yard freestyle. Despite being pressured throughout the entirety of the race by NYU freshman Ryan Yue, Fabian was able to defeat Yue, finishing in 16 minutes, 45.58 seconds to Yue’s effort of 16:49.54. Fabian thought that there was a lot of room for improvement left for the squad. “There are always improvements that can be made in the technical aspects of the race such as flip turns, starts and stroke technique,” Fabian said. “All of those will be a focus throughout the season.” Brian Luk ’16 also had a solid day, recording three top-five finishes in the quad meet, finishing fourth in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle and fifth in the 100-yard butterfly. Edan Zitelny ’17 put forth strong performances in his second collegiate competition. He placed third in the 200-yard butterfly (2:03.46) and seventh in the 100-yard butterfly (55.06). Given both the teams’ small rosters, it is important for the young talent on the teams to start strong and be dependable, even though it is very early in the season. On the women’s side of things, Joanna Murphy ’17 continued her strong start to the season with a sixth-place finish in the 1650-yard freestyle (18:32.43), a seventh-place finish in the 500yard freestyle (5:26.67) and an eighth-place finish in the 200yard freestyle (2:03.37). She is just one of two first-years to swim for the Judges this year. Fallon Bushee ’16 placed 12th in the 200 freestyle (2:13.31), 11th in the 100-yard backstroke (1:09.26) and 13th in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:25.92). Theresa Gaffney ’16 was 10th in the 1650-yard freestyle (20:48.84) and 12th in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:59.54). She also finished 13th in the 400-yard individual medley (5:29.22) and 14th in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:25.92). For the men, improvement

See SWIMMING, 13 ☛

JustArts Volume LXVI, Number 9

Tuesday, October 29 , 2013

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

Waltham, Mass.

o e B i n g n g i e ’ o ‘B a u t d e a a r g c r ting talent e d n u s e s a c show

In this issue:

Katy Perry’s ‘Prism’

bizarre album boasts redeeming sound P. 22

‘[title of show]’

Senior project play impresses families P. 20

Special Screening

at the Boston Asian American Film Festival P. 22

‘Warhol: Image Maker’

Brandeis alumna lectures on the artist P. 19

Judah Friedlander

The “World Champion” entertains campus P. 20

Editors’ Pick

Our all-time favorite books P. 23

justARTS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

CALENDAR

INTERVIEW

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

ON-CAMPUS EVENTS ‘Mameloschn’ Performance

Three women, three generations, three ways of life. What did it mean to live as a Jew in East Germany and what does it mean in modernday Germany? Questions of identity and belonging are set against questions of personal freedoms and responsibility to the family in this hilarious new, award-winning play. Today from 8 to 10 p.m. in the Center for German and European Studies.

BET Presents: ‘Almost, Maine’

On a cold, clear, moonless night in the middle of winter, all is not quite what it seems in the remote, mythical town of Almost, Maine. As the Northern Lights hover in the starfilled sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and often hilarious ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend—almost—in this delightful midwinter night’s dream. Showing Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center Theater.

Travis Roy ’16 Composer of “Mini-suite for Solo Piano” RACHEL HUGHES/the Justice

This week, JustArts sat down with Travis Roy ’16 who wrote a suite that was performed at Saturday’s Compsers’ Collective, put on by New Music Brandeis.

American Modern:

Esther Adler, assistant curator, Department of Drawings and Prints Museum of Modern Art co-curator of the current exhibition speaks on how and when American art came to the Museum of Modern Art. Sponsered by the Department of Fine Arts, Poses, and the Rose Art Museum.

JustArts: How did you get interested in composition and when did you start writing? Travis Roy: That’s pretty hard to say actually. I guess I got started because I started off as a performer as you might expect. I started playing flute when I was 10 in fourth grade. And back then I really didn’t think anything of it because that’s just something everyone does when they’re younger, but then people kind of dropped off and I stayed with it and I started to realize that music was my passion and my interest. So then I started to think more about the expressional mode of music so from learning theory … I guess the next logical step was composition. It sort of helped me understand music and as I went along it sort of helped me understand myself.

Friday from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Mandel Center for the Humanities, room G11.

Concert: Naoko Sugiyama, Piano

Back to the Classics: Pianist Naoko Sugiyama returns to Slosberg Music Center for a concert of Mozart and Beethoven sonatas for piano, followed by Schubert’s mighty and soulful “Piano Trio in B-flat major,” joined by violinist Susanna

