Brandeis Hoot - Jan 27, 2012

Volume 9 Number 2

www.thebrandeishoot.com

Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper • Waltham, Mass.

Fundraising style shifted with pres transition Analysis of alumni, friends giving patterns

By Jon Ostrowsky and Alex Schneider Editors

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Overlooking the fairway greens and still water ponds that make up senior citizen

paradise at Boca Greens Country Club here, at 86 years old Rosalind Schacknow remembers vividly the day when the Brandeis library received the millionth book in her time as president of the National Committee’s Boca Raton chapter.

“When you come in and you see that feeling … it was a very thrilling moment in my life,” Schacknow said in an interview on her porch last month.

For Schacknow, who graduated from Queens College in New York, and never stepped foot on the Brandeis campus before joining the BNC, her passion for Brandeis is rooted in its Jewish identity. She loves attending book and author luncheons with her friends and the socializing that fundraising for BNC involves.

Saul Kravec ’85, vice-president of sales at Elizabeth Arden Inc., supports Brandeis for a different reason.

In addition to his Jewish identity, he donates to repay Brandeis for the learning he received and friendships he formed as a student.

“I give because I love Brandeis,” Kravec said on Christmas Eve over a breakfast burrito and espresso at a Las Olas Blvd. cafe. “I give because it did so much for me. I trust the administration. I trust that the money is going

Editor

Student Union President Herbie Rosen ’12 has proposed to the Senate an amendment to the Constitution creating a midyear senator position, and it has received the 10 senators’ signatures necessary to put the measure to a student vote. The referen-

dum is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 1.

“We have a large group of students who have entered without a representative, and they deserve it,” Rosen said, “and our job is to make things better as they’re here.”

This year’s change is only the latest attempt; the bid for a midyear senator post has an illustrious history. It

Parties clash over voting laws, even in 21st century

By Victoria Aronson Staff

Proposed voter ID laws serve as yet another source of controversy between the two political parties in an impending 2012 presidential election season. If enacted, states would require photo identification, full licenses or other technical documents before citizens are able to cast a ballot, raising concerns regarding fundamental constitutional principles and the desire to legitimize the voting process.

Proponents of the law argue measures must be implemented to protect against voter fraud. As mentioned in Reuters, Republican Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina stated, “If you have to show a picture ID to buy Sudafed, if you have to show a picture ID to get

was first raised several years ago, in the spring of 2009, when then-Union Secretary Diana Aronin ’11 failed to put it before the student body for a vote. As a result she was impeached by the Senate for failing in her constitutional duties. Then-President Andy Hogan ’11 was censured for instigating the neglect, but both supported the creation of a midyear representa-

By Nathan Koskella and Anita Palmer editor and Staff

tive.

Rosen said that he wrote the newest version of the amendment last semester, but noted that “a lot of people in the Union [government] had the idea” to resurrect this proposal.

“The midyears, other than the small number of midyear transfer students, See UNION, page 3

See TUITION, page 2

After much anticipation, the Linsey Pool opened to festivities last weekend. Despite multiple inches of snow, Brandeisians turned out for a grand-opening pool party, complete with mechanical shark, photobooth, free pizza and an appearance by the president’s wife. Open at 7:30 a.m., Linsey Pool is already being regularly used by sports teams for practice, as well as individual Brandeisians. Some students have called for an early open time, but concede that it is unlikely that student lifeguards will be willing to work earlier.

At NCAA-regulation size, Brandeis’ new pool allows the swim team to become a varsity program after years of only existing as a club sport. Senior Vice President of Communications Andrew Gully has hopes that Brandeis will become renowned for its swim team, which previously held morning practices at nearby Bentley University.

—By Connor Novy, Editor

Campus to vote Feb. 1 on midyear senator question

By Nathan Koskella

Obama raises tuition challenge President Obama prodded the nation about the growing gap between the necessity of higher education and the ability to afford it in his third State of the Union address Thursday evening. The president held colleges and universities accountable for their rising tuition bills, claiming that taxpayers’ funds will subsequently decrease if tuition continues to rise.

“So let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down,” Obama said. “Higher education can’t be a luxury—it’s an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.”

Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel, who oversees admissions and financial aid at Brandeis, did not respond to requests for comment.

Obama’s prime-time address also called on Congress to make permanent his tuition tax credit and to act to prevent spiked interest rates on the Stafford Loan, which are set to double in July.

“When kids do graduate [high school], the most daunting challenge can be the cost of college,” Obama said. “Congress needs to extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars.” The American Opportunity Tax Credit, proposed and passed in Obama’s first year in office, saves families $2,000 per year of a four-year degree.

Asserting that college affordability was directly connected to the low

See FUNDRAISING, page 4

Linsey Pool opens with full house

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

January 27, 2012

Abroad fair showcases student travels

on a plane, you should have to show a picture ID to do that one thing that is so important to us, and that is the right to vote. This is common sense legislation.”

Scott Walker, GOP governor of Wisconsin, further defended the ethical need for such laws, claiming, “Whether it’s one case, a hundred cases or a hundred-thousand cases, making sure we have legislation that protects the integrity for an open, fair and honest election in every single case is important.”

The controversy, however, emerges as fears arise concerning the negative implications voter identification laws may bear upon voter turnouts.

In particular, opponents adamantly proclaim that these new requireSee VOTER ID, page 3

go away! Students learn about study abroad programs at a fair on Thursday. For more, turn to page 2.

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

NEWS

2 The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

Study Abroad fair highlights travel opportunities

By Morgan Gross Editor

Representatives from the Brandeis Office of Study Abroad Thursday invited representatives from a selection of the university’s 250 approved study abroad programs to a mini study abroad fair in the Shapiro Campus Center atrium.

The university approves programs in 70 different countries worldwide.

Most popular study abroad locations include the United Kingdom, Spain, Australia, Denmark, China, France, Italy, Japan, Israel, Morocco and The Netherlands.

While studying abroad at Brandeis is common—with 40 percent of each junior class studying abroad each year and additional students traveling each summer—the process surrounding applying to go abroad remains somewhat obscure.

This year, as the Brandeis internal study abroad application (Feb. 17) looms in the near future, many questions are arising for students applying to go abroad in the 2012-13 academic year.

Current applicant, Emma Balmuth-Loris ’14 describes that since starting her planning, she has “been

really stressed about choosing the right program. I thought for a while that I had selected the right one, but I’ve recently freaked out making sure it is the best option.”

Balmuth-Loris explains that—after much discussion with family, friends and study abroad advisers and consideration of such factors as program location, semester, type and what university credits the program will count toward for majors and minors—she will be “going to Thailand because the program just fits perfectly with what I want.”

The Office of Study Abroad—located in Usdan—is the center of application information and advising for all students who study abroad each academic year.

One of the most common questions in the study abroad application process is that of acceptance rates and program competitiveness. Hundreds of students seeking advice and assistance visit study abroad counselors each semester to ensure the quality of their application.

“When students engage their faculty members and the advisers in the Office of Study Abroad, they are generally able to narrow and refine their program choices to the point that

they are competitive for the programs they hope to participate in,” J. Scott Van Der Meid, director of the Office of Study Abroad, said.

Advising resources for students hoping to go abroad stress the importance of completing all application components promptly, and the office confirms that this has much to do with program acceptance. “Since most students work closely with our office, we find that the majority of students get accepted into their top two program choices,” Van Der Meid said. But this is not always the case.

“Sometimes students apply late in the admissions season or to very popular programs. In that case, there is always a risk of students ending up on a wait list.”

To avoid this outcome, the office emphasized a focus on remaining on top of requirements and submitting all necessary elements of the application promptly.

Max Keilson ’13 encourages students to endure the dreaded application process, saying that this past fall in Edinburgh “was one of my best experiences at Brandeis. It’s a little ironic that my best experience at Brandeis was me leaving Brandeis, but it’s definitely true.”

photos by nate rosenbloom/the hoot study abroad fair (Top) Ben Rifkin ’12 discusses JBS programs with program head,

Alyssa Grinberg; (bottom) staff member Alan Bertman reviews programs.

President’s speech focuses on college education TUITION, from page 1

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

IBS showcases business internships

By Connor Novy Editor

A Thursday night event at Brandeis’ International Business School featured six speakers in the fields of business, finance and banking, from companies such as State Street Corporation, Santander Sovereign Bank and BYN Mellon Wealth Management, who came to speak to the Association for Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA).

These vice presidents, executive directors and CEOs spoke to both the graduate chapter of ALPFA and its recently-founded undergraduate chapter at the IBS Lee Hall before a “networking session” in which students interacted with the guest speakers, gathering “helpful hints in what companies are looking for in applicants” said ALPFA member Alberto Lalo ’14, who appreciated the opportunity to hand in resumes for internships and summer jobs.

The speakers had all apparently been helped or had previous encounters with ALPFA to which they attributed their success.

ALPFA has grown during the past 20 years to include 40 chapters and has incorporated many other fields, including education, publicity and diplomacy, as well as other cultures. It was originally founded to assist Latino immigrants in obtaining jobs, internships and work visas.

The Brandeis chapter of ALPFA works closely with the Hiatt Career Center, and holds resume-building workshops, networking events and career fairs.

“The best way to get a job in this competitive market,” Lalo said, “is by having some sort of connection with people that can get you jobs. That is what ALPFA does through its networking events and career fairs.”

availability of skilled workers, specifically in science and technology-related fields, Obama said that “growing industries in science and technology have twice as many openings as we have workers who can do the job— that’s inexcusable.”

Coupled with the additional jobfocused training of two million more Americans, the administration intends to facilitate partnerships between companies through the use of community colleges. An easier platform for re-employment information would also be created with a unified website to “help people get jobs that are open today,” Obama said.

“I want to cut through the maze of confusing training programs, so that from now on, people have one program, one website and one place to go for all the information and help they need.”

Obama also reiterated his demand that the wealthy pay more in federal

taxes. He said the nation’s fiscal reality demanded a choice between maintaining tax cuts for the upper class of wealthiest Americans and investing in medical research and education.

“Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both,” Obama said.

Investments in education through the plan would extend from early childhood to higher education programs and strive to increase accountability among teachers, parents, colleges and universities. In theory, the administration proposal would “restore the promise of America’s public education, and ensure that American children again lead the world in achievement, creativity and success,” Obama said.

He further noted that his Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 invests more than $40 billion in Pell Grants, increasing the nation’s foremost financial aid awards through time as tuition costs rise. The new law also made more low-income students eligible for the grant.

For many incoming class of 2015 Brandeis students, this legislation has affected them directly because of the increase in eligibility. “If it was not for my Pell Grant, I would not have been able to afford an education at such a prestigious university,” Sarah Hines ’15 said in an interview.

Many of the changes Obama called for Tuesday night in Washington aim to increase employment, and “to prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education has to start earlier,” he said.

The president’s agenda will face continued partisanship during the election year with tax changes proving to be a hurdle for Obama as he concludes his first term as president.

Several of the president’s goals can begin within his own powers, such as his sole ability to set executive order or budgetary priorities.

Obama contended that “when we act together, there is nothing the United States of America can’t achieve.”

BSF gets large donation, awards much of it

By Zachary Romano Special to the Hoot

The Brandeis Sustainability Fund (BSF), which provides grant money to students who wish to pursue “green” projects and initiatives on campus, has awarded projects including a recycling machine and a green laundry system more than $20,000 of its grant fund to bring green innovation to the Brandeis University campus.

To work on green initiatives with BSF, a student must first complete an application involving a written expression of interest in a particular project which is then followed up by a BSF board member. Each BSF board member is assigned to a particular project and works with the student in order to develop a feasible plan of action and suggest any improvements.

Once a project is accepted, funding is provided and work can begin.

In the fall semester, only a handful of projects were funded. The first

project is the Greenbean Recycling Machine, lead by Taylor Early ’15.

The machine, to be placed in Usdan Student Center, aims to increase recycling on campus by allowing students to return their bottles for five cents each, as outlined in the Massachusetts bottle bill law. Students would have the option whether they would apply the return to a PayPal account, put it in their WhoCash account or donate it to a charity. The final details are still to be determined, but nearly $16,000 in funding is being provided.

Philip Lu ’11 and Katherine Glanbock ’14 are also leaders on their own green initiative with “It’s A Breeze: Drying Racks.” In an effort to cut energy use on laundry here at Brandeis, the duo decided that they would devise a drying rack rental program.

Each semester, students will be able to rent a drying rack for free to have in their dorms. In addition, free, public drying racks will be placed around campus laundry rooms. Around

$2,300 is going to the project, and will hopefully be installed by next fall. The final green project funded during the fall 2011 semester at $1,487 to install “Windowfarms,” hydroponic growing systems to allow year-round growth of herbs and vegetables. They will be installed by the Village Quad for students to use in the shared kitchens.

Several other ideas were submitted including solar hot water and utilization of pedal power. Both have been invited to reapply their ideas.

Brandeis is unique in having such a student-driven green initiative. The process of applying involves commitment, organization and dedication on the student’s part. Their successes can be seen all across campus: DeisBikes, the Brandeis bike-rental program, is one example. The BSF board, comprised of four students and four staff and faculty members, approves projects on the basis of their impact upon the community environment, and its relevance and financial feasibility.

January 27, 2012

NEWS 3

The Brandeis Hoot

Univ. research connects classroom to marketplace

By Connor Novy Editor

Federal research and development efforts are failing to make the most of basic and applied research occurring in universities in communities across the country, according to a recent report from the Center for American Progress. It elaborated, saying that the current relationship between federal, academic and private enterprise was detrimental to economic development.

Professor Eve Marder (BIO) disagrees, “Industry is very invested in maintaining a strong academic world.

Federal grants, which pay for virtually all research at Brandeis, make universities responsible to do high quality research … and discover new knowledge that will benefit the world.”

Brandeis benefits from the relationship more than most colleges, with one of the most well-developed and renowned science research facilities in the country.

As President Obama reminded the nation in last Tuesday’s State of the Union, “innovation also demands basic research,” a sentiment echoed

by Marder. “Industry turns to the academic world to do its fundamental research, to set the stage and industry then develops the product,” Marder said.

Industry itself, she explained, is unwilling to incur the expense in time and money for basic research that might not pan out into a lucrative product. “Sometimes there are direct benefits to our research,” she said, “but usually it contributes to future research.”

“Most patents are worthless,” said Michael Rosbash (BIO), but a few, like the extremely profitable SmartBalance, bring in close to $1 million for the university every year.

The $60 million in sponsors, either private enterprise or the government funds more than the research. Ros-

bash explained that not only do these sponsors pay for obvious, like his own salary, but the research also creates a “spillover effect.” Grants given to research facilities also pay for overhead, from facilities to electricity to upkeep.

And while these grants pay for the classrooms and facilities in many of the science buildings, they also spillover into the university at large in other ways.

Marder explained, “Industry wants universities to train high quality scientists who they can then hire … The grants and sponsors allow us to hire a very large number of undergraduates who work in labs. These students get the opportunity to work on real projects, even if they’re not in the sciences.” The university-industry relationship is mutually beneficial, says Marder. Undergraduate students hired in labs, especially those not majoring in the sciences, are given the opportunity to assist in a division of education to which they would not otherwise be exposed. The CAP report called for a “work force with technical skills,” which both Rosbash and Marder believe they are creating with their undergraduate and graduate programs.

“It’s a very important set of synergies,” Marder says, made possible by the now 30-year-old Bayh-Dole Act, which took patent power from the sponsors and gave it to inventors and their institutions.

The Bayh-Dole Act allows for what Marder calls “cooperative agreements” between industry and academics, the same concept called for in the CAP report and President Obama’s address to the nation.

It has allowed universities and nonprofit institutions to benefit from federally funded research since 1980.

Previously, the government and federal fund agencies held the patents to methods and products developed in university research facilities. “It really wasn’t efficient to have all the

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

research lab

patents concentrated in Washington,” explained Irene Abrams, associate provost for innovation and executive director of the Office of Technology Licensing. “There was a tremendous investment in research but not a lot of commercialization.” Once universities had exclusive power to license their discoveries to private enterprise, commercial interest in supporting academia increased, and bolstered “successful economic development,” Abrams said.

“That gave Brandeis incentive to invest in obtaining patents, and to license patents to industry,” explained Professor Neil Simister (BIO). Marder conceded that while industry and academia worked well together, they fulfilled very different functions.

“What industry is good at doing is looking at a possible technology and turning it into a product.”

According to Marder, a “gray area” between the research and the product development inspires a corporation to sponsor research at a university in hopes of achieving the “basic research” needed for a product.

Some feel that federal grants to research institutions is a waste of taxpayer money, and without the control of ensuing patents, there is a great deal of output without a return.

Instead, private enterprise could be responsible for funding academic research, as they directly benefit. Simister retorted, “What the government gets for its investment is jobs and economic growth, and the usefulness of the invention, a drug for example, to the community,” Brandeis as an institution receives at least $1.6 million per year from patents and the products of its research institutions. According to

Irene Abrams, last year was one of the most lucrative for Brandeis­­­—patents received $2 million in royalties, half of which was from the ignominious, Brandeis-developed SmartBalance.

The university has a large enough stake in the profits to warrant legal action when the products of its research are misused.

Last September, Brandeis and GFA Brands filed suit against major cookie companies for using the Brandeisoriginal formula used in SmartBalance.

The income afforded by patents is relatively small, but Rosbash said the effects are not limited to financial capital, but positively affect the entire university. “It’s not specific to Brandeis though,” he said, and that universities as a whole benefited from the relationships and results of their research institutions.

Voting IDs: anti-fraud or anti-democratic?

VOTER ID, from page 1

ments serve as political strategies to target minority groups, the elderly and university students who may not have possession of photo identification, rendering them unable to cast a ballot. Those who do not possess a license, for instance, will need to acquire a state issued form of ID before being able to vote.

As reported in USA Today, Tanya Clay House, public policy director of Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, referenced historical racial turbulence, saying that “like the literacy laws and poll taxes of the past, modern day restrictive voter ID and felony disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect people of color.”

Accompanying the requirement

for photo identification, monetary politics are also involved. The poorest among us may not be able to acquire adequate funding to purchase ID, yet supplying state issued IDs to all those in need would result in the propagation of additional costs for the respective state.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, studies demonstrate “11 percent of voting-age American citizens—and an even greater percentage of African American, low-income and older citizens—do not have current and valid government-issued photo IDs.” Within the last year, increased voter identification legislation has formed a substantial trend, igniting political debates between Democrats and Republicans. According to the National Conference of State

Legislature, 31 states currently require voters to present a form of ID, and of these only 15 impose the need for photo identification. Only three states—Oregon, Vermont and Wyoming—still remain exceptions to this trend. States that do not currently require photo identification permit alternate documents, such as Social Security cards, U.S. passports and birth certificates, to suffice.

Nevertheless, this trend signifies the recent burning debate spurred by voter identification legislation that will only continue to heighten in response to the approaching presidential election.

Bill Flynn ’15 voiced his concerns, saying that “college students and others who may not have an ID may not get the chance to vote and therefore we are limiting the diversity of

Midyear post finally to face vote UNION, from page 1

are the only students unable to elect a representative,” Village Senator Ben Beutel ’12, who supports the measure, said.

“I’ve had the opportunity to meet many midyears and have been very impressed with their sociability. Their lounges are always filled in the evening with people hanging out, something I haven’t seen that regularly on any other floor,” Beutel said, adding, “I have no doubt that whoever they elect will quickly become an active member of the Senate.”

Currently, the Senate has 23 members. A new midyear would be the 24th.

And Rosen said that the amendment will be interpreted to call for an election this year, if and when approval of the position is won. The post would only be available for the spring, when midyears are on campus and after which midyears will vote with the rest of the then-sophomore class.

The Union Constitution can be amended when a change has won a positive vote from the entire student body, and 10 senators are required for this ballot attempt.

Rosen presented it to the full Senate at their meeting Sunday night because “it would be a change to their body, so I offered” it before the full Senate. Constitutionally, with 10 cosigners, the secretary will put it on the ballot.

Both predicted that the change should pass, with Beutel saying that “the Student Union is based on the premise of government for the students, by the students, and no group can be excluded without forsaking our purpose and weakening the ability of the Union to rally and lead the student body.”

our voting population. Everyone should be able to vote and this proposed legislation is just impeding the process.”

Students who possess a college address distinct from their hometown address may further face complications in the approaching 2012 election, as only one address is permitted to be displayed on stateissued ID. The Department of Justice’s recent denial of South Carolina’s petition for pre-clearance of voter identification laws further heightens the controversy surrounding the legislation. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “The D.O.J. found the law discriminatory because the state’s minority voters are 20 percent more likely than white voters to lack a photo ID

that meets the standard for voting.”

Although South Carolina intends to pursue a reversal of the decision, it nonetheless jeopardizes the prospect of pre-clearance of voter ID laws in other states, such as Texas.

These states, which demonstrate a history of discriminatory practices, must obtain pre-clearance from the Department of Justice or the federal district court before being permitted to alter their voting laws.

In accordance with the beliefs of Democratic groups opposed to imposing these regulations, Flynn proclaims, “I don’t believe it should be a requirement for voters to provide an ID, because voting shouldn’t be a time-consuming and tedious process. If our country’s goal is to promote voting and democracy, this is definitely not a good idea.”

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4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

Disparate signals from different leaders

By Jon Ostrowsky and Alex Schneider, Editors

FUNDRAISING, from page 1

to the right place.”

Alumni like Kravec made up less than one-fourth of the university’s cash donations in FY 2011. Friends like Schacknow constituted more than one-third of them. Brandeis development officials and presidents have long been aware that the great challenge of fundraising here is reconciling for the fact that a young school produces young alumni who take time to build their careers and bank accounts.

“Our alumni are our future,” Senior Vice President for Institutional Advancement Nancy Winship said in an interview. “Every university says that but now we’re almost grown up so we say that too.”

While the challenge is not new, the president confronting it is. President Fred Lawrence and former President Jehuda Reinharz each acknowledge the trend and share a common goal of raising money for financial aid. Yet in separate interviews this month, they expressed different attitudes toward fundraising, which was telling of both their personalities and visions for the university’s identity.

Personality impacts fundraising strategy Impacted by the recession and the time it takes to build personal relationships with donors, Lawrence, in his first six months, helped to increase the university’s annual fundraising total to $62 million in FY 2011, nearly one-third less than the $90 million Reinharz delivered in FY 2008.

Reinharz, who listed the top 11 fundraising rules that helped him increase Brandeis’ endowment from $194 million in 1994 to $712 million in 2008, said the job requires strong listening skills, passion and the ability to remain firm rather than compromise over ideas and dollar amounts.

“I wish I could tell you there’s a formula. If I had a formula I would be a billionaire. I could sell it,” Reinharz said in a 90-minute interview Wednesday in his new role as president of the Mandel Foundation and new office at the Tauber Institute on campus.

The cost for creating a chair was set at $3 million and Reinharz never accepted less, explaining that a smaller donation would instead be used for something else.

Reinharz also explained that large gifts must be aligned with the mission and vision of the university, recalling a time when he turned down a $35 million gift for a proposed building on the front lawn.

Citing one of his rules, Reinharz said, “Don’t accept a gift that is damaging to the institution and be able to say no.”

But when it came to recruiting and encouraging donors, he never hesitated, regardless of the time or place.

“Some of my best fundraising was hiking,” Reinharz said. “When you hike with somebody, they’re out of breath so they can’t really say no, so I take it as a yes.”

The former president added that he valued the individual contact with donors and never brought Winship with him to meetings on the West Coast.

“My fundraising, with very few exceptions, was done by myself only,” he said.

“Jehuda is a rockstar in many ways,” said Trustee Stuart Lewtan ’84. “You have that feeling of being with somebody who is really important.”

Lewtan, who majored in the sciences at Brandeis but turned to business for his career, transforming a small start-up planned on his kitchen table into a multi-national corporation called Lewtan Technology, said he always felt a deep personal connection to the university because he met his spouse and best friend here.

But it was through a lecture at the

“ ” Jehuda is a rockstar in many ways.

You have that feeling of being with someone who is really important.

Stuart Lewtan ’84

Fred Lawrence Jehuda Reinharz “We have a set of values “Every institution in the world that spring from the Jewish says they’re excellent. Brandeis is really rye bread. It has a roots, but as I always like different taste. It is obviously to put it, these are roots the fact that it was created that don’t narrow us, they by the American Jewish broaden us.” community.”

International Business School that enabled Lewtan to teach the lessons of his career that he became reengaged. His support for the school is rooted in his experience here but strengthened through personal relationships with Reinharz and Lawrence.

Winship said that Lawrence’s greatest strength is the personal connection supporters find with him.

“So much of it is social skills … that people want you at their dinner party,” she said. “He really connects in a way that many people cannot do.”

As Schacknow said about Lawrence, “He and his family just seem to be Brandeis people.”

Much of Reinharz’s success at fundraising came from relationships he built during his 16 years here.

Once the personal connection was there, he was comfortable asking for money from people who already understood his goals and vision.

Lawrence acknowledged that those relationships come with time.

“A lot of it is about relationships, relationships you build, and relationships I can continue to work on,”

The Reinharz rules of fundraising

Free advicE

In an interview with The Hoot, former President Jehuda Reinharz shared best practices he found useful while fundraising for Brandeis. He emphasized that these 11 rules are only suggestions, however: “I wish I could tell you there’s a formula.

If I had a formula I would be a billionaire. I could sell it.”

Incidentally, Reinharz said that while president he received constant feedback­­—“free advice”—from the community on how to run Brandeis.

Here, we present his return of the favor, free fundraising advice:

1 2 3 4 5

LIKE PEOPLE “The number one rule for fundraising is you have to like people.”

DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY “You have to always remember you’re not raising money for yourself.”

REMEMBER WHY “You have to be able to convince yourself that what you’re raising money for is worthwhile.”

AN ART, NOT A SCIENCE “Fundraising is an art, not a science” Sometimes the best way “is not asking.”

PEOPLE GIVE TO PEOPLE “People give to people. They don’t necessarily give to institutions.” You have to “establish a relationship.”

Lawrence said in a 20-minute interview in his office this month. “At the end of the day, people have to buy into your vision, want to be part of supporting that, and they also have to feel that you deeply believe it.”

Kravec, drawing on his background in marketing, said that successful fundraising requires listening to the concerns of donors without changing the vision or values that the school supports.

“I think being sensitive to donors is important. I don’t think you can change the character of the university for its donors,” Kravec said.

“Maybe you have to hit more people.

We have a great product. You’ve got stuff to sell. You’ve got a Jewishsponsored university.”

An identity paves way for fundraising But making that sales pitch requires knowing precisely for what Brandeis stands, and where in relation to its core constituencies.

“I always think of it as the first Jewish-sponsored school,” Schacknow said, reflecting on her support

6 7 8 9 10 11

for Brandeis.

Brandeis’ identity as a Jewish school, non-sectarian or not, has motivated outside donors since the university’s inception. For such a young school, the support has been crucial: Where other universities also benefit from mature endowments and alumni giving, Brandeis has relied on core support from donors invested in the university’s mission.

Nevertheless, the university’s image as a Jewish school has remained a point of tension. From the beginning, the question has been whether Brandeis was “too Jewish or not Jewish enough,” Reinharz explained.

“That [debate] is not going to go away.”

Through his tenure, Reinharz continually and clearly embraced Brandeis’ connection to the American Jewish community. In comparison, Lawrence has placed less of an emphasis on that connection.

Reinharz recognized that the debate could have alienated donors.

“You have to be very clear what you stand for,” he said. Then, donors will say “now I understand [that mission,

DON’T BE AFRAID “You have to be passionate about what you’re raising money for.”

RESEARCH “You have to know what somebody really cares about.”

BE READY TO WALK AWAY “Don’t accept a gift that is damaging to the institution and be able to say no.”

NEVER COMPROMISE “I never compromised on what it would cost to create a chair.”

LISTEN CAREFULLY “One of the problems with fundraisers is they think you have to talk all the time. You don’t. You have to listen.”

HAVE AN OUTSIDE INTEREST “It saves you a lot of money in psychiatric work if you write in your diary. It’s all off your mind and you sleep like a baby.”

January 27, 2012

The Brandeis Hoot

NEWS

5

Jewish identity at heart of Brandeis fundraising strategy and] I want to be a part of it.”

For years, then, Reinharz would liken Brandeis to rye bread in a world of white bread universities.

Fitting given the prominence of rye bread in Jewish-American cuisine, Reinharz saw parallels between the distinctive tastes of both Brandeis and rye bread.

Reinharz explained that the university’s commitment to the American Jewish community is what separates it from peer institutions.

“Every institution in the world says that they’re excellent. Brandeis is really rye bread. It has a different taste,” Reinharz said. “It is obviously the fact that it was created by the American Jewish community.”

“In the case of Brandeis you’ve got the entire Jewish world who thinks that they know how to run the university better than you do,” Reinharz said. “One of the things you have to realize early on is that you’re not going to be able to satisfy everyone to the full extent.”

When starting as president, his was a much-needed vision. In 1995, alumni giving represented a small fraction of annual giving, at $3.2 million of $24 million in cash fundraising. Much of the rest would come from friends of the university. And many of them have historically been Jewish.

Today, donations from friends are no less important. But in his first year as president, Lawrence has placed less emphasis on the historic connection to the Jewish community of the school than Reinharz did.

Reinharz spoke often of the four pillars that support Brandeis: Jewish sponsorship, social justice, excellence and pluralism. The four pillars touted by Reinharz, and each still represented by a pillow resting atop his bookcase, have been replaced on the university’s website.

In Lawrence’s inauguration speech, he instead spoke of three rocks: dedication to non-discrimination; commitment to the liberal arts and sciences; and community and social justice.

The difference may seem trivial and simply a change in communication strategy, but it reflects the broader image that Brandeis seeks to portray.

While speaking with The Hoot, Lawrence strongly disagreed that the university could not be diverse and Jewish at the same time—though he did not employ bread in making the case.

“We have a set of values that spring from the Jewish roots, but as I always like to put it, these are roots that don’t narrow us, they broaden us,” he said.