JA: On average, how long does it take you to write a piece? TR: I guess it depends on what you’re going for and sort of what emotions are in that piece ... Because I think that there’s sort of a spectrum. There’s mechanical writing to a certain extent that’s based on pure theory, and then there’s this more emotional type of writing that’s kind of intuitive. So it depends on that. This [piece that was played on Saturday], obviously there was a deadline and there were some formal expectations for what we were all doing because it was a class of us and we all had to have relatively the same assignment. So this one was like two or three weeks. JA: Can you tell us a little about your inspiration for the piece that was performed on Saturday night? TR: So basically the assignment was to take these four diverse forms; one was an ostinato, another was a chorale. There was a miniature and there was a re-harmonization of an existing melody. So I wanted to take those four forms that I had to work within and create a consistent thematic environment. I think it was tough to inject more of that intuitive type of composition into it but I probably did so subconsciously anyway. So I’m not sure about what emotions are in it and what the inspiration was as much. That one just kind of came out. It was really weird. I’ve never had that before. JA: Can you describe the experience of listening to your piece being played? TR: It wasn’t the first time I had heard it played but it was still pretty emotional actually, surprisingly. Because seeing a performer putting so much of himself into it is pretty interesting. And then to hear what came out of you, [hearing] something I just had vaguely abstractly in my mind coming to life [was] a strange reality. JA: Did you work with Nate Schaffer ’16 when he was practicing the piece? TR: Yes, we had a couple meetings. He helped me with some of the notational things because I’m not a pianist myself. I’m sort of just getting into that. So some of the challenges with the notations that I had, I fixed that. It was optimized for what he felt made sense. And then from there I helped him with interpretational things. JA: Can you tell us about your writing process? TR: I think the process is always different probably with every piece to a certain extent. And since I’m just starting out I haven’t found a consistent process and I don’t know if I will. But one thing that I’ve always done is that I think of a few adjectives that I wasn’t to get across effectively and maybe a few forms or a vague outline of some harmonic structure that I think I want to work with. And then going from there it usually develops a mind of its own. JA: Do you plan to do a composition master’s program or compose music professionally? TR: I’m not necessarily sure that I want to study composition any further because that’s always been sort of an educational thing for me. I certainly am most passionate about music though so I might pursue composition or I might pursue education. —Emily Wishingrad

Ogata and cellist Jacques Lee Wood. Friday at 8 p.m. in Slosberg Music Center. Tickets are $5 for students.

Namaskar Presents: Diwali Diwali is a holiday celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains worldwide. A day where we celebrate good triumphing over evil with lots of food and lights. Paint some clay lamps, make rangoli designs, decorate your palms with henna and enjoy delicious Indian food! Come join the festivities! Friday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Friday in the Ridgewood Commons. This event is free and open to the public.

University Chorus and Chamber Choir

Undergraduates perform music from the treasury of classic works for chorus: music chosen from the vast repertory of renaissance, baroque, classic, romantic and modern works. Saturday at 8 to 10 p.m. at Slosburg Music Center. This event is free and open to the public.

Songs of Peace and Praise

Delight in the glorious choral music of Bach, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann, performed by the outstanding Brandeis University Chorus and Chamber Choir. The program also includes two Brandeis favorites: The Blue and the White and the Alma Mater. Prof. Directed by James Olesen (MUS). Saturday at 8 p.m. in Slosberg Music Center. This concert is free and open to the public.

Curator’s Talk: Joseph Ketner

Brandeis goes pop with Boston’s first Warhol exhibition in over 50 years. The Image Machine: Andy Warhol and Photography exhibit’s curator, Joseph D. Ketner II, Henry and Lois Fosterc Chair in Contemporary Art at Emerson College and a former director of the Rose Art Museum, will give a personal tour of the museum. Sunday at 1 p.m. in the Rose Art Museum. Free and open to the public.

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS Exhibition: Mary Reid Kelley

Composed of live-action and stopmotion animation, the South Carolina native’s narrative videos present historical or myth-based stories. At the center of each is a main character or narrator played by Reid Kelley, who appears costumed, bewigged and practically unrecognizable, her face painted white with features defined in black. Exhibition is on view in the Fotene Demoulas Gallery in the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston through this Sunday. General admission is $15 and student admission is $10.

‘John Singer Sargent Watercolors’

Presenting more than 90 of Sargent’s dazzling works, this exhibition, co-organized with the Brooklyn Museum, combines for the first time the two most significant collections of watercolor paintings by Sargent (1856– 1925), images created by a consummate artist with daring compositional strategies and a complex technique. John Singer Sargent Watercolors also celebrates a century of Sargent watercolors at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. On view through Jan. 20 in the Ann and Graham Gund Gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Tickets range from $23 to $25 and are available online at http://mfa.org/.

Drake at TD Garden

The rising rapper is coming to Boston as part of his current tour, ‘So You Want A Tour.” Drake is on tour on the tails of his newly released album, September’s Nothing Was The Same. Rappers Miguel and Future will also be touring with Drake. Wednesday at 7 p.m. at TD Garden, Boston. Tickets range from $60 to $115 and are available online at http://ticketmaster.com/.