He accepted that social justice has a “special resonance with the notion of Tikkun Olam”—the Jewish imperative of repairing the world. But in discussions of Brandeis’ identity, Lawrence is also quick to emphasize Brandeis’ diversity when mentioning its Jewish roots. “The school that I inherit has got a strong set of traditions but also has got an extraordinary diversity,” he said. “I think both of them are great strengths of ours.”

“In terms of my own background, this is the world in which I live,” he explained. “I am, as everyone around here knows, a practicing Jew. … At the same time, my career comes out of the legal world,” including a background “filled with issues of diversity.”

Lawrence was particularly adamant in underscoring the consistency in his views: “I never view these as pulling in different directions …

Each of us comes from a particular place, but we bring it to the general community. I think that’s one of the strengths of this place.”

By the numbers DONOR PROFILE 35.5% • Friends 26.7% • Corporations and Foundations 23.4% • Alumni 14.5% • Parents

WHAT THEY GIVE 49% • Other (includes unrestricted gifts) 22% • Capital projects 18% • Scholarships (undergraduates) 9% • Endowed chairs (faculty) 2% • Fellowships (graduate students) Reinharz embraced diversity too.

Yet he is more comfortable talking about the school’s vision simply as one tied to the Jewish community.

He feels less compelled to finish every thought about the strength of the Jewish community with sentences also emphasizing a commitment to diversity.

To Reinharz, diversity is a given here and nearly every school in the nation embraces it today. Jewish roots are what separate Brandeis from its peers.

For many donors, some of whom have never even set foot on Brandeis’ campus, the school’s Jewish identity trumps all else.

To Schacknow, certainly, who never attended Brandeis but nonetheless gives generously, Brandeis as a Jewish institution has real significance.

Today, she tells stories of Jewish friends who sought higher education in Scotland, having been unable to gain acceptance to U.S. schools in the 1940s.

Lawrence would not attribute Brandeis’ Jewish identity as driving support from friends like Schacknow. But he acknowledged Brandeis’ donors are unique in higher education philanthropy.

To some degree, the Jewish connection is merged with alumni support. Like friends, there are also many alumni who continue to support the school because of its Jewish roots. Yet the need to engage alumni more as friends as the school ages is clear.

In 1975, alumni provided 1.3 percent of overall giving. By 2011, that number had reached 23.4 percent.

The rise in alumni giving has by no means occurred overnight. But as alumni have come of age, the pressure has waned to rely solely on friends for support.

Reinharz said that under his administration, the university received its first seven-figure alumni gift. The highest gift from an alum during his tenure was $16.5 million.

In FY 2011, the university raised $62 million: 23.4 percent came from alumni, 26.7 percent from corporations and foundations, 14.5 percent from parents and 35.5 percent from friends. Brandeis is ranked in the top 10 percent of national universities for alumni giving participation.

“I’d like to see more alumni giving,” Kravec said. “You’ve got to have people talking to the alumni. It’s harder to say no the person in front of you.”

To target young alumni who graduated between 2002 and 2011, the university recently launched a new initiative called Brandeisians Of the Last Decade (BOLD).

The idea is that if Brandeis wants alumni to donate six- and sevenfigure gifts in their 40s, the development office needs to engage them immediately, from the time they are students, and continue building that relationship in the early years after they graduate. For alumni in their 40s, who are busy balancing careers with family life, it can be difficult to recruit them in fundraising efforts if they have not been significantly engaged since graduation.

Lawrence, who has worked to engage alumni and friends at roll-out events across the country this past year, recognized the unique source of financial support Brandeis receives.

“To have wide-based, committed, generous people who didn’t go here [is an] amazing attribute,” Lawrence said. “They are deeply connected with the place. It’s a great asset.”

However differently Lawrence and Reinharz may portray and discuss

the school’s Jewish identity, they each share a common goal and top priority of raising funds for student financial aid.

Reinharz raised $1.2 billion in his tenure as president and despite the buildings that transformed the campus, he said that the majority of money went to financial aid.

“Student aid was always the number one priority,” Reinharz said, explaining that one of his main goals was to ensure any student enrolled at Brandeis would not be forced to leave because they could not fund their education.

Lawrence has reiterated that stance that financial aid is the top priority of his presidency.

Kravec explained that donors can be just as encouraged to donate to financial aid than to buildings, explaining, “The biggest donor could be the Smith Scholarship Fund. That lives on forever.”

The Rose legacy The same boldness to resist compromise on values or core ideas that Reinharz used to transform Brandeis and its identity led to a crisis when the board of trustees announced its decision to sell paintings from The Rose Art Museum in 2009.

While that decision alone did not directly impact fundraising, it created instant name-recognition, most of it negative for Brandeis in the media.

Reinharz acknowledged that whatever the error in communication may have been at the time, he was president, so he accepts responsibility for the decision and process by which the university explained it to the community.

“The way he did it was horrible.

He’s going to take the pictures and

“ ” At the end of the day, people have to buy into your vision.

President Fred Lawrence

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

sell them? Number one they didn’t belong to him and the school,” Schacknow said.

What Reinharz does not regret is the principle that guided such a decision. It is the same belief that drove his fundraising campaigns—poor students should not be excluded or forced to leave Brandeis. In this case, however, Reinharz was thinking about the economic security of the university’s staff, not just its students.

Reinharz explained that as the school was facing the decision to lay off workers, it was evaluating not tenured faculty positions, but employees who make less than $50,000 a year.

Imagine arriving home at the end of the day and saying to your spouse, Reinharz explained, “I was fired today but it was a good day for Brandeis. Not a single painting was sold.”

For whatever anger, controversy and debate The Rose provoked, the former president did not hesitate to say that it was most important for leaders to stand firm in their beliefs.

“It’s not possible to be in this position without knowing what you stand for,” Reinharz said.

After acknowledging the controversy he provoked over The Rose, Reinharz said that he made decisions in the best interest of Brandeis and its future development.

“I raised more money for the Louis Foster Wing than all my predecessors put together. I raised more money for the university than all my predecessors combined,” he added.

Reinharz’s legacy of raising $1.2 billion for Brandeis is tainted with the community uproar and art world backlash he provoked at the end of his presidency.

Reinharz’s worst mistake was the decision to propose selling artwork.

Lawrence’s greatest accomplishment was his ability to settle the lawsuit that his predecessor provoked.

At a week-long celebration for the renovations and reopening of The Rose last October, Lawrence praised the new era for the museum and for Brandeis.

He did not mention the $1.5 million Reinharz, in an attempt to rehabilitate his image, told The Hoot he raised for those renovations.

“I care first and foremost about this university. For me this was not a personal issue,” Reinharz said. “I know what I’ve done for this university.”

ImpressiOns

6 The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

The Katzwer’s Out of the Bag

Can schools police our Internet activity?

By Yael Katzwer Editor

How much power does a school really have over what you do at home?

Should a school be allowed to police your online activity or is doing so an impingement on your right to free speech? Schools have been struggling with these questions for years, since even before the Internet.

One school recently has been asked these questions and it has answered that, yes, a school has the right to punish students for extracurricular activities done outside of school. Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., recently expelled their four-star cornerback, Yuri Wright, for posting sexually graphic and racist tweets. Wright is the 40th-ranked player on the ESPNU 150 and was being scouted by many top university football teams.

The high school senior’s tweets and resultant expulsion caused some of the schools, including the University of Michigan, to drop him like a particularly nasty hot potato.

A lot of people are criticizing Don Bosco for expelling Wright when his online activity has nothing to do with his academics or his school extracurricular activities. These people argue that a few inappropriate tweets should not ruin this boy’s promising future.

I completely disagree. Yuri Wright has no one to blame but himself. How often do kids need to be told to be careful about what they post online before the message will sink in. It is not as if the expulsion came out of left field either. Wright was warned by his coach to stop posting such vitriolic content to his Twitter because it reflected poorly on both Wright and the school.

Additionally, Don Bosco Prep is a Catholic high school; having attended the school for more than three years already, Wright should have

Engrossing

known that the school’s administration would not respond favorably to his sexually explicit tweets about being sexually frustrated and needing to get some action.

And, before I go any further, I want you to know that if you are perusing this column in the hopes of reading Wright’s actual tweets, you will be disappointed. I will not reprint that corrosive trash that Wright posted for the entire world to see. The content of his posts was offensive and the words used were foul. If you really need to know what he wrote, you can just Google “Yuri Wright tweets”; that’s what I did.

After ignoring the school’s warnings and continuing to post these messages, Wright showed a ridiculous disregard for his own well-being.

He knew what the consequences would be and he did not care. So why is everyone pitying him and saying the school acted too harshly?

Had the school not followed through on its threat and expelled Wright, the administration would be seen as impotent, both by Wright, who would have undoubtedly continued to post more and more hateful comments, and by the rest of the student population, who would have lost all respect for their educators and would have followed in Wright’s unacceptable footsteps.

High schools are tasked with educating and protecting teenagers, and that protection needs to be from the dangers of the world as the well as from the students themselves. Teenagers are notoriously impetuous, often acting before thinking as they struggle with the complex mix of emotions that occurs as one matures.

This is why high schools come equipped with administrators, teachers, counselors and, in Wright’s case, coaches. These people strive to educate and guide their young charges, See TWEET, page 9

graphic by diane somlo/the hoot

What SOPA says about society

By Morgan Gross Editor

photo from internet source

If you have been on Facebook at any point in the recent past, you probably noticed the hundreds of statuses, posted links and online petitions surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

My knowledge of this piece of legislation was minimal, until the first day of classes, when I found myself sitting in Gerstenzang 123 (the scariest classroom at Brandeis) for the first day of Internet and Society, a computer science class that I only signed up for so that I wouldn’t have to take astronomy.

Thanks to the university’s insistence that I take a natural science class before I graduate, SOPA is a topic to which I’ve given a great deal of thought, in the past few weeks.

While I’m still not sure how this class counts as a natural science elective, I am sure that this class’ discussion of SOPA has helped me to understand SOPA’s importance and to understand that SOPA isn’t just a piece of legislation, it is a turning point at which society will define how we think about and interact with technology.

To understand this, you will have to endure my (somewhat lacking) expla-

nation of why this issue is not just one of legislation, but culture.

Historically, the Internet is set up as something called an End to End network.

In this type of network, the computers at the ends of the network— the ones hosting and accessing it— are distinguished from the computers within the network.

Because applications run on computers at the edge of the network, in this type of system innovators only have to connect computers to the network to let apps run. Because the design of the network is not optimized for any particular application, it is open to innovation, unimaginable to its creators. Because the network owner can’t discriminate against some packets while favoring others, the network can’t discriminate against new innovation From this framework, the incredible amount of inventiveness and ingenuity that we saw in the early days of Internet development were possible. Because there was no centralized control in the middle of the Internet network, individuals were able to access the network and build anything upon it!

Unfortunately, this new ground for creation and innovation also bred a See SOPA, page 8

January 27, 2012

IMPRESSIONS 7

The Brandeis Hoot

Altered Consciousness

Making sense of the 1 percent

By Rick Alterbaum Columnist

By now, news of the Occupy movement has left the headlines and most of its encampments have been cleared out. What I view as the movement’s clearest impact was its introduction of the 99 percent versus 1 percent dichotomy to our political discourse.

Although it was difficult to decipher a clear message from the somewhat inchoate occupiers, it seems to me that the 99-1 contrast refers to the following: There has been a large increase in income inequality in America. At the top of the income pyramid are, for all intents and purposes, selfish, exploitative capitalists and plutocrats that caused the recession and are corrupting the economic and political system in the United States.

They stand in contrast to the generally hard-working, decent and honest folks in the middle and lower classes.

Since the Occupy movement ended (or at least came to a halt), this theme of inequality has become a staple of the debate in Washington, D.C. Supposedly the Democrats and President Obama are in agreement with it and hope to use such a message to build support in their efforts to soak the rich. In contrast, the evil Republicans—particularly one prominent former Massachusetts governor— represent the wicked one percenters.

I find the 99-1 contrast to be problematic.

First, it implies that wealth is essentially zero-sum, that there is a limited amount of financial resources available in our country. To the occupiers, it seems that the members of the 1 percent are only able to make their fortunes at the expense of everyone else. Economic growth, however, betters opportunities for people of all income levels and what is one person’s gain is not necessarily another person’s loss.

Instead, I would argue that, when Wall Street—which emblemizes the 1 percent group—does well and is making profits, everyone ultimately benefits. A dynamic and thriving economy requires a healthy and robust financial sector and banking system. Very simply, businesses require easy access to credit and need to raise capital to hire people and create jobs, among other things. This is not to say that the banks do not produce excesses, or that they should not be regulated or taxed. The occupiers and their supporters, however, should keep these basic facts in mind instead of incessantly demonizing financial institu-

tions.

Second, the 99-1 dichotomy is divisive. One would infer from it that someone’s level of income is also indicative of his or her character, morals and patriotism. People who have worked hard all their lives to become financially successful are suddenly regarded as greedy and cruel. Americans become divided along class lines and are judged by their wealth instead of who they are as individuals. I don’t believe the United States, which is unique in part due to a lack of explicit class consciousness, would be better off with this kind of mentality being prevalent among its citizens.

The final implication of the 99-1 contrast is that wealth needs to be evenly distributed among all citizens and that economic policies should be directed toward guaranteeing an

equality of income, in which everyone earns closer to the same amount of money. I don’t necessarily think that a modestly progressive income tax, such as the one we have now, is an awful thing. But in extremis, heavy government intervention to produce this type of equality would generate incentives that ultimately make everyone worse off, to which anyone who has lived in a communist society can attest. Instead, equality of opportunity, in which everyone has access to the same resources, such as education, that can lead them to become successful, is a more sensible goal.

I would advocate then that we center our political discourse on ways to enhance opportunities for everyone, despite their income levels, and not vilify people who do manage to reach the top of the income ladder.

First-year freakout!

Dear Leah and Morgan, I am a second-semester first-year and I have no idea what I am going to study at Brandeis.

This past fall, I took my UWS and three other classes that interested me.

I intentionally didn’t focus my classes in any one area, hoping that studying a variety of things would help me to decide what I am passionate about.

Unfortunately, my plan worked.

My four classes in the fall definitely helped me to figure out what I’m interested in—they were all awesome!

After falling in love with so many topics, I can’t bring myself to settle upon one subject (or even three) on which to focus.

I am currently enrolled in five classes this semester— one for each of the majors and minors that I plan to pursue.

I am afraid that if I take five classes this semester, the work will be too much. I don’t, however, want to fall behind on any of my concentrations—or miss out on any of the cool stuff that I could be learning.

I just feel like I have way too many interests and no way of focusing them into anything conclusive.

Before you cut me off with reassurances that I don’t need to worry about it now and promises that I have plenty of time to decide, please understand that I have heard it before. While I understand that I have my entire college career in front of me, I want to have this figured out now!

Please respond quickly, as I would like to have all of my major and minor declaration forms in by the end of this week.

-Frantic First-year Dear Frantic, Before you read any of our expert advice about class planning and all of that good stuff, it is important that you do one thing: TAKE A DEEP BREATH. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of deciding and declaring majors and minors. Unfortunately, this excitement usually turns into stress.

Luckily for you, we have come up with a few strategies to stay cool and stress-free in the future!

Talk to someone at Academic Services While we can see that this column is your primary source of all life advising, it’s important to remember that there is a whole office on campus, filled with people who answer questions like yours for a living.

Head over to the Academic Services office (130 Usdan) on any weekday morning before class. There, you can sign up for a drop-in appointment (1 to 5 p.m. on weekdays) with any of the advisers.

The Academic Services staff will answer your questions about requirements, cross-listing, major selection and pretty much everything else about academic life at Brandeis.

They are friendly, informed and will ultimately help you to ...

graphic by linjie xu/the hoot

Keep perspective!

It is definitely important to be focused and organized when choosing your classes for each semester. Unfortunately, this can (and often does) go too far.

Obsessing over what classes to take and what they count for, can take away from your focus on the classes themselves.

You will never know what you want to study if you devote lecture time to class searching and schedule perfecting.

You could probably figure out how successfully to complete three majors, five internships and an honors thesis by taking six classes at a time for seven consecutive semesters and only sleeping on Wednesdays. You probably won’t realize, however, that you’re sitting in a classroom with the adviser of one of your (many) majors or hearing the lecture introducing the topic of your thesis.

Chill out, Hermione. Time turners haven’t been invented yet and if you don’t take a breather, you will end up in the hospital wing!

We know that you don’t want to be told that you have your entire college career to figure out your majors and minors, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.

Peace, love and good advice!

Leah and Morgan Have questions that you want answered by the lovely ladies of The Hoot? Submit your questions to advice@ thebrandeishoot.com or at formspring.me/leahandmorgan!

—Leah Finkelman ’13, Production Editor, and Morgan Gross ’14, Impressions Editor. We’re so excited to hear your questions!

8 IMPRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

A new way of thinking about the new year

By Betty Revah Staff

graphic by rachel weissman/the hoot

Body modification: a piercing question

Thinking before tweeting TWEET, from page 6

advising them on the shoulds and should-nots of adult life.

Unfortunately, teachers are not all-powerful and cannot simply make something happen by wishing it. They need cooperation. Wright’s teachers tried to instill in him a healthy perspective on Internet accountability but he refused to heed their warnings. There is only so much any one person can do when they are being ignored.

Expulsion was Don Bosco Prep’s only remaining option.

Teenagers, and everyone else for that matter, need to be aware that the things they do on the Internet will always be there and there will be consequences.

Of course, those consequences may manifest years after the initial infraction, when the person is applying for college, or a job, or running for political office.

You never know where life is going to take you and that is why you need to take the time to think before you click “post.”

Before you post anything, stop and ask yourself, “Will there ever be a time in my life when

I won’t want this photo or message or whatever else to be associated with me? Can this ever harm me?”

If the answer is not an immediate “no,” you probably should not click “post.”

Since many of these consequences come much later in life, Don Bosco Prep needed to show Wright some immediate consequences.

He needed to know that his Internet activity is not confined to the Internet and that it does have bearing on the real world.

Now, all the people who are bemoaning Wright’s ruined future clearly did not hear the news that Wright will be playing football for the University of Colorado Buffaloes next year.

Hopefully this experience will have taught Wright his lesson. If not, I suppose we’ll be seeing some articles in four years about how the NFL just drafted the new Ben Roethlisberger.

But you can be more than a name synonymous with imprudent Internet posts, Yuri; you can be a great athlete and a great person because you are still young and have the ability to learn from your mistakes.

The last 10 seconds of New Year’s Eve are no joke for me.

As I hear the crowd excitedly counting down, I think hard about the mistakes I made during the year, about the things that I could have changed and about the things I wish I had done differently. During these 10 seconds I usually come up with 12 resolutions—one for each month of the year. Unfortunately, every year the same thing happens: I dream big, and by big I mean way too big. I usually come up with ridiculous resolutions and then get really upset when I realize that I can’t live up to them.

Now that January is almost over and I have already failed to accomplish the first resolution on my list, I’m realizing that, while the new year should be a time to make changes, these don’t have to be drastic.

In fact, there shouldn’t be too many changes. Having a few small resolutions is more than enough.

I also realized that the last 10 seconds of the year are not the only opportunity to consider making changes; resolutions can be made at any moment. If we stop and think about it for a second, most of us spend more time thinking about our resolutions than actually fulfilling them. Some people I know even decorate their lists—with sparkly hearts and all— only to throw them away later. These are the kinds of people who know exactly what they should change and how they should do it, yet, no matter their level of motivation or introspection, these changes never seem to happen. On the other hand, I also know people who say they don’t believe in the power of the new year or in resolutions; for them, there’s nothing special to which to look forward.

While I do not agree with the people that devote the end of the year to making resolutions, I also do not agree with people that expect nothing. I mean, we celebrate the new year for a reason.

In my opinion, the new year shouldn’t be a time to make a million resolutions (even though sometimes that is exactly what I do), but it also shouldn’t be meaningless. New Year’s Eve is all about celebrating not only the beginning of a new year filled with hopes and opportunities, but also the end to a year that—even if it wasn’t good—is at least over. As a matter of fact, the more difficult the year, the more I learn about myself and the better the following year seems to be. As they say, it has to get worse before it gets better, and New Year’s Eve is exactly the time to appreciate how much we have learned and how we can be better in the future.

As much as I believe that some years are meant to be good and others are mean to be bad, I also believe that the new year shouldn’t really be about hoping: It should be about doing. It shouldn’t be about believing in destiny and trusting that everything is going to be okay, but about making sure that everything does turn out OK. The new year shouldn’t be about having faith in a list of resolutions; it should be about having faith in ourselves. I believe that we each make our own destiny and although I really think that sometimes there are things that are meant to happen, this doesn’t mean that we each don’t have the power to change our future. Every year is a new chance to be different, to be better, brighter, nicer; to go bravely after the things we want; to honor the past but welcome the future; to rise when we fall and to keep in mind that we can always change, whether it’s New Year’s Eve or not.

By Dana Trismen Staff

Piercings are a curious phenomenon. Though they can exist for religious or spiritual reasons, some people use them for more controversial purposes, like rebelling against one’s culture (or especially one’s parents).

The value of piercings seems to be in the eye of the beholder: My grandmother hates my cartilage piercing, yet I think it is one of the cutest things about me.

In the early 20th century, piercings in any body part were uncommon, at least in the United States. Piercings eventually became popular partly due to the gay rights and punk movements. Piercings of the lips, navels, noses and eyebrows did not become common until the 1990s. Navel piercings, for instance, became desirable after music idols began sporting them in music videos on MTV. Today, approximately 10 percent of people have body piercings in sites other than the earlobe, with women aged 16-24 making up 46 percent of that demographic.

What makes piercings such an interesting topic is the fact that every person has differing views about them. I have friends who are almost addicted to piercings; once they get one, they cannot wait to get another.

I also know people who are either afraid to get them or think they somehow maul the body.

The most common reason people cite for getting piercings is to “express

their individuality.” I believe this is a right that all people should have.

People should not judge others on their piercings or how they look with them. Though some piercings have sexual connotations (think navel and nipple piercings) it is possible that the person got the piercing for their own benefit and for personal reasons.

Another interesting thing about piercings is the communal aspect of them. Earlier in the year, my friends and I all got ear piercings together. It seems strange that shoving a needle through your ear could become a bonding activity, but the fact remains that I do think it brought my friends and me closer together. In this aspect it is almost like the ritual of “blood sisters,” that strange, cult-like event in which “sisters” pierce their fingers with a needle and smash them together so that their blood mingles and therefore creates a pact. In this

same way, going through a slightly painful experience and coming out on the other side with identical piercings can form a connection.

One point of contention is that some people, especially teenagers, try to pierce themselves without professional help. No matter how much you want to rebel, piercing yourself is not the way to do it. Piercings require precision, and if done incorrectly can cause a lot of damage. Even angsty adolescents should realize that piercing is something that should be done by a professional.

Like it or not, piercings are very much part of the culture in which we live. Whether it is for artistic expression, to show individuality or even for sexual purposes, others should not judge piercing choices. It is a very personal choice just like the clothes we wear and, despite the controversy, all choices should be respected.

photo from internet source

January 27, 2012

IMPRESSIONS 9

The Brandeis Hoot

Tales from the Crypt: Shapiro Hall

By Zachary Romano Special to the Hoot

When my fellow Brandeisians ask me where I live on campus, my answer of Shapiro Hall usually results in a sympathetic “I am so sorry.”

Known as a “character-building dorm” by many of its former inhabitants, Shapiro Hall is certainly the decaying cornerstone of Brandeis University. How can one not develop character in an environment that demands such a high degree of tolerance? This is not even referring to the usual gripes of its older, “asylumesque” aesthetics or the mice that also populate the building—there are problems that are often even worse than that.

Once upon a weekend, somebody threw up in the hallway of Shapiro 1B. Although not that uncommon for a group of college students, the true disgusting nature of this event came later, with the realization that I had coexisted with this digestive excretion for nearly four days. Even after a plea to the custodial staff, residents had to attempt to avoid the mess until something was done. To this day, the two-foot-wide spot of former wretchedness remains, which serves as a reminder of Shapiro’s history of uncleanliness.

The fact that the renovations for Shapiro Hall have been neglected for so long is quite unfortunate, especially for those who end up living

there. Several fellow residents say that their older family members and friends also lived in Shapiro, going so far as to say that it has always been low in quality. Part of me thinks everyday how the walls, carpets and bathrooms have experienced a full history of use by equally disgruntled residents. At this point, no matter how dilligently the cleaning staff works, they cannot wash away the deeply embedded filth of old age.

From my experience, Shapiro seems to be one of the most active dorms on campus. Countless times I have been kicked out of our only hall lounge by clubs that have rented out the space. Now I understand that space can be limited on such an active college campus, but why must my place of residence be usurped by arbitrary students who will end up leaving the space worse-off and will lack incentive to maintain that space? Anybody who has taken Introduction to Economics knows that this is a classic example of the Tragedy of the Commons. Furthermore, Shapiro houses a study room in the basement for Jewish students to utilize the extensive collection of Hebrew texts, but also many communal events are held there. This adds to the amount of strangers constantly trafficking through Shapiro.

One of the key problems in Shapiro is the water temperature that fluctuates to the extremes. Residents definitely go through a ritual burn-

New versus old economy: values in question SOPA, from page 6

whole bunch of copyright infringement and piracy. The illegal transferring of media and other copyrighted materials dug deeply into the profits of corporations worldwide, prompting their overwhelming support of legislation to prohibit this type of transferring.

Enter SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill that was introduced to the House of Representatives by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (RTexas) in October 2011. The officially written goal of the bill is “to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”

Those supporting this legislation hope to achieve their stated goals, through the expansion of U.S. law enforcement protocol surrounding the online trafficking of copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods, imposing a maximum fiveyear penalty.

Under stricter legislation, networks will be re-architected in the hopes of stemming the piracy that prompted the re-evaluation of current legislation.

While tighter restrictions can lead to more regulate-able economic gains and less proliferation of prohibitive material, it will also make networks more difficult and more expensive to control.

More importantly, the restriction of network access will curb the innovation that has been so important to the American economy in the recent past

and so important to the progress of technology today.

SOPA boils down to a question of America’s “new economy”—technology—in contention with its “old economy”—movie studios, publishing houses and music producers.

A recent New York Times article explained that “for at least four years, Hollywood studios, recording industries and major publishing houses have pressed Congress to act against offshore Web sites that have been giving away U.S. movies, music and books as fast as the artists can make them.”

However, these former powerhouses are no longer a dominating influence on legislation. The article explains that “Google, Facebook and Twitter have political muscle of their own, with in-house lobbying shops and trade associations just like traditional media’s” and “for all the campaign contributions, Washington parties and high-priced lobbyists the old economy could muster, nothing could compare to the tentacles the new economy can reach into Americans’ everyday lives through sites like Wikipedia.”

As the title of the article—“In Fight Over Piracy Bills, New Economy Rises Against Old”—hints, the technology industry seems to be edging out more time-honored and traditional strongholds of the old economy. One by one, legislators are pulling their support from SOPA, and the likelihood of its passing grows less and less likely.

As the two powerhouses continue to clash, it is important to keep a perspective and understand that SOPA is not just an issue of legality, but societal value.

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

ing and cooling process with no water pressure of which to speak. I have lost count of how many times I have sustained actual burns from the changing water temperatures. When I emerge from the shower most days, it looks as if I have been dipped into acid, but this has simply become a way of life for most of us.

Despite everything, the only thing keeping me from living on my friend’s air mattress is the group of people in my building. We all have a locked-in community of fellow survivors of this dorm, who also happen to be some of the most lively people on this campus. If it were not for our collective outlook and demeanor,

our first-year experience would be severely lacking in Shapiro Hall. I suppose we all wish we were guaranteed a good number in the upcoming housing lottery as compensation for the struggles that we have endured.

Yet, we all are assuming and hoping that no other housing option on campus is as bad as Shapiro Hall.

A Goodman is Hard to Find

Adjusting focus

By Jeremy Goodman Columnist

Last weekend was different.

It wasn’t different because of the snow, which doesn’t seem to happen anymore, and it wasn’t because it was the first weekend back from vacation.

It was different because my friend from home came to visit. Upon her visit I began to reflect upon who I am today compared to who I was before college, back at home. I also thought about Brandeis, its values, place and community.

I came to Brandeis excited and eager to break away from my family, community and childhood attachments. And that’s what I did—I do feel that I am completely separated from my home, family and any kind of life I used to have before coming to college. It goes without saying that the physical location does in fact put me very far from home, as I am from California. Being here in Waltham, on my own—or at least more so than I was in high school—I feel responsible, empowered, and most of all free.

Free to be whomever, do whatever and not feel any pressure or burden to commit to who I was or what I was doing before. Coming to Brandeis was just as I had hoped, it was a new beginning, a fresh start to do what I wanted and continue in developing into the person I hope to become.

Back to the story—my friend came to visit me last weekend from school in Amherst, Mass. We had kept in touch and continued to see each other during school breaks, mostly because we did have the potential of seeing each other on the East Coast at school, but all in all I would consider her a good friend.

This was the first time anyone from my high school had seen me at college. I had to explain everything to her, as I would have to do with anyone visiting. I showed her my sweet pad in East, The Rose and the normal Brandeis landmarks like Sherman on

photo from internet source

a Saturday morning. She spent the weekend with me and my friends doing everything we do together.

With her watching and engaging in my usual activities and interactions, I began to see Brandeis from the perspective of a non-Brandeis student.

Even though she attends another very small liberal-arts school on the East Coast, she noticed things and asked questions that I had never really pondered before. Through her questions and observations I started to think differently about Brandeis.

Although this community is somewhat privileged, with easily accessible resources, available classes, and a large student activities budget, I believe that the people here truly care about others, the environment and the greater good of people around the world. I know that deviations do exist. There are people here who unfortunately don’t acknowledge the poverty, pain and suffering around the world, within our country and within

our community. But I know that the majority of students here have a wide perspective beyond themselves and where they are here and now, and are aware of things outside of our small community, no matter how isolated and altered this campus-wide bubble may feel. How else could there be more than 270 clubs on campus, a majority of students with multiple majors and minors, and the Waltham Group acting as the largest student organization on campus, if there weren’t people here who feel they can make a difference and do matter?