POP CULTURE n

ww my Brandeis pop culture-ites, Well, it’s splitsville for English actor Orlando Bloom and Australian Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr. After three years of marriage, the couple has decided to separate. They began dating back in late 2007 before marrying in a secret ceremony in July 2010. Together they have a two-yearold son, Flynn Christopher. A rep for Bloom, 36, confirmed the couple’s split to E! News. Apparently, Kerr, 30, and Bloom have been on an amicable trial separation for the past few months but have now decided to make the separation official. Their total of six years together is basically a lifetime by Hollywood’s standards. Bloom and Kerr’s split comes on the heels of news of Kanye West’s big proposal to Kim Kardashian, with whom he had 4-month-old daughter North. Last Monday—the same day as Kim’s 36th birthday—West, 36, took the notion of an over-the-top proposal to an even higher level. He rented out the AT&T Park (where the San Francisco Giants play) for the proposal and had a live orchestra play in the background. People Magazine reports that the words “PLEEEASE MARRY ME” flashed on the Jumbotron as well. Kardashian’s engagement ring is nothing to sneeze at, either—Kanye backed up his flashy proposal with an equally flashy 15-carat square diamond ring. This will be the first marriage for Kanye and the third marriage for Kim. But the theatrics weren’t the only newsworthy aspect of the engagement. It was who didn’t make the guest list to this surprise proposal party that had media outlets in a tizzy. The Huffington Post reports that Kanye failed to even notify Kim’s stepfather, Bruce Jenner (who recently separated from Kim’s mother Kris), that he was going to propose. Nonetheless, TMZ reports that Jenner was the first person Kim called after she

By Mara Sassoon

CREATIVE COMMONS

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Model Miranda Kerr and actor Orlando Bloom recently separated. accepted, so maybe the media fanfare was all for nothing. Last of all, what’s this column without a healthy dose of scandal added to the mix? Photos surfaced last Tuesday showing American Idol runnerup-turned-actress Katharine McPhee in a passionate lip-lock with her former Smash director Michael Morris. Why’s that so scandalous, you wonder? Well, both McPhee and Morris are still married to other people. Back in 2008, McPhee, 29, married producer Nick Cokas. Morris, 47, on the other hand, has been married to actress Mary McCormack since 2003, and together they have three young daughters. While many sources allege

that McPhee and her husband have been separated for six months and are living apart, E! News reports that McCormack kicked Morris out of their home when he warned her the photos were going to be released. If McCormack was truly that blindsided by the photos, it begs the question as to why Morris and McPhee were cavorting out in public in the first place. There you have it, Brandeis! From Kardashians to Victoria’s Secret models, from a quiet split to a crazy engagement to a bizarre cheating scandal, this week in pop culture has covered the gamut of Hollywood gossip, and then some.

ARTS COVER PHOTOS: JOSH HOROWITZ/the Justice and Creative Commons. DESIGN: Morgan BRILL AND RAFAELLA SCHOR/the Justice.

ON CAMPUS

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, october 29, 2013

ART LECTURE

CREATIVE COMMONS

MOOOVE OVER: Wolf talked about pieces like the “Cow Wall Paper,” that are currently on view at the Rose, in her discussion of Anday Warhol’s pop art and photography.

Wolf discusses Warhol’s Polaroid period By KIRAN GILL justice Staff writer

Author and professor Reva Wolf ’78, returned to campus on Thursday to speak about Image Machine: Andy Warhol and Photography, one of the current exhibitions on view at the Rose Art Museum. As a professor of art history at the State University of New York, New Paltz, she specializes in one of America’s most beloved pop heroes and is the author of Andy Warhol: Poetry and Gossip in the 1960s. Wolf added another dimension to the exhibition during her gallery talk by exploring its three main themes: pictures, meaning and context. The exhibition, curated by former Rose Director Joseph Ketner, amasses photographs and works of art throughout Warhol’s career to craft a narrative of Warhol as an “image maker.” Wolf expanded on Warhol’s fascination with the camera by exploring how Warhol frequently photographed individuals. He utilized “people of all kinds,” Wolf said, whether they were intimate friends, first-time acquaintances or popular celebrities who he found fascinating. Warhol had a tendency to not only combine painting and photography in his work, but to also heavily rely on photography as subject matter, source material and medium, enabling him to appropriate any image. During Warhol’s early career, he never took photographs, and instead employed friends to take

pictures. By the 1970s, however, once Warhol had developed an affinity for the camera, he used Polaroids for portraiture. He would take hundreds of Polaroids, lay them out and then carefully pick which image to use. The process, though tedious, brings to light how exacting Warhol was with his photographs, even while using such simple equipment. Warhol also dabbled with videos and created a series of video portraits, which originally used celluloid, but for the purpose of modern-day exhibitions, were later transferred onto DVDs. The video portraits mimic the composition of Polaroids—they are up-close and intimate shots of the individuals’ faces. Warhol slowed down the videos, giving a languorous quality to the films as we observe the subtle physical nuances of such iconic figures as Susan Sontag, Edie Sedgwick and Jane Holzer. The second theme that Wolf explored was meaning, as Warhol was fond of playing with and interpreting the meaning of the symbols and images he employed in his work. For example, in “Torsos,” Warhol’s series of photographs of male genitals, we are forced to ask where one draws the line between art and pornography. Warhol does not crudely display the male genitals but rather employs age-old artistic practices such as repetition of form, which draws to mind art in antiquity, to make the images appear more acceptable and appropriate for the modern art world.