I think as students here at Brandeis we forget to take a moment to acknowledge where we are and the type of people with whom we are surrounded. We have all deliberately chosen to live in this intentional community together. And together we can continue to make this the awesome place we are proud to show to our visiting friends, supporting family and the world.

10 The Brandeis Hoot

VIEWS OF THE WEEK

January 27, 2012

Recruiting new members at the Winter Involvement Fair

photos by ingrid schulte/the hoot

new semester, new members (clockwise from top left) Mailinh Phan-Nguyen ’13 promotes Student Events with a life-sized cut out of Justin Bieber on Jan. 22 in the Shapiro Campus Center at the Winter Involvement Fair. Emily

Krainer ’12 talks to James Chin ’14 about the Foundation for International Medical Relief for Children. Lauren Grewal ’13 and Leah Staffin ’15 encourage students to join SPECTRUM, a disability awareness group on campus. A student signs up to receive more information about a group. Tables of students line the atrium as clubs reach out to new members.

January 27, 2012

FEATURES

The Brandeis Hoot 11

ENVS professor acquires local farm

By Anita Palmer, Staff

Brian Donahue, associate professor of American environmental studies, recently bought a 170-acre farm in Gill, Massachusetts. After three decades working on a community farm in Weston and teaching students about landscape and conservation, his longterm goal has finally been realized.

Presently on sabbatical, Donahue is currently completing a study of eastern woodlands, in addition to building a house on the property and collaborating on a vision for sustainable food production in New England.

His vision, titled “New England Good Food Vision 2060,” claims that New England could supply most of its own vegetables and beef, in addition to a substantial amount of its fruit and dairy products. This result would be contingent on conservation of 50 percent of southern New England in sustainable harvested “working” forest.

“It’s a balancing act,” Donahue told NECN. “I combine my teaching, my research and the farming I do as much as I can. It sort of lends something extra to each of them.”

Currently, an estimated two million acres are devoted to cultivation, whereas 80 percent of New England’s acreage is forested. If the overwhelming majority was decreased to 70 percent, “that would still allow farmland to reexpand to six million acres,” Donahue said, which would “provide an attractive set of interwoven social and ecological benefits.”

With the proposed threefold increase in land dedicated to agriculture, a rise in the growth of local food would follow and more importantly “we need to pay the full environmental and social costs of producing them sustain-

ably and bringing them here,” Donahue said in a phone interview. “We do not need to completely abandon foods from around the world.”

While Donahue is currently working on establishing his farm, he hopes to further integrate his fieldwork into his courses taught at Brandeis. “We will certainly spend a night or two [at the farm] as part of the field semester,” Donahue added, “to talk about things that are a bit different since it is much further away from the suburbs.”

Donahue’s teachings not only reflect his personal experience outside the classroom, but also incorporate his desire “to give students a real sense of what makes the place they live in tick, so that they can carry that with them in the future.”

Donahue also helps to bring public policy to a grassroots level.

“We need agricultural and environmental policies at local and national levels,” Donahue said, “to take into account of all the values that can be em-

photos from internet source

bodied in food production.”

Increased local food production, which is part of Donahue’s vision of the future, “along with the satisfaction of farming itself is what attracts [my] students to local agriculture,” Donahue said. For those studying outside this realm of academia, “it is still important that students learn something about where their food and resources come from, to take that attitude wherever they live, whether or not their career is necessarily relevant.”

12 FEATURES

The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

Birren draws on value of sciences as dean

By Rachel Hirschhaut Staff

One semester into her new role as dean of Arts and Sciences, Susan Birren has transitioned from her position as teacher to administrator by drawing on her science background and training, to focus on the connections between science and humanities, teaching and research.

A biologist by profession, Birren’s challenge is to advance President Fred Lawrence’s vision of Brandeis as both a liberal-arts and research university.

One semester into the academic year, she explained that science and humanities can be viewed in broader intellectual frameworks rather than in a simple dichotomy.

She advocates applying scientific thinking to other disciplines, and vice versa. “What I want is that when a humanities student leaves this university and is listening to a presidential debate that touches on global climate change, even if they don’t understand the details, they can think about that and assess it as a problem,” Birren said in an interview this week. “Likewise, I want a scientist to be able to think critically about problems that touch on the humanities and arts.”

Though Birren took over as dean of Arts and Sciences on July 1, 2011, she has taught at Brandeis since 1994, when she became an assistant professor of biology after earning her PhD in biological chemistry at UCLA and doing postdoctoral research at Caltech.

Birren cites the small, science-oriented environment of Caltech as an inspiration for coming to Brandeis. “I was interested in going to a place where people did research, where I’d have inter-

esting colleagues, and that most importantly I would be interested in teaching the undergraduates.” Birren said.

A scientist by training, Birren calls herself “a developmental biologist with a research focus on the human nervous system.” Birren has taught courses on basic cell biology, developmental biology, and cancer and stem cells, which are cross-listed in the biology and neuroscience departments, but her work spans other departments as well.

Last semester she taught an interdisciplinary course on autism and human developmental disorders from her research. It fulfilled requirements in the science, social science-based psychology and HSSP programs and served as an example of applying science to solve broader human prob Birren believes her science background has given her a unique perspective on the role of the humanities and social sciences at Brandeis.

She believes that a liberal arts education is increasingly valuable today because “it provides a framework for how to think about the world, and solve problems in a way that has complexity and nuance.”

Birren embraces her dual role of teacher and researcher, which inspires her as a dean.

When asked whether she preferred teaching or research, she responded, “Both. When you’re working with students and training them to do their own research in the lab, is there really any difference between teaching and research?”

Birren calls on students to, “Explore. Always explore new interests in different departments, and use that to grow intellectually and grow as a person.”

photo by Nafiz “Fizz ” Ahmed/the hoot

Transitional Year Program inspires students to excel

photo by alyssa green/the hoot

By Alana Bloom Editor

Alyssa Green ’14, the 2010-11 Transitional Year Program (TYP) senator, grew up in a self-described turbulent household. The challenges Green now faces as a college student are incomparable to the various struggles thrown her way since her childhood. As a result, Green has brought a new perspective on daily life to Brandeis.

At first, Green lived with her mother and step-father, moving back and forth between suburbs in Florida and Texas. At the age of 15, however, she moved in with her grandmother.

“My environment wasn’t conducive to my growth and happiness. My step-father was somewhat abusive and that’s basically why I decided to leave,” Green said.

Within a year, however, Green’s grandmother could no longer support her financially. Knowing that it was a choice between food on the table or school, Green made the difficult decision to drop out of high school and begin a full-time job. That same year, Green lost many of her friends when she came out as a lesbian.

Green’s grandmother had always instructed her, “If you don’t have a dream, you don’t have anything.” Although Green had internalized her grandmother’s words, she soon felt her

dreams of success and happiness slipping away as she witnessed everyone around her accepting their situation without trying to improve their livelihood.

Green began to change her outlook, however, after visiting her friend, a TYP student at Brandeis. During her stay, people suggested that she apply for TYP. TYP targets determined students who have exhibited leadership potential and the ability to overcome many of life’s struggles. Students come from a variety of backgrounds, but each student integrates a new vision and set of experiences into the Brandeis community.

Although Green initially viewed the idea of applying to TYP as a joke, she nevertheless chose to apply on a whim. During the application process Green grew more serious about the program as it became a true possibility.

Now in her second year at Brandeis, Green has revived her dreams while simultaneously exhibiting her leadership skills. As the elected TYP senator last year, Green helped plan “Night of Inspiration,” a talent show in which TYP students gather to honor that year’s graduating TYP class.

Green is quick to acknowledge Brandeis’ impact on her life and development of her academic potential. When she graduates, she hopes to attend graduate school, a goal she would never have considered possible before

attending Brandeis.

Discussing cultural diversity at Brandeis, Green said that living in a dorm with students from a variety of countries and cultural backgrounds has helped her to step out of her own experiences and relate to other cultures.

“I hope that I’ve also brought in a different perspective to the people that I’ve encountered and made people step outside of their own selves, their own situation, and try to see life from a different point of view. If I’ve done that for at least one person here … then I feel like I’ve made an impact,” Green said.

In fact, Green has several new perspectives to offer the Brandeis community. First, Green has refuted the misconceptions surrounding TYP. According to Green, certain people tend to stereotype the TYP class as a group of poor, underresourced and unintelligent students who take easier classes. On the contrary, Green explains that TYP is a rigorous program designed for intelligent and driven students who simply need additional support in school.

“A lot of the time with public school systems, kids fall through the cracks and kids are forgotten who possess so much academic potential, and that’s why TYP is important. It gives kids a second chance, [kids] who might not necessarily have gotten one otherwise,” Green said. “…

In America the better the college, the higher the cost. But for people, there’s no color of intelli-

gence, there’s no price of intelligence Green has additional advice to offer Brandeis as the community grows to its full potential.

Green described her challenge as a “queer person of color” at Brandeis, a university that goes to great lengths to be accepting of the LGBT community.

Still, it is difficult for others to comprehend the different experiences of a queer female of color like herself.

“People have been very blatant and very angry about my gender presentation and about my sexual identity,” Green said. “I think that people who don’t challenge gender roles and gender norms as much as I do have less oppression because they can assimilate into American society more so than I would be able to.”

On the other hand, Green is impressed by recent initiatives by the Queer Person of Color Coalition at Brandeis. She is additionally surprised by the willingness of heterosexual males at Brandeis to be friends with openly gay males without having their masculinity or reputation threatened.

Green hopes to utilize each of her life experiences to one day run a youth development program for teens and feels that Brandeis has transformed her goal into a real possibility.

“Brandeis has allowed me to see the world though a different perspective,” Green explained.

EDITORIALS

January 27, 2012

“To acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

Editor-in-Chief Jon Ostrowsky Managing Editors Sean Fabery Yael Katzwer Nathan Koskella Alex Schneider Editor Emeritus Connor Novy News Editor Morgan Gross Impressions Editor Candice Bautista Arts, Etc. Editor Alana Blum Hoot Scoops Editor Brian Tabakin Sports Editor Ingrid Schulte Photography Editor Nate Rosenbloom Photography Editor Emily Stott Layout Editor Steven Wong Graphics Editor Leah Finkelman Production Editor Gordy Stillman Business Editor Suzanna Yu Copy Editor Morgan Dashko Deputy Copy Editor

I

Volume 9 • Issue 2

the brandeis hoot • brandeis university 415 south street • waltham, ma

Founded By Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

Mission As the weekly community student newspaper of Brandeis University, The Brandeis Hoot aims to provide our readers with a reliable, accurate and unbiased source of news and information.

Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events. Recognizing that better journalism leads to better policy, The Brandeis Hoot is dedicated to the principles of investigative reporting and news analysis. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

SUBMISSION POLICIES The Brandeis Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the community. Preference is given to current or former community members and The Hoot reserves the right to edit or reject submissions. The deadline for submitting letters is Wednesday at noon. Please submit letters to letters@ thebrandeishoot.com along with your contact information. Letters should not exceed 500 words. The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

STAFF Senior Staff Nafiz “Fizz” Ahmed Debby Brodsky Savannah Pearlman

Ensure strategic plan endures

n the strategic plan process, something is clearly amiss.

The entire affair has taken far too long. Case in point, in Student Union President Herbie Rosen’s e-mail to students this week, he reviewed the process for those—in his words—“new here, or for those who just plain forgot.”

While all indications make clear that the strategic plan has followed a set timeline, by the end of the process and no doubt soon after the process ends, new realities are sure to affect the implementation of the plans.

Destiny D. Aquino Senior Editor

P

When The Hoot asked former President Jehuda Reinharz for advice for the Fred Lawrence administration this week, Reinharz answered reflexively: “They wouldn’t want my advice.”

But he also urged caution in the strategic planning process. Pointing to his bookshelf full of now defunct strategic plans from his 14 years at Brandeis, he said, “Our world is moving so quickly.

“The moment you finish, the circumstances have already changed.”

That does not mean strategic plans have no place. But they need not take as

resident Obama’s State of the Union included a central portion on higher education, with some choice words for Congress—but also for universities themselves.

Colleges across the nation have allowed their tuition and other costs to skyrocket.

In recent years a college education has again become more and more the province of the elite, and truly elite colleges are almost exclusively upper-class.

As the cruelly ironic “standard of living” has become more difficult to reach, one in five American children are on food stamps and wages for the middle class are stagnant (and the poor, forget it), universities like Brandeis have become more and more expensive.

Obama proposed a package of measures government can use to aleviate the situation, and deserves credit for his tenure’s expansion of the ubiquitous and life-saving Pell Grant. The president also called for more aggressive measures for Congress to put into place, restricting federal funding for research and other aid from colleges who cannot get their constant tuition hikes under control.

His passion mirrors the avowed goal of another president: Brandeis’ Fred Lawrence. As the first year of his reign runs behind us, the board still remembers his committing himself to what he called his “first priority,” saying that making Brandeis affordable for everyone was of utmost importance.

connect phone • (781) 330 - 0051 e-mail • editor@thebrandeishoot.com online • thebrandeishoot.com twitter • twitter.com/thebrandeishoot facebook • facebook.com/thebrandeishoot

Advertising information Advertising in The Brandeis Hoot helps spread your message to our readers across the Brandeis campus, in the Waltham community and beyond through our website.

To reserve your space in the paper, contact us by phone at (781) 330 - 0051 or by e-mail at ads@thebrandeishoot.com.

much time and gather as much input as is currently occurring. Strategic planning ought to be a constant process, one that does not presume to have all the answers but continually focuses community attention on the future of the university.

Community input is vital to the process, and we applaud the involvement of students in the planning. But we also urge caution: When circumstances change—as they inevitably will—administrators must be ready to discard old plans and adapt to new realities.

Answer president’s call for lower tuition

Sam Allen, Rick Alterbaum, Victoria Aronson, Louis Berger, Alex Bernstein, Emily Breitbart, Adam Cohen, Haley Fine, Jeremy Goodman, Edwin Gonzalez, Rachel Hirschhaut, Paula Hoekstra, Adam Hughes, Gabby Katz, Josh Kelly, Samuel Kim, Christina Kolokotroni, Sarah Sue Landau, Arielle Levine, Ariel Madway, Estie Martin, Juliette Martin, Adam Marx, Anita Palmer, Alex Patch, Lien Phung, Andrew Rauner, Betty Revah, Alexandra Zelle Rettman, Ricky Rosen, Imara Roychowdhury, Aaron Sadowsky, Jessica Sashihara, Alex Self, Diane Somlo, Ryan Tierney, Alan Tran, Dana Trismen, Sarah Weber and Linjie Xu

All campus organizations receive a 25 percent discount off our regular prices. We also design basic ads for campus organizations free of charge.

The Brandeis Hoot 13

Give a Hoot, Join The Hoot!

The Hoot is looking for writers, editors, photographers and illustrators this spring semester. thebrandeishoot.com/join

Brandeis’ legacy and oft-repeated drive for social justice demands no less.

Brandeis cannot be another bubble of the 1 percent (OK, 20 percent, but you get the drift). Obama is right to highlight the growing strains on the middle class and the rising level of crushing poverty. He and others in government must do all they can, but schools like Brandeis are the front lines.