Wolf subtly addressed the final theme context throughout her discussion but she stressed the theme during the “Silver Clouds” and “Cow Wall Paper” pieces. Originally, “Silver Clouds” and the “Cow Wall Paper” were on display in two different rooms. The inflatable balloons of “Silver Clouds,” created by Warhol in collaboration with an engineer, Billy Kluver, were filled with weights to ensure that they floated at a particular height in order to create an ephemeral and impermanent quality. Meanwhile, the “Cow Wall Paper” consists of a neon, emblazoned cow against a stark background. Displayed separately, the works represented different aspects of an idyllic landscape. Yet, coupled together at the Rose, the two pieces show just how artificial the idyllic landscape is. Warhol had a rather tongue-incheek perspective on the relationship between art and photography. In fact, during an interview, Wolf revealed anecdotally that when Warhol was asked what he thought art was, he replied with, “I don’t believe in art. I believe in photography.” It is important to understand Warhol’s use of sarcasm— and though his comment can be read as flippant, it is also clear that Warhol was making a distinction between art and photography. After all, throughout his oeuvre it is clear to see how he liked to make viewers uncomfortable by forcing them to catalogue works as “art” and “not art.”

ZACH ANZISKA/the Justice

PICTURE PERFECT: Reva Wolf ’78 lectured to an audience in the Lois Foster Gallery in the Rose Art Museum, where a collection of Warhol’s works is now on view.

concert review

Composers’ Collective catalogues ups and downs By EMILY WISHINGRAD justice editor

Smack in the middle of Fall Fest weekend, Brandeis students and their families attended the New Music Brandeis concert series’ first Composers’ Collective of the year. The series features the compositions of graduate students in the composition and theory classes, while this particular performance featured works by both undergraduate and graduate students. Some students performed their own compositions and others performed the work of other students. Kyo Shimizu M.A. ’14 began the concert with his own composition, “Furumai,” on the electric guitar. The piece had a meditative quality. It was soothing, slow and melodic, and Shimizu played each note with care and precision, allowing the notes to vibrate and fade. The piece was a change from

what we are used to hearing on the electric guitar, an instrument usually associated with rock ‘n roll and jamming sessions. “Little Bird,” written and performed on the piano by Jared Redmond (Ph.D. candidate in Music Theory and Composition) was short and sweet. The piece was comprised of short and fast notes in seemingly random rhythms, very reminiscent of a little bird. Redmond is also one of the directors of the New Music Brandeis program this year. Next, Nate Shaffer ’16 performed three movements of “Mini-suite for Solo Piano,” composed by Travis Roy ’16, who created the piece for a class. The program noted that each movement “takes on its own unique formal style” and that it “intends to adopt a mechanically constant tempo while moving through a chaotic, varied landscape.” I especially enjoyed the second movement of the suite, the “Riddle

Song” which maintained a slow, steady rhythm that was playful at the same time, intermixed with faster, higher notes. The movement ended with a loud bang, signifying the “punch line” of the “riddle.” In “Riffs and Echoes,” composed by Travis Alford (Ph.D. candidate in Music Theory and Composition), was performed by Alford on the trumpet and Emily Koh (Ph.D. candidate in Music Theory and Composition) on the bass, Alford took a decomposed approach to the composition. The piece was extremely incoherent in style and started and stopped in seemingly random places, leaving me very confused. One pleasant moment was when Alford blew soft puffs of air into his trumpet while Koh bounced her bow on top of the strings, creating a delicately perky effect. At one point in the piece Koh played a cheerful pizzicato part on her bass, but the pleasant effect was

interrupted when Alford came in with a slightly annoying trumpet part that grew louder and louder until it was uncomfortable to listen to. The piece was definitely out of the box. “Madrigal for Mandolin and Oboe,” written by David Chernack ’17, was beautiful. The piece was performed by Chernack playing the mandolin and Christa Caggiano ’17 on the oboe. The program mentioned that “Madrigal for Mandolin and Oboe” is officially the only piece ever composed and performed for this “under appreciated” instrumental combination—quite an achievement for a college first-year. The beautiful and complex blends of sound created an overall feeling of otherworldliness. The program contained three choral pieces, the first of which, “Rest,” had an unnerving quality to it. The piece, composed by Alford, was sung by the New Music Brandeis Chamber Singers (a group of graduate

students) and accompanied by Alexander Lane (Ph.D) on the organ. “Rest” featured extremely dissonant tones that created a creepy effect. At times the piece sounded spooky and at other times like a droning religious chant as the singers repeated the phrase “come unto me” over and over again. All of these composers should be congratulated. It is not easy to play an instrument, let alone write music. These composers experimented with some complex tones and rhythms and in the end they produced well-polished pieces. They are still working things out, and to their credit, there are very few people who can put notes together and make them sound good. I look forward to seeing their compositions mature. Editor’s note: Nate Shaffer ’16 is a Justice Contributing Writer for the Arts section.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

THEATER REVIEW

ABBY KNECHT/the Justice

MONKEY BUSINESS: The cast, clockwise from left: Sarah Brodsky ’15, Brian Haungs ’15, Sarah Hines ’15 and Charlie Madison ’15.