Education can be the ultimate equalizer, guarantor of that “opportunity for all” everyone’s talking about. Brandeis can and should be open to all who strive to make it here.

The actual commitment we each have toward social justice will be sorely tested if trends continue unabated.

SPORTS

14 The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

Judges rebound with overtime victory at Chicago

By Brian Tabakin Editor

This past Sunday, the Brandeis men’s basketball team defeated the University of Chicago, 97-89, in a thrilling overtime UAA conference matchup. The Judges endured a spectacular 44-point performance by Chicago senior guard Matt Johnson with two sensational games from guards Vytas Kriskus ’12 and Tyrone Hughes ’12 to go along with strong bench play. Kriskus led the Judges with 31 points while Hughes finished with a triple-double with 17 points and career-highs of 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Additionally, Hughes connected on a game-tying, buzzer-beater layup following the inbounds play with 1.4 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime after Brandeis had trailed by 13 points with less than 5:30 remaining in the game. With the win, the Judges end their two-game UAA losing streak to improve their record to 9-7 (3-2 UAA) while the Chicago Maroons fall to 9-7 (2-3 UAA).

The two teams played an extremely tight first half with five lead changes and two ties, and the two teams entered halftime knotted at 42-42. Chicago raced out of the gates to open the game on a 9-0 run putting the Judges in an early hole. Trailing 17-9 with 13:42 to play in the first half, the Judges responded with a 12-0 run to take a 21-17 lead after a layup from forward Alex Stoyle ’14 with 10:52 remaining until the break. The two teams traded baskets for the rest of the half with Brandeis gaining a lead of six on three consecutive three-pointers from Kriskus; however, Chicago stayed in the game behind Johnson’s red-hot shooting including a buzzer beater from beyond the arc just before halftime.

The second half was a close contest as well. The Maroon took an early lead, but Brandeis was able to cut the deficit to four, at 59-55, after a Kriskus layup with 10:03 remaining

By Brian Tabakin

in the game. Unfortunately, Chicago stretched their lead to 13, at 72-59, with 5:29 remaining in the game after a 13-4 run that featured nine points

by Johnson; however, the Judges responded and clawed their way back into the game with tough defense and strong bench performances from Stoyle and guard Jay Freeman ’13, and tied the game at 80-80 at the end of regulation on a layup from Hughes.

Brandeis dominated the entire overtime, outscoring Chicago 17-9 in the extra period during which Hughes attained his triple-double.

With the hard-fought win the Judges earned their first UAA road win of the season.

For the game, the Brandeis bench outscored their counterpart 37-17 behind a career-high 18 points from Freeman and 11 points from Stoyle.

Furthermore, the Judges committed a season-low five turnovers compared to 17 turnovers from Chicago.

Brandeis also held a 13-11 advantage on the offensive glass.

Earlier in the week, the Judges lost their second straight UAA contest 80-54 on the road to the Washington University in St. Louis Bears. For the game, the Bears shot a blistering 56 percent from the field, a season best, including 8-of-15 from beyond the arc. Guard Ben Bartoldus ’14 led the Judges with 15 points; however, no other Brandeis player reached double figures.

The Judges were able to stay within reach of the Bears in the first half despite shooting a paltry 2-of-12 from the three-point range. Even with 60 percent shooting from the Bears in the first half, the Judges faced just a 10-point deficit heading into the break after finishing the half with 9-of-12 shooting from the charity stripe and 10-of-26 shooting from the field. Brandeis’ largest lead of the game was five points just 1:11 into the game; however, the Bears responded with an 8-0 run after trailing 10-8 with 16:22 remaining in the first half.

Things quickly got out of hand for the Judges in the second half as they continued to struggle from beyond the arc, shooting just 2-of-8 in the second half. Complicating issues further, the Judges were only able to get to the free-throw line for six attempts in the second half. Meanwhile, the Bears continued their hot-shooting, going 17-of-32 from the field overall, including 5-of-7 from downtown.

The typically reliable sharpshooter Derek Retos ’14 was just 0-of-5 from the three-point range while the Judges overall shot just 4-of-20. The Judges were outscored 39-23 in the second half as they went on to lose the game 80-54.

Kriskus led the team with seven rebounds and was tied for second-inteam scoring along with Hughes with nine points. Hughes and Kriskus also tied for the team lead with three assists.

Senior guard Dylan Richter led the Bears with 17 points and sophomore guard Alan Aboona contributed 16 points for the Bears.

The Judges return to action at home against Case Western Reserve on Friday as they continue UAA play.

Men’s basketball Team

UAA

All

Emory

4–1

15 – 1

NYU

4–1

15 – 1

Washington

4–1

12 – 4

Brandeis

3–2

9–7

Rochester

2–3

11 – 5

Chicago

2–3

9–7

Carnegie Mellon

1–4

6 – 10

Case Western

0–5

8–8

Box Scores @ Washington

Loss

80 – 54

@ Chicago

Win

97 – 89

Joe Paterno: His legacy will endure the scandal

Editor

Just two months after being fired via the phone by the Penn State board of trustees for his failures in the Jerry Sandusky sexual child abuse scandal, Joe Paterno died this past Sunday from lung cancer. Paterno had been hospitalized since November 2011 when his son Scott Paterno announced that he had a treatable form of lung cancer; however, Joe Paterno suffered complications while under treatment and died shortly afterward.

Immediately after his death, former President George H. W. Bush issued a statement calling Paterno, “an outstanding American who was respected not only on the field of play but in life in general—and he was, without a doubt, a true icon in the world of sports.” Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett added, “His legacy as the winningest coach in major college football and his generosity to Penn State as an institution and to his players stand as monuments to his life. …

His place in our state’s history is secure.”

These public outcries of support and tributes to Paterno underlie the complexities that now surround his legacy. Like the majority of officials at Penn State, Paterno was tainted by his connections to Jerry Sandusky and his perceived failure in stopping Sandusky from raping more children. But to focus solely on Paterno’s shortcomings in this case is extremely shortsighted.

Paterno impacted the lives of thousands of Penn State students over his time at the university and for the

better part of his life epitomized everything that was right in American sports culture. While most college sports programs tried to cheat the system with recruiting violations and grade inflation for student athletes, Paterno refused to break the rules. He ran a program dictated first and foremost on honor and then on winning.

Thus, what should have been a mass public period of mourning between the Paterno family and Penn State, turned into an extremely awkward relationship. The university that had fired Joe Paterno in a damage control effort surrounding the Sandusky scandal now had to re-paint him as the icon they tore down just two months ago. The Harrisburg Patriot News reported this past Tuesday that the Paterno family had “discouraged the Penn State board of trustees” from attending the memorial service on Thursday.

Since his death, there has been an outpouring of emotion and mourning from the Penn State community; however, at the same time, that same community has taken to local newspapers and online websites to direct almost universal anger at Penn State officials and the board of trustees for their treatment of Paterno.

Grief takes many different shapes and forms. The anger and vitriol being directed at Penn State officials and the memorial services being conducted in memory of Paterno are just different ways for members of the community to mourn. And while the current relationship between Paterno and Penn State has been damaged, time will heal those wounds. The wounds are still raw, but the current

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

photo from internet source

public outpouring of emotion and period of mourning have already started the healing process. The tie between Penn State and Paterno may not be fixed tomorrow, next month or next year.

But at some point, be it six months or six years from now, Penn State will once again be synonymous with the coach in the big glasses and tall white socks. Paterno wasn’t just a part of Penn State; in many ways Paterno was Penn State.

The university and its football program will move on, but Paterno will never be forgotten. Even if Paterno’s

successor Bill O’Brien, the current offensive coordinator of the New England Patriots, wins five national titles during his tenure as the Penn State football coach, Paterno’s impact on both the program and the university will never be forgotten.

Paterno’s connection with Penn State during the Sandusky scandal has complicated his otherwise shining legacy as one of the most iconic figures in American sports. But to dismiss all of his contributions to Penn State and college football because of his failings in the Sandusky scandal does a grave disservice to both Pa-

terno and Penn State. At a time of heightened emotions, maintaining a long-term viewpoint is hard; however, in the end the Sandusky scandal will be a sad chapter in the life of a man that changed the way we view college football and Penn State.

Cancer took Paterno’s life but, in all likelihood, Paterno’s grief and regret over the Sandusky scandal took away his fighting spirit. It is perfectly acceptable and right to talk about the Sandusky scandal when remembering and discussing Joe Paterno, but don’t let it be the entire focus of his legacy.

January 27, 2012

SPORTS 15

The Brandeis Hoot

Judges still unable to get elusive first UAA win

By Alex Bernstein Staff

Over the weekend, the Brandeis women’s basketball team suffered losses at the hands of Washington University in St. Louis and University of Chicago. The losses, by margins of 17 and 28 respectively, put the Judges at a record of 7-9 overall, including 0-5 in University Athletic Association games. The struggling Judges have now lost five-straight games, all to UAA opponents.

The Judges headed into Washington to face the 7th-ranked Bears, looking to win their first UAA game.

In the first half, Brandeis was able to stay close to the Bears due to good defense, as well as excellent play by forward Samantha Anderson ’13.

The Judges, however, went just 3-of8 from the free-throw line in the first half, while the Bears were 12-for-20.

The Judges shot 41 percent from the floor and went into the locker room down 33-26.

In the second half, the Judges could not find a rhythm offensively, shooting just 29 percent from the field on 6-of-21 shooting, while missing all four of their three-point attempts.

The Judges did get to the line 10 times but only made four of those 10 freethrow attempts, and in the final 12 minutes of play connected on only two shots from the floor.

For the game, the Judges went just 1-for-9 from beyond the arc, while the Bears made eight of their 15 three-point attempts. Furthermore, the Judges went just 7-for-18 from the free-throw line, while the Bears made 23 of their 34 free-throw attempts.

The Judges were also out-rebounded

39-27 for the game.

Anderson played 19 minutes for the Judges, leading the team with 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting, and five rebounds. Guard Hannah Cain ’15 added four points, while Kelly Ethier ’12 led the Judges with four assists.

Washington University improved to 13-2 on the year, including 3-1 in UAA conference play.

The Judges headed into Sunday’s matchup with the University of Chicago hoping to put an end to their losing streak. The Judges stuck close to the second-ranked Maroons throughout the first eight minutes of the game, which saw four lead changes and two ties. After the game was tied at 18, however, the Maroons went on a 22-8 run to end the half and keep control of the game for good.

The Judges shot 50 percent from the floor in the first half, including 3-of3 from beyond the arc. They missed all five of their free-throw attempts, however, and turned the ball over 10 times, while the Maroons finished the half with only three turnovers. The Judges went into the locker room at the half, down 39-25.

Over the first nine minutes of the second half, the Maroons went on a 19-2 run, putting the Judges in a huge hole. Chicago had gone on a 41-10 run over the final 12 minutes of the first half and first nine minutes of the second half combined, putting the game out of reach at a score of 58-27 with just 11 minutes left in the game.

While the Judges would outscore Chicago 21-16 the rest of the way on 10 points from guard Morgan Kendrew ’12, the game was well out of reach. Brandeis missed all eight of its three-point attempts in the second

morgan kendrew ‘12

half, and shot just 21 percent from the field.

The Judges loss can be attributed to the fact that they were out-rebounded by an enormous margin of 50-29. In addition, Chicago was able to get to the line often and consistently made its free-throw attempts, going 25for-29 from the charity stripe. Meanwhile, the Judges finished 11-for-20 from the line. The Judges went 3-for11 from the three-point range, while the Maroons went 7-for-23.

Kendrew led Brandeis offensively with 14 points on 4-of-7 shooting, and made all five of her free-throw attempts. Guard Diana Cincotta M.A. ’12 scored 10 points and added five rebounds, while forward Shannon

photo from internet source

Hassan ’12 added eight points off the bench.

Additionally, with her three-pointer in the game, Kendrew became just the fifth player in women’s basketball program history to have 100 threepointers. With nine games remaining on the season, Kendrew has the opportunity to move further up in the Judges’ record books.

The Judges, who have nine games remaining this season, hope they can turn things around quickly. This year the Judges have begun games well by getting off to good starts, but have faltered in the second half.

They will face Case Western Reserve University at home at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Women’s basketball Team

UAA

All

Chicago

5–0

16 – 0

Rochester

5–0

16 – 0

Washington

4–1

14– 2

Emory

4–1

13 – 3

NYU

1–4

9–7

Case Western

1–4

8–8

Brandeis

0–5

7–9

Carnegie Mellon

0–5

6 – 10

Box Scores @ Washington

Loss

69 – 42

@ Chicago

Loss

76 – 48

Brown and Farrington named UAA athletes of the week

By Brian Tabakin Editor

The University Athletic Conference (UAA) named Chris Brown ’12 of North Chelmsford, Mass., and Kim Farrington ’13 of Shirley, Mass., as the UAA Indoor Track and Field athletes of the week.

Both Brown and Farrington were selected after successful performances at the Greater Boston Track Club (GBTC) Invitational at Harvard University on Jan. 22.

Brown finished third in the open mile run with a time of 4:08.45. His time is first among UAA athletes in the 2012 season and places him second among all Division III athletes on

the Division III indoor qualifying list.

Additionally, Brown finished three seconds faster than the other runner in the event from Division I Providence College. This is Brown’s second UAA Athlete of the Week honor this season.

Farrington won the triple jump at the GBTC Invitational with a leap of 10.69 meters (35’ 1”), .35 meters, roughly one foot, better than the next collegiate competitor from Division I Bryant University and .04 meters ahead of the unattached second-place jumper. Farrington did not beat her season-best performance of 10.75 meters (35’ 3.25”), which currently ranks third in the UAA and 37th in Division III.

chris brown ‘12

kim farrington ‘13

chris brown ‘12 zoe messinger ‘13

photo from internet source

Judges edge Wellesley

By Louis Berger Staff

This past Wednesday the Brandeis women’s fencing team edged host Wellesley College 14-13 in a very tight match.

The Judges won epee 8-1 and sabre 6-3, but dropped the foil 9-0.

In the sabre, Zoe Messinger ’13 and

Emmily Smith ’13 each had three wins, while in the epee Emily Mandel ’12 and Leah Mack ’14 each went 3-0.

Kristen Ha ’14 also contributed two victories to the epee win.

Brandeis improved to 5-7 on the year and will be back in action this Saturday at Boston College to face competition from the Northeast Fencing Conference.

photos from internet source

photo from internet source

Track and Field has strong outing at GBTC Invitational

By Louis Berger Staff

Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams showed some strong performances this past Sunday at the non-scoring Greater Boston Track Club Invitational at Harvard University.

While Chris Brown ’12 finished third in the Bill Squires Open Mile run, his time of 4:08.45 was the fast-

est in the UAA this season and the second fastest in all of Division III. In the men’s Open Mile run, Taylor Dundas ’14 placed first with a time of 4:18.73.

On the women’s side, Kim Farrington ’13 won the triple jump with a distance of 10.69 meters, jumping .35 meters farther than the next best collegiate competitor from Division I school Bryant. Ali Kirsch ’14 finished second in the 800-meter run with a

time of 2:26.07, beating teammate Kristi Pisarik ’15 by just .32 seconds.