“Meta musical” brings dreams to life By RACHEL HUGHES JUSTICE EDITOR

This weekend, students and their parents filled up Spingold Theater Center’s cozy Merrick Theater for one of the first in a series of senior thesis performances, Helena Raffel’s ’14 production of [title of show]. As the director, Raffel said in the program, she “has been a huge [title of show] fan for years,” and even as she walked around the theater greeting audience members before the show began, it was easy to tell that she was excited to see one of her final projects as an undergraduate come to life. [title of show] is not, in fact, a typo, but it is a one-act meta-musical of sorts—that is, a musical about a group of friends who are writing an original musical—and the play was adapted by Jeff Bowen in the early

2000s based on a book by Hunter Bell. The show is very much a story about friends; even its two main characters, Jeff and Hunter, garner their namesakes from Bowen and Bell. The hour-and-a-half long production was quite minimalistic: it was performed by four actors dressed casually in their own clothing. In addition, the nearly continuous score was played soley by a keyboardist and the only props used were a couple of chairs, laptops, cellphones and food items. Long-time friends Hunter (Charlie Madison ’15) and Jeff (Brian Haungs ’15) open the show with a phone conversation about their dull daily lives in New York. Jeff is thoroughly bored, watching movies on his laptop while he talks to Hunter, who is working on building a website on his laptop. The two decide to chase their dreams and write an original musical to enter into a the-

ater festival just three weeks away. Here they first experience waves of self-doubt and hesitancy about their work and ideas, and as Hunter says, “just start—starting is the hardest part,” he really nails one of the larger themes of the show. As their writing forms into a meager musical, Jeff and Hunter call upon the help of their friends Susan (Sarah Hines ’15) and Heidi, (Sarah Brodsky ’15) to act in the finished work. Both women have backgrounds in theater. Susan has long left it for the financial security of a dissatisfying day job and Heidi is still pursuing a performer’s life, but struggles through unfulfilling minor and understudy Broadway roles. [title of show] quickly finds its characters helping each other through the sways of self-doubt and only ends when the audience is convinced that the characters have each built up substantial self-belief.

One of the funnier scenes came during an episode of Jeff’s writer’s block, as he wrote a scene into their musical that found all four characters in a dream sequence. In the scene, the characters are playful, happy and confident, and, being aware that they have been written into Jeff’s dream scene, act beyond the laws of physics that bind humans in real life. “Where should we fly to?” asks Jeff, and Hunter wittily replies “how about around the preposition at the end of your sentence.” [title of show] was not all comedy, however, and as the characters’ musical finally makes it big toward the end the show, they share a more dramatic number. In this scene, Jeff and Hunter receive phone calls about things that their mentors and patrons want them to change about their show. All four characters launch into an almost eerie chant,

repeating “change it, don’t change it, change it, don’t change it, change it, don’t change it, don’t change a thing” over and over again. Through scenes of great emotional variety—from comedy to strife—the actors adjusted their behavior and their characters’ interpersonal dynamics accordingly. Hines and Brodsky played off of each other expertly, and both provoked and highlighted the personalities that Haungs and Madison inject into their characters. Through all these movements, the story seems to come full circle, and finally finds the characters content in their creative lives. In one of the final scenes, Jeff reassures Hunter about their musical, and gives the audience a sense of closure and hope: “This started out as fun with friends and it turned into this whole huge thing. I want it to be this thing. I want it to be everything.”

COMEDY

“World Champion” lives up to his name By CATHERINE ROSCH JUSTICE STAFF WRITER

Judah Friedlander, the actor, comedian and self-described world champion, well-known for his eccentric hats and his roles in 30 Rock, Zoolander and Meet the Parents, performed a stand-up routine in the Shapiro Gym on Friday, Oct. 25 as part of this year’s Fall Fest. The opening act, performed by James Huessy, a comedian and student at Northeastern University, was short, no longer than around 15 minutes, and disappointing. Huessy’s jokes, which ranged from rants about how much he hated his internship to a story about an interaction with a pigeon, fell short. When he made a transphobic joke about the Brandeis women’s basketball team, the audience reacted with awkward silence. It was very odd that a non-Brandeisian was selected to open, especially when the University has many improvisation and stand-up groups with talented comedic performers. However, Friedlander did not disappoint. Amid whoops and cheers from the audience, he started off by thanking everyone for “a sitting ovation” and went on to talk about myriad of topics from politics to karate to his numerous world championships over the course of an hour. The show felt more like a dialogue between audience and comedian than a traditional performance. The material was funny and off-the-cuff and seemed like a mix of improv and prepared jokes and monologues. Friedlander was casual and conversational, throwing around phrases like “dude” and “you know” instead of being more formal and scripted. Oftentimes, in the middle of a thought,

he would randomly call on a member of the audience, ask them questions about where they were from and what their major was and then would mock them relentlessly. Other times, he would invite the audience to call out answers to questions about sports, politics or whatever was on his mind. The focus of Friedlander’s performance was on his self-described status of world champion, and most of his bits revolved around his various exploits, ranging from “[going] to DeVry Elementary School” to his ability to say “Rosetta Stone in over 500 languages” to the time he raced a cheetah and won. Part of Friedlander’s charm comes from the fact that he is not the athletic powerhouse he claims to be. With straggly, slightly grey hair and a body that would never belong on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he just looks like someone’s awkward uncle. But that’s what makes his performance and status as world champion even more hilarious. However, his talents really came through when engaging with the audience. During one such engagement, Friedlander formally announced his plans to run for president in 2016 and invited everyone to ask questions about his platform. When asked about potential running mates, Friedlander looked the questioner straight in the eye and responded with “a hero does not need a sidekick” to laughter and applause. Other parts of the Friedlander platform included “mandatory gay marriage,” cars with lower emissions that are powered by sexual energy and a plan to invade North Dakota because “if I’m psycho enough to invade my own country, imagine what I’d do to

another country.” Friedlander managed to handle sensitive topics, such as abortion and illegal immigration, with humor and seemingly without offending anyone in the audience. The audience had a number of questions for Friedlander, and he was more than happy to answer them. When asked about which of his ubiquitous hats was his favorite, Friedlander seemed outraged, retorting with “I don’t play favorites.” There were also many questions about 30 Rock. Friedlander quipped about how he “heard it [was] a good show, been meaning to watch it” and joked about the animalistic chemistry he and Tina Fey had at his first audition. Although sometimes Friedlander tripped up, one time quite literally over a stool, he calmly shook it off and would deliver yet another quip. Shapiro Gym, while packed with only a few empty seats, was not an ideal location due to the acoustics, which could make it difficult for Friedlander to hear the audience. At one point in the middle of the performance, during a question period, he simply admitted “I [couldn’t] hear anything so I just rambled shit.” Even if Friedlander was just rambling, as he claimed, he blew the audience away. Even after the show was supposed to end, he kept performing and answering various questions, and ended up staying around after the show to chat with students and take photographs. Judah Friedlander’s performance was easily one of the best pieces of live stand-up I’ve ever seen. With a mix of deadpan humor, casual attitude and eagerness to interact with everyone present, he certainly blew me and the rest of the Brandeis community, away.

ANNIE FORTNOW/the Justice

CRACKED UP: Judah Friedlander, a 30 Rock alumnus, brought his comedy act to Brandeis’ campus.

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, october 29, 2013

theatER REVIEW

PHOTOS BY JOSH HOROWITZ/the Justice

PRIMARY COLORS: Each cast member’s acting talents contributed to a stellar performance, despite a less than interesting script.

Acting beats plot in scandalous play By JESSIE MILLER justice EDITOR

Coinciding with this year’s Fall Fest, Brandeis Players presented a production of Boeing-Boeing, a 1960s comical farce. The play, written by French playwright Marc Camoletti, was originally written in French and translated into English. In 1991, the Guinness Book of Records declared Boeing-Boeing as the most performed French play since its first staging at the Apollo Theatre of London in 1962. With a cast of only six actors, Boeing-Boeing encourages each actor to show off their talents, and each Brandeis student truly captured his or her respective role. Bernard (Austin Koenigstein ’17) is a single, flirtatious American living in France, happily engaged and enjoying life. The twist is that Bernard is engaged to three women: Gloria (Corrie Legge ’14), Gabriella (Lisa Galperin ’14) and Gretchen (Joanna Nix ’14). All three fiancées are flight attendants for different airlines whose flight schedules cross the globe, allowing Bernard to keep his fiancées unaware of each other. That is, until one fateful night full of delayed flights, surprise visits and unexpected schedule changes. In the morning, Gloria is getting ready to leave for her flight, and Bernard hastily pushes her out the door, when his old friend Robert (Ray Trott ’16) arrives. Robert, who is from Wisconsin, plans to settle down in Paris. Bernard welcomes him to stay in his apartment. Gloria, who is American, leaves, and in comes Gabriella, the Italian woman. However, Bernard’s carefully calculated flight plans and

detailed arrangements promptly self-destruct as all three women announce their respective changes of plans. This unfortunate obstacle is the entire basis of the play and was provoked even as Bernard explained his perfect setup to Robert. With Gretchen, the German woman, on her way, Bernard basically forces Gabriella to go to the country for a romantic evening, leaving Gretchen with the impression that Bernard left on business. However, the real situation—and comedy—appears when all three women are in the small apartment and Bernard and Robert do all they can to keep them apart. I have to admit, I wasn’t a fan of the script and found it generally boring, though specific lines made me laugh. Because the entire twoand-a-half hour play took place in Bernard’s apartment, the scenes seemed to drag on endlessly, punctuated only by a brief intermission. I don’t understand how this is the most performed French play, but maybe I’m simply not understanding the theme of Boeing-Boeing. However, one redeeming quality that subtly addresses gender stereotypes was Gloria’s own engagement to three men in different cities. Gloria proves that women can be just as deceptive in their dating as men. As much as I disliked the play itself, the actors were amazing. Kelsey Segaloff ’15 steals the show as Bernard’s housekeeper Berthe. With her thick French accent perfectly executed, Segaloff was incredibly funny, not to mention her exasperated facial expressions and precise body language. She also wore—and rocked—a short, black wig and a French maid outfit.