Team captain Lily Parenteau ’12 took second place in the high jump with a height of 1.57 meters. Kate Warwick ’12 was the only collegiate athlete in the 3,000-meter run and finished four seconds out of first place, with a time of 9:57.86.

The men’s and women’s teams will be back in action this weekend at the B.U. Terrier Classic in Boston.

Arts, etc.

16 The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

Undergraduate art show opens with student-only gallery

By Alan Tran Staff

photos by ingrid schulte/the hoot

artsy Students are currently exhibiting their artwork in the Dreitzer Gallery in Spingold Theater.

By Juliette Martin

Large, distinctive eyes stand out from the round face of one painting, a mix of soft blue watercolors and thick paint; someone comments that it was drawn by taping a bowl to the wall and painting the distorted image. On the other side of the gallery is a torn piece of paper with dark marks spread across it. In between are a number of paintings, self-portraits, still-lifes and landscapes.

These and other undergraduate works of art were on display at the Dreitzer Gallery in Spingold Theater beginning Wednesday, following an opening reception.

Work from beginning and intermediate drawing, painting and printmaking classes filled the gallery from wall-to-wall. All of the artwork was either from the previous semester or assigned during winter break. While a few pieces seemed more seamlessly crafted, those with less perfect proportions or rougher combinations in color and texture stood out for their creativity, stimulating further inspection.

“Some students have only been painting two months and they’re so good,” Studio Art Program Director Susan Lichtman said in between speaking with students. She spent an entire day with a faculty member and technical assistant to hang up all of the art. “You have them all do the same assignment and they all turn out so different,” she continued.

Gesturing toward a painting of a shell with nuanced shadowing and color gradation, she remarked that it was a student’s first-ever painting.

“She surprised herself,” Lichtman said.

The number and broad variety of art made the effect slightly overwhelming. Each time I wandered through the gallery, different works of art caught my eye. There were no labels

for individual pieces, so instead I directed questions to one of the artists, who informed me of the background behind different assignments and the techniques used. Even so, the super saturation of artwork diminished the power of each individual piece.

The high density of artwork result from a lack of viewing spaces for student artwork on campus, or a permanent space for student art.

“This gallery is a little hidden and underground,” Lichtman said. “I hope someday to have a more prominent space than this.”

Lichtman believes that having an exhibition for student art allows students to share artwork with one another. Lichtman said, however, that “the goal is first, that students can see their own art out of the studio. A few students have come up to me and said it looks totally different and that they’re seeing it in a whole new way.

It’s important to remember that a gallery is a teaching room.”

Even from the selected pieces among the few introductory courses, there is a wide, eclectic range of art. Small blocks are painted with scenes from a window or similar prompts, creating an effect reminiscent of photographs. A collection of prints stood out for its minute detail in contrast to the large charcoal beetles and scorpion hanging overhead.

While the reasoning and techniques behind some of the pieces are difficult to comprehend, the same is true of the artwork a short walk down Loop Road at The Rose Art Museum. The difference, however, is that these pieces were not made by some visionary, widely-acclaimed artist; instead, these were made by curious, fresh-eyed students exploring their boundaries.

Even without the weight of years of practice and exposure to the arts, and in some ways because of its absence, their work carries its own significance, and seen through this lens can be, as Lichtman said, “inspiring.”

Modern-day ‘Sherlock Holmes’ thrives

Staff

On Jan. 15, the BBC aired the second season finale of its modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective novels starring the enigmatic Sherlock Holmes, titled “Sherlock.” The show, which chronicles the adventures of the world’s only consulting detective and his loyal companion John Watson, is uniquely structured with each season consisting of only 3.5-hour-long episodes. This is remarkably short even by the standards of British television, in which seasons can often be as short as six or seven episodes. Despite the sparseness in content, however, BBC’s “Sherlock” has garnered a strong and sometimes even fanatical fan base, a testament to the extraordinary, everlasting quality of the tales of Sherlock Holmes.

Though Sherlock Holmes has seen many adaptations over the years, and even very recently a la Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, this one distinguishes itself because it is firmly ensconced in the modern era. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson call each other by their first names, make great use of texting (text messages even appear on screen as characters receive and send them) and solve cases with the aid of modern forensic technology. The show has also effectively used the Internet, breaking the fourth wall by creating blogs written by the characters for all to see, adding additional contexts and insights to the show. This grounding of an old story in the modern era makes the tales feel fresh, aiding the show in gaining the enormous following it has earned.

The show is incredibly enjoyable, and it is easy to become invested in the

‘sherlock’ Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman star in “Sherlock,” a modern take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic mystery stories.

adventures of our heroes. The extralong episodes allow for deep attachments to grow between the viewer and the characters, as the show explores the cases and emotional struggles of both the damaged, emotional John and the heady, cold Sherlock. The cases are subtle, Sherlock’s deductions believable and the villains formidable and frightening. The character’s pain very often becomes the watcher’s pain, an emotional connection that gives the show much of its remarkable strength.

Aiding in the impact that the show has on the watcher is the quality of the actors who star in it, primarily Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as John Watson.

Both actors are clearly invested in

their roles. Martin Freeman was additionally honored with an award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for his talents in portraying the ever-loyal and stalwart Watson. Also noteworthy are the acting talents of Andrew Scott, who portrays the many sides of Sherlock’s nemesis, James Moriarty, with enormous passion and a distinctive flare.

Most recently, at the end of season two, “Sherlock” took on the epic conflict between Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis, Moriarty, in a heart-wrenching conflict that originally came to a head in Conan Doyle’s novel “The Final Problem.” It has caused modern fans a great deal of agony. The confrontation raises questions about the legitimacy of Sherlock’s legacy and in-

telligence in the universe of the show.

It is here that the fans took to the street and broke their own fourth wall, allowing Sherlock’s world to bleed into our own with posters proclaiming, “I believe in Sherlock Holmes.” Some of the posters are now visible on the Brandeis campus. The devotion that the fans continually show to the series, bringing it beyond the walls of its own universe, is a remark on its quality.

The program, however, is not without flaws. The show has often been accused of sexism, particularly since its writer, Steven Moffat, has been accused of similar charges concerning the other major show for which he writes: the omnipresent “Doctor Who.” There has been particular affront to his portrayal of Irene Adler, a

photo from internet source

woman of power, rival of Sherlock and one of the few female characters on the show. In traditional adaptations, Irene has manipulated Sherlock and taunted him with the idea of affection that may or may not be present. Many complain that this modern adaptation of Irene, who is a dominatrix, only grants Irene sexual power and faults the show for writing a version of Irene that did, in fact, seem to fall in love with Sherlock. Eventually she needs to be rescued by him—as a degradation of the character and an affront to feminine strength.

Despite well-documented flaws in the characterization of Irene Adler, the writing is skillful, with wonderful quips and exchanges between characters giving the show life and humor.

January 27, 2012

The Brandeis Hoot

Student artist turns Brandeis into a playground

By Emily Stott Editor

College students, not young children, play on the shiny red swings hanging from white ropes across campus. Some swings mysteriously appeared without explanation in the fall and now nine swings fill the campus, stretching from the Shapiro Campus Center to Rabb. Students frequently talk about the swings and enjoy them on study breaks but few seem to know their purpose or the story behind their appearance.

The swings are the work of Maayan Bar-Yam ’12, a Studio Arts major with a focus in Sculpture. He created the swings and put them around campus so that the greater student population would notice, and not just those who visit the art building. Bar-Yam has been interested in the concept of creating and designing play spaces since high school, and the swings are his most extensive creation thus far.

“I wanted to continue this theme of doing big installation pieces that people could use and play on, and part of it was that I wanted specifically to get out of the art building bubble and put it out all over campus,” said Bar-Yam. “Nobody sees all the work that goes on.”

You might recognize some of BarYam’s other pieces of artwork on campus. During the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts last year, he built and spray-painted the performance cube on the Great Lawn that acted as a stage. If you have classes in IBS, you might have seen the large poles in the ground that were placed in different configurations throughout the fall, which were designed to make you feel like you were walking through a forest.

The mystery surrounding the

swings makes them so intriguing. BarYam’s name has not appeared near the swings, but he has enjoyed hearing the “buzz” about it. His artwork is not just something to look at, but also a medium with which to engage.

“I think it’s really important for adults also to get that chance to play.

It becomes a more casual place to interact with your peers,” Bar-Yam said.

He created a Facebook page, “Swings All Over Brandeis Campus,” in an attempt to record and gauge student interest in the swings. Only about 40 people have “liked” the page, but some students have posted photographs of themselves or their friends swinging and socializing near the swings. These works of art have become more than just things that take up space; people are using them as catalysts for social interaction and relaxation.

After starting with just three swings, Bar-Yam’s project has expanded to include nine different swings on campus.

As you might notice, some of the swings look slightly different; the new design with the red swings has a safer construction, although all swings have been carefully inspected to ensure safety. With all the trees around Brandeis, finding appropriate branches for swings wouldn’t seem too difficult, but finding living branches level to the ground is more difficult than one might think.

The swings are not static either.

Bar-Yam has noticed that the heights of the swings have been adjusted by other students. He said, “They should feel empowered to change it and raise it for themselves so they can enjoy it too, and people have done that.”

There is a concept of an “open source playground,” which is a playground that is built by those who will be using it. Typically here in America,

children play on playsets designed by adults, and they cannot do much to change it. The playground is therefore immutable and unengaging; children can only climb on top of it, run around it or slide down it. They aren’t actually using their creativity physically to create their own playspace.

Fine Arts Professors Christopher Abrams and Tory Fair helped the project move forward. Bar-Yam worked with Abrams to make sure they were safe, and he has not heard any complaints from facilities about the swings. Brandeis Facilities’ response to Bar-Yam has been that students on campus can do what they want, and if there are any big issues they will let someone know.

The swings will be left up until someone takes them down, and they do not warrant any action by Facilities. Essentially, if someone wants to put something interesting up, they are allowed to.

As Bar-Yam said, “Basically, I’m just another guy and I put them up. You can do that. If you wanted to, and you put up a swing somewhere, nobody would stop you.”

Brandeis has an eclectic student population, and this is a way to encourage students to make their campus feel like home. The hope is that spontaneous artwork or other random displays around campus will spark conversation and encourage students to engage with the art.

This semester, Bar-Yam has plans to add to the Brandeis playground. He has the initial design created for what will look like a human-sized hamster tube playground to crawl in. The Austro-Croatian artists Numen / For Use inspired Bar-Yam with their huge tape installations. Imagine this: a rect

ARTS, ETC. 17

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

See SWINGS, page 19

photo by maayan bar-yam photo from internet source

18 ARTS, ETC.

The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

‘Beauty and the Beast’ in 3D

By Candice Bautista Editor

At the 9 p.m. screening of the award-winning classic “Beauty and the Beast” that I attended, the audience uniformly consisted of collegeaged students. Although the Disney franchise is definitely trying to relive the Disney Renaissance by repackaging old movies and making them “new,” they are still directed toward the same audience, just 10 years older.

Yet the film is just as relevant to kids now, even if they do discover it on a Disney DVD rather than the dilapidated VHS tapes we’ve had for years.

Even without the fuzzy lines running across the screens already an integral part of the film itself, it is still “our” movie. We were the ones growing up wearing vests without shirts underneath singing “A Whole New World”; the ones who envisioned chopping off our hair with swords and joining the Chinese army; the ones who lifted our puppies and yelled, “I just can’t wait to be king!” We watch the re-releases of Disney films not to “see the film,” but to remember what growing up felt like and to giggle at the same jokes we giggled at when we were younger.

That being said, “Beauty and the Beast” (in 3D) was simply amazing.

This was my first time watching a Disney movie in 3D as well as the first time seeing a 3D movie since “Avatar” came out, and sometimes I forget how much technology has evolved.

After putting on those ridiculous frames that balanced awkwardly on my already large glasses, I was completely blown away by how crisp the lines were, and how subtle the 3D was. There was still a part of me that expected the paper glasses with the blue and red cellophane and things to be continuously popping out at

photo from internet source

tale as old as time Recent re-release of “Beauty and the Beast (in 3D)” was crisper and even more enjoyable than the 1991 original.

my face. The depth that was present in the screen (even during the trailers for other children’s movies) seemed almost natural, as if this were how we were meant to watch it all along.

A brief recap for those who haven’t seen it in a while: A beautiful witch dooms a prince and his servants to live in their castle, with the prince becoming a beast and his servants transformed into furniture and kitchen utensils. Cue a magic rose that will lose its last petal when the prince turns 21. If the prince (now the Beast) does not learn to love a woman and “earn her love in return,” the Beast and his servants will remain transformed forever.

Seemingly on the other side of town, there is Belle, the beautiful vil-

lage girl who is the film’s highly literate protagonist. Gaston, the villain, tries to blackmail her into marrying him, threatening to put her father in an insane asylum if they are not wed.

The Beast takes Belle’s father hostage and Belle quickly arrives, offering to become his captive in exchange for her father’s freedom. Long story short, Belle falls for the Beast; Gaston with the rest of the village tries to kill the Beast; the anthropomorphized utensils defeat the village; the Beast kills Gaston; and Belle and the Beast are wed in front of the villagers who pretend nothing about this situation is bizarre. And the Beast returns to his handsome, human form.

One of the best parts about rewatching the film was catching subtle

humor that we simply wouldn’t have understood as children. Gaston was introduced in a hunting setting that prompted Le Fou, his tiny sidekick, to exclaim, “No beast alive stands a chance against you ... or a girl for that matter!” Although this appears to be dramatic irony, my viewing group speculated that it only set the homoerotic undertones that were always present in their relationship. This relationship fully manifested itself in the song “Gaston,” much to our enjoyment and the rest of the theater’s exasperation (no really, “No one’s quick like Gaston / No one’s neck as incredibly thick as Gaston”).

Other particularly hilarious parts involved really obvious French stereotypes put in between sexy Lumiere

and Bimbette the French maid/feather duster—the only two with French accents despite the film’s being set in France. Cogsworth, a very underrated albeit snooty character, also pulled his weight in this particular viewing of the film. One trivial scene involves him giving a tour of the castle using terminology that in a children’s film only “former” children could laugh at: “As you can see, the pseudo facade was stripped away to reveal a minimalist rococo design. Note the unusual inverted vaulted ceilings. This is yet another example of the neo-classic Baroque period, and as I always say, if it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!”

Thinking about the Beast and pondering his situation was also interesting. The spell was supposed to last until he turned 21, and at one point during “Be Our Guest,” Lumiere references rusting for 10 years. That means that the Beast had been determined morally unfit by a witch when he was 11? And since then he’s only had contact with the people in his house? At most, the film lasted more than three days. The first person the Beast saw he kept hostage, the second, Belle, and the rest were people who were trying to kill him. This sounds very traumatic for the Beast, and it’s difficult to keep from hypothesizing about their future and how stable their marriage will be (I think that the Beast will be overly dependent on Belle, but maybe that’s what they need!).

Although “Beauty and the Beast” in 3D was an amazing experience, the next films to be redone in 3D are “Finding Nemo,” due in September, and “Monsters Inc.,” due in January 2013, neither of which I have very much interest in seeing. I’ll definitely be seeing “The Little Mermaid,” however, the last of the currently scheduled re-releases, due in September 2013.