Trott’s role was similar to other goofy roles he has portrayed in previous productions, as he carried the bulk of the farcical antics while keeping the fiancées apart. His nervous and jumpy portrayal of Robert was ideal as he managed the disaster Bernard created. Trott and Koenigstein are both excellent when interacting with other characters, as seen in their dialogue with the three fiancées while juggling Bernard’s situation. Of the fiancées, I particularly enjoyed Nix’s portrayal of the feisty, strong-willed Gretchen, imitated accent and all. Nix, who wears a yellow uniform, is intense, dramatic and funny all at the same time while interacting with Robert, who hits on her incessantly. Legge portrays a much more flirtatious and sexual character—a personality that is aesthetically portrayed by her red flight attendant uniform. Legge does an excellent job at balancing the “cute” behavior without being overly cliché. Galperin, who wears blue as Gabriella, also does a perfect Italian accent and captures Gabriella’s emotional state, as well as her anger and frustration over Bernard. All three women have distinct personalities and represent different stock character traits, as seen in their different color uniforms and reactions to Bernard’s scheme. I may not have appreciated the plot of the play but the six actors made the performance much more enjoyable as they showed off their talent through an array of acting skills. Though Brandeis Players only puts on one main stage production each year, I look forward to seeing all of the actors in more performances this year.

DRINK ME: Bernard’s housekeeper Berthe (Kelsey Segaloff ’15) and Robert share a drink in the midst of the drama.

KISS ME, YOU FOOL: Ray Trott ’16 as Robert and Corrie Legge ’14 as Gloria share one of the show’s many passionate kissing scenes.

POINTING FINGERS: Gretchen, played by Joanna Nix ’14, discovers Bernard’s lies.

OFF CAMPUS

TUESDAY, october 29, 2013 | THE JUSTICE

ALBUM REVIEW

Perry’s new album roars By Brittany Joyce justice editor

CREATIVE COMMONS

KITTY PURRY: Perry’s new album comes with new performing personas and a departure from the emotional ideas of her last record, Teenage Dream.

On the heels of her latest hit single, “Roar,” Katy Perry released her newest album Prism last week. That song is the first track, but it does not define the themes or feel of the album as a whole. While “Roar” is an upbeat pop song with lyrics meant to uplift any listener, the rest of Prism is a hodgepodge of songs with mismatched meanings and sonic qualities. Some songs contain strange or cheesy lyrics, while others include spoken word parts or synthesizer vocals that don’t fit together well, but overall Perry’s newest pop album creation certainly features some catchy future hits. After the already released “Roar,” the album continues with “Legendary Lovers,” a track with some of the record’s most distinctive sounds. It cycles between a drumbeat-dominated chorus and Middle Easterninspired drum sounds. The sheer sonic success of “Legendary Lovers,” makes its lyrical content—the singer and her “legendary” love—almost irrelevant. The song has tame enough lyrics in comparison to some of the other more ridiculous lines on later tracks, with references to Cleopatra or Shakespeare’s Juliet, so ultimately, what she’s saying is less important than how it sounds on this track. The following song, “Birthday,” is another strong track on the album. Its upbeat 1970s sound matches its fun nature. The only downfall is an awkward whisper of “happy birthday” inexplicably in the middle of the song. Maybe Perry was trying to emulate Marilyn Monroe, but this came off as strange; I could easily see this song as a future single, so maybe this part will be cut out when the inevitable incessant radio plays begin. Another song with the legendary love theme is “Walking on Air.” While this song has a Madonna-like dance vibe, actually listening to the lyrics detracts from the song. When she’s not repeating, “tonight, I’m walking on air,” which, admittedly, is half of the song, she’s spouting lyrics such as “heaven is jealous of our love / angels are crying from up above,” or using this masterfully forced rhyme, “You’re reading me

like erotica / boy, you make me feel exotic, yeah.” The song sounds different from the rest of the album— and I like that—but the lyrics are too ridiculous for me to take it seriously. Ridiculous lyrics border on cheesy with the song “Double Rainbow.” With lines such as “you’re brighter than all of the Northern Lights” and “our chemistry was more than science,” the song is impossible to take seriously and doesn’t have a particularly interesting sound to compensate for the lines. But with a chorus that repeats, “we see eye to eye, like a double rainbow in the sky,” I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised. Perry’s second single off the album, “Dark Horse,” has a more ominous feel, and though it sounds different from the other tracks, it is too much like a poor attempt at recreating her previous hit “E.T.,” off her sophomore album, Teenage Dream. Juicy J’s feature on the song does nothing to help it, either. I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be rapping or singing, but he does say such priceless lyrics as, “I was tryin’ hit it and quit it / but lil’ mama so dope / I messed around and got addicted.” If this song gains greater popularity on the radio, I can only hope he is cut out in the radio edits. So far “Dark

Horse” has only broken the top 20 in the American charts, and I can see it either gaining greater popularity or fizzling out because it is not as strong as some of her previous hits. One of Perry’s better songs comes toward the end of the album. “Love Me” follows the pattern of some of Perry’s other songs, such as Teenage Dream’s “Firework” and Prism’s “Roar,” offering inspirational lyrics to a catchy beat. In “Love Me,” Perry sings about almost losing herself in order to hold onto a lover and realizing that she doesn’t need to do this; she sings that she should love herself the way she wants someone else to love her. Regardless of how ridiculous some of the rest of the album’s lyrics are, or the more interesting sound components on others, I appreciate the inclusion of this song and its message. Prism could have used more songs like this because alone, it cannot overcome the strangeness of some of the rest of the album. Perry’s newest album is a mix of catchy beats covering sometimes odd lyrics, and forgettable tracks that are not very different in sound or lyrics. Some of the songs are fun to listen to, but overall the strangeness is hard to overlook.

CREATIVE COMMONS

SHAPE SHIFTER: Prism creates a different aesthetic feel than her previous work— more dreamy and less bubblegum, but still very much Katy Perry.

FILM FESTIVAL

Film challenges racial stereotypes in Indie genre By Rachel hughes justice editor

Spanning from Thursday to Sunday, film enthusiasts flocked to Boston for a unique program—the fifth annual Boston Asian American Film Festival. Screenings were staggered between the Brattle Theater and the Paramount Center in Boston’s theater district, and featured numerous appearances from the films’ directors, actors and producers. Even the famous Ang Lee, whose film Wedding Banquet opened the festival on Thursday, was in attendance. The BAAFF is a very interactive and culturally valuable event because, unlike some of the larger festivals, it features independent films that were created by and starred in by AsianAmericans, rather than mainstream projects. The Asian community is largely underrepresented in the independent film genre, which, although its generic classification makes the implicit claim of abstaining from mainstream or normative film conventions, exhibits an embarrassingly low profile of racial and ethnic diversity. When Asian actors are given parts in indie films, they are often cast according to racial stereotypes—the kid who does karate or the over-sexualized geisha-like seductress, for example. When Asian directors and producers make films that portray their cultural heritage the way that they experience it—as normal, everyday life—they must fight for a market or venue through which to show their projects. The

BAAFF provides a platform for the younger generation of filmmakers and actors whose work is creating a newer, more cohesive space for their community in the larger film community. With a lineup of nine feature-length films showing over the four-day-long festival, as well as three screenings of different collections of short films, viewers experienced a variety of genres and styles under the indie umbrella. On Saturday night, I attended the festival’s New England premiere screening of the 2013 film Someone I Used to Know, an independent coming-of-age film. The film’s director, Nadine Truong, and its producer, Brian Yang, were in attendance at the screening, and stayed afterward for a question-andanswer session with the audience, led by the festival’s staff. Someone I Used to Know begins with a shocking and disturbing image: its protagonist, Charlie, a 30-something teacher who is experiencing a period of personal and professional desperation as he is left by his girlfriend and quit his job, tries to kill himself. One of the first visual impressions made by the film is a series of close-up shots of Charlie’s wrist, sliced by a razor blade by unflinching fingers, with emotional numbness and precision. Dressed in a full suit, he sinks slowly into the bathtub of a stark white bathroom. Suddenly a high-pitched meow from his cat, Hemingway, stirs him from his complacency, and he quickly leaps from the tub, hurrying to bandage his wrist as he clutches a novel by Hemingway.

Charlie takes a much-needed road trip to connect with his high school friends, Luke, who is now a famous actor, and DJ, whose character is drunk for most of the film. Through spending a night with the people who used to know him best—drinking, accidentally being joined by a group of two gorgeous young women and their male friend, and all together tripping on hallucinogenic mushrooms—Charlie comes to his senses. He remembers the things that make him value his own life. The film was compelling, engaging, visually dynamic and thematically significant, and all produced on a very low budget. After the film ended and the lights came on, Truong and Yang spoke at length about what the film, Truong’s first feature-length project and Yang’s first producing endeavor, means to them. “It’s about collaboration. A film is definitely a team effort,” Truong began.“We get to make art, and it’s a privilege.” Yang continued, “Even though we shot this thing a couple years ago, we’re still working on it. A film never really leaves you.” The pair was not discouraged by the challenges facing Asian American indie filmmakers today, but rather relished the opportunity to educate their audiences. Truong said: “We’re still very underrepresented. We’re still figuring out a lot of stereotypes. But it is getting better… It’s festivals like these that help that process along.” Someone I Used to Know, she said, “is so Asian-American specific, but if you look at the content of the film, it’s just about people.”

CREATIVE COMMONS

CITY LIGHTS: Some film screenings, like the viewing of Someone I Used To Know, took place at the popular Paramount Center in Boston’s busy theater district.

THE JUSTICE | TUESDAY, october 29, 2013