‘Fountainhead’ a good read beneath the controversy

By Dana Trismen Staff

“The Fountainhead,” penned by Ayn Rand in 1943, remains controversial to this day, partly due to occurrences in the novel but more so because of Ayn Rand herself.

The founder of a political movement called objectivism, Ayn Rand has often been viewed as being too extreme, either in a conservative or libertarian sense. She believed reason was the only way to acquire knowledge and argued that altruism was a fantasy and something that did not exist in our world. She was a strong champion of laissez-faire capitalism because she believed in protected individual rights that better reflected her altruism-devoid world.

Rand saw humans as heroic beings whose only objective should be their own happiness. Her critics accused her of being devoid of morality and of degrading those who were not born with both individualism and extreme talent.

Rand used both her objectivist periodicals and her novels as platforms for arguing in favor of her views, particularly in regard to capitalism.

“The Fountainhead” promotes Rand’s political views, though not to the same extent as her other novels, by throwing them in the face of the reader. The reason “The Fountainhead” is so controversial as a work of literature is its rape scene between the two main characters, Roark and Dominique. Rand describes the scene where Roark forcefully engages

Dominique in a sexual encounter as a “rape by engraved invitation.” To this day, feminist critics attack the novel because they believe Rand romanticized rape and believed women should be subservient.

Despite the uproar around Ayn Rand and this particular novel, the book has sold 6.5 million copies and has been made into a movie. I personally received this novel as a present during the holidays. Since it is around 800 pages, I considered it a worthwhile endeavor to read during break.

The novel centers on the character of Howard Roark and depicts his life as an architect. Roark is the ideal man, a heroic individual indifferent to anything other than sticking to his ideals and producing wonderful works of architecture despite public opinion.

Rand pits him against his rival Peter Keating, a fumbling, unskilled architect who is always concerned with how others view him. Keating eventually marries Dominique, Roark’s female equivalent, a fiercely independent woman, convinced that pain is the price to pay for her ideals.

One thing to note about Rand as an author is that her characters remain very static. While this would normally make the novel terribly uninteresting, I believe Rand makes the characters unique enough to compensate for this. While Roark remains the exact same character from beginning to end even as he transitions from being a college student to a successful, middle-aged architect, I still remained interested in how his mind worked. Both Roark and Dominique are incredibly strong charac-

photo from internet source

‘fountainhead’ Although Ayn Rand’s 800-page novel “The Fountainhead” depicts static characters, their strong ideals paint Rand’s determi-

nation to fight for personal values.

ters. While critics condemn Rand for creating unsympathetic characters, I marveled at how she was able to create characters that were so sure of what they wanted that they were willing to suffer through any amount of pain to reach it. I am aware Rand is advertising her political agenda through this novel with Roark as her model individual, denying altruism altogether. Yet I found I didn’t mind.

What is important is that Roark is such a brave character that I came to respect him. This is Rand’s literary genius. Though she eventually gave up being a novelist to simply pursue her political goals, I have never read an-

other author who was able to force me to respect her characters’ decisions in every move they made. Dominique and Roark did not make mistakes.

Every action they do has a purpose, and they let no person in society determine what they should or should not do.

So why read Ayn Rand, and why read “The Fountainhead” specifically? Aside from the small perks of looking very intelligent as you carry around an 800-page book and learning quite a lot about the profession of architecture, “The Fountainhead” should be read as a reminder of the importance of being true to oneself.

Not a book to be read for pure escapism, “The Fountainhead” is not always easy to stomach since Roark is constantly battered, put down and told his architecture is no good. Yet Roark is remarkably resilient: He knows his work is good and that is all that matters, refusing to reconsider what he believes is right. He struggles constantly but eventually succeeds. It is not the controversy of the novel or the author that should be taken away from reading “The Fountainhead.” It is that if we all struggled a little more and fought for what we believed was right, the world could be a better place.

January 27, 2012

ARTS, ETC. 19

The Brandeis Hoot

Hidden gems of iTunes

Arts Recommends film

photo by julia wolfe

‘keepsake’ Christian Wolfe and Lily Montagna ’15 are the members of the band Bastogne, named after the location

photo from internet source

of the Battle of the Bulge.

By Emily Beker

Special to the Hoot

I always enjoy finding singles by unknown artists on iTunes. They are often better than current mainstream artists. In contrast to hearing the same Top 40 song in the grocery store, the melodies and lyrics of unknown artists are often more meaningful and familiar to my ear.

This was once again the case when I discovered the single “Keepsake” by Christian Wolfe, featuring Brandeis student Lily Montagna ’15.

The melody of the single is easy to sing along to and, when combined with the lyrics, makes for a powerful song. “Keepsake” is an easy song to which to listen and to learn quickly to love. The harmonies add aspects to the song that make it more interesting to hear. The lyrics are powerful and speak to anyone who has experienced heartbreak at any point in their life. The music is intriguing and at times haunting. “Keepsake” connects with the listener and makes you want to listen to the song over and over again. The lyrics “love is a fool without a name, cause nothing can ever be too good to be true, not in life, not in love” give a strong, empowering message to the listeners.

Because unknown artists are never highlighted, we as listeners never get to hear their perspective on the process of putting out music, a fact that should be acknowledged. In fact, we also don’t often hear how they got started in music. Montagna and Wolfe attended the same high school in the Boston area in a graduating class of 44 people. They began writing their first song at the end of their junior year. Their song “Chandelier” was finally completed late last year after many months of working on the project on and off.

During their junior and senior years of high school, they were heavily involved in their music as well as leading worship at their society’s chapel services and youth groups. By working so closely with each other, Montagna and Wolfe developed a chemistry that translated to a strong bond between the two. They came to know what to expect from one another in the process of working together with their talents and abilities.

After high school ended, Wolfe began dedicating his time to working and playing music.

Montagna began her first year at Brandeis in the fall and plans to study the sciences in order to become a nurse practitioner or go into another

medical profession. Even though they are at different points in their lives, they are both devoted to their band Bastogne and the upcoming album.

When asked about the name of their band, Montagna explained that is the location of the Battle of the Bulge. They named their band after the location of the battle in order to represent the perseverance of the paratroopers who fought. As to the process of writing their own music and lyrics and then recording, Wolfe and Montagna agree that the music they produce is meaningful and then volunteered the elements that help create that feeling. Montagna explained, “The guitar strum, the intensity of the vocals, the harmony, and the beat or speed all reflect meaning behind each song.” She goes on to explain, “Our lyrics are very deliberate.

Christian insists on having meaning or connotation behind every phrase or key word and he avoids being cliche.”

Additionally, as Montagna continued in the interview: “I’ve learned how difficult it is for people to actually make music, and that’s helped me to really appreciate what musicians and song-writers do, specifically ones who record their own music [versus having it recorded for them in a nice studio].”

Their experience of putting together music for Wolfe was learning new techniques every now and then since he has been working with music for a while. Montagna uses song writing as a way to express her thoughts and emotions in a concrete yet physically intangible way.

“Keepsake,” in particular, is based on personal experiences. As Wolfe says, “The song speaks about heartbreak and separation.”

They hope to release the rest of their album “Solus,” meaning alone or unaccompanied, by this spring. The complete album will show their desire to create a diversity of songs. Montagna commented that another important element of song writing is support for the musicians. One of their statuses on their Facebook page titled Bastogne, says: “Thank you everyone for your support and free advertising! It may not seem like it, but with every post you guys put up, more people find my page and music.”

Wolfe and Montagna are both very passionate about the music they produce as well as the process and this comes across in “Keepsake.”

The song, as well as Wolfe’s other single “Road With You,” is available for download on iTunes.

Swings over campus SWINGS, from page 17

angular prism metal frame. Then imagine strips of fabric (as substitute for tape) attached length-wise from one end to the other. Finally, imagine a second set of fabric strips, perpendicular to the first set of strips and interwoven through these strips in the center of the frame, which makes a narrow tunnel in the middle.

It’s similar to the finger traps you can win at an arcade, where, when you pull your fingers, the trap only gets tighter because it’s woven together. The strips are woven together to create a tunnel, similar to the funnel-like part of a spider’s web.

Bar-Yam has had difficulty selecting a material for this project. Using tape would be extremely wasteful and not environmentally friendly,

but using fabric is also difficult because it is not as strong and doesn’t weather well, so a roof may be needed to protect it. The installation is planned to coincide with this year’s Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts in May and might be set up on the hill near the Shapiro Campus Center where the statue of Louis Brandeis is.

In addition, Bar-Yam is interested in creating what are called “adventure playgrounds” in the future. Children use hammers, nails and saws to build their own playground with minimal supervision. They take responsibility for their own actions and learn to assess risk.

The swings provide freedom. It is just you, the rope in your hands, your legs pushing yourself into the air and the green grass blurring beneath you. Most of all, it is a chance to gain a new per-

‘My Summer of Love’ On the surface, “My Summer of Love” seems like a movie whose only angle is featuring a lesbian couple, half of which has a cockney accent. After some time though, it becomes very clear that the film is not about that at all; it is about the difference between storytelling and lies. The story follows Tamsin, a posh girl who literally rides into the film on a horse, and Mona, a girl whose face screams “country bumpkin.” Bored with their summers, they lose themselves, forming a strong relationship with each other, each idealizing the other’s life for its foreign quality. They learn about each other: Tamsin frequently discusses her grief over her sister dying from anorexia, Mona about her brother “finding God” and using their family’s old bar as a religious gathering spot. It soon becomes clear, however, that they’re not being completely honest with each other, and that they can’t hide from the real world forever.

candice bautista, editor

film

photo from internet source

‘American Beauty “American Beauty” depicts a family in which the father has a midlife crisis reminiscent of “Office Space” that takes a dark turn, a wife who is overly obsessed with the idea of success to the extent she cannot see anything else but success and a daughter who, in teenage fashion, wants breast implants and wants to feel popular and loved. There is not one happy point of the film—just glimpses of optimism that only feel worse in the long run when the audience has the realization that the film isn’t meant to be happy.

Lester Burnham, the patriarch, snaps one day and decides he will quit his office job to pursue the simpler things in life, from flipping burgers at the burger joint to smoking joints with his teenage neighbor. Though this seems like an uptick to his life, his decisions eventually lead the other two members in his family to react negatively, which eventually leads to his realization that these new decisions may make his life seem better, but don’t actually improve anything around him.

candice bautista , editor

HOOT SCOOPS

20 The Brandeis Hoot

January 27, 2012

Textbook costs rise with frequent updated editions

By Zach Reid

Special to the Hoot

In a time when economic hardship is becoming the norm, college students feel yet another aspect of university life draining more money out of their wallets: textbooks. While textbooks have always been expensive, students have seen a significant increase in the release of new editions.

As many students began to register for classes and look at the mandated book lists for social science and reading intensive classes, some bills ap-

photo by ingrid schulte /the hoot

proach $700 to $800.

“The rate at which publishers are putting out new editions has increased in recent years,” according to Professor Mike Coiner (ECON).

When asked about the changes he has seen in textbooks familiar to him, Coiner responded that they were “minor,” and that students could easily get the same benefit from an older version of a book.

Many textbooks have begun a trend of releasing new editions every 18 months to two years, even if they do not contain a significant

amount of new material. The purpose of these new editions is rather to maximize the profit of the publishing companies, since a publisher’s revenue from a textbook comes from the number of new copies sold. The physics textbook “College Physics with Mastering Physics, 9th Edition,” for example, was released in January 2011, with the “7th Edition” published in March 2009.

In some cases, however, the price of the newest edition of a textbook can go from being a nuisance to outrageous.

Jose Vargas ’15 told The Hoot that he was incredibly surprised by the price of his Physics 11A textbook, “University Physics, with Modern Physics, with Mastering Physics, 13th Edition,” compared to a digital copy of the previous edition he had secured from a friend.

The difference amounted to more than $100, according to Vargas, and the cost of this book accounted for more than a third of [his] total textbook cost for the fall semester.

Many students have also found that the cost of the latest edition of a textbook will drop significantly even mere months after its publication, due to more vendors acquiring copies of the textbook and beginning to price their copies competitively with the publisher.

The used textbook market cuts into

a publisher’s profits from a new edition. If a professor chooses to assign a previous edition of a textbook, students can easily find the book at a variety of retail shops or websites, usually for a significantly lower price than the latest edition.

Professor Robert Art (POL) said that publishers “hate the used textbook market,” due to the ever-increasing availability of cheaper textbooks for students.

Art also stated, “Barnes & Noble and other bookstores make a new book every two years in order to keep their sales up.” Even though his classes are assigned a significant number of books, he encourages his students to utilize all options available to them when buying their books, as many of them can be found used online for much lower prices than otherwise available.

The University Bookstore has also been seen as a source of fiscal frustration for students, due to the fact that the books it stocks, while assuredly the correct edition needed for a class, can be found cheaper virtually anywhere else, both used and new, online or at a retail store.

Even simply ordering from Barnes & Noble’s website can save up to $60 per book, including free shipping. If a student is willing to search for the book in a used book retail website

or shop, it is likely that the textbook’s price could be cut in half.

When asked to comment on the prices of their textbooks, staff at the bookstore said they were not allowed to make statements without screening them through their regional headquarters first.

Most new editions of textbooks are not schemes by publishers to make as much of a profit as they can off of the college student market.

In fact, most new editions provide students with updated information about contemporary issues and events in their specific fields, such as the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy or the Arab Spring for textbooks in political science and anthropology respectively. Information such as this can be crucial in their education, and might otherwise have to be supplied through supplemental texts or sources.

In Coiner’s own field of economics, for example, he estimated that a new edition of a textbook should come out every three years in order to provide students with up-to-date information on recent developments, such as the 2008 recession.He also commented, however, that in textbooks where a significant amount of new knowledge has not been included, students can often get the same educational value from the textbook’s previous edition.

The Hoot compiled information on six textbooks for introductory-level courses, and has compared them here.

The prices are a new copy at the bookstore, used copy from the bookstore, new copy from Barnes & Noble online and a new copy from Amazon.com, respectively.

Psychology, 2nd Edition

Those Who Can, Teach

$146.65 - New from bookstore

$160.35 - New from bookstore

$110.00 - Used from bookstore

$126.25 - Used from bookstore

$123.83 - New from B&N online

$134.26 - New from B&N online

$114.41 - New from Amazon.com

$113.18 - New from Amazon.com

Campbell Essential Biology with Physiology, 3rd Edition

Chemistry: A Molecular Approach, 2nd Edition

$149.45 - New from bookstore

$222.00 - New from bookstore

$112.10 - Used from bookstore

$166.50 - Used from bookstore

$116.76 - New from B&N online

$173.42 - New from B&N online

$104.87 - New from Amazon.com

$164.90 - New from Amazon.com

College Physics with Mastering Physics, 9th Edition

University Physics with Modern Physics, 13th Edition

$229.95 - New from bookstore

$262.20 - New from bookstore

$172.45 - Used from bookstore

$196.65 - Used from bookstore

$179.62 - New from B&N online

$193.33 - New from B&N online

$183.37 - New from Amazon.com

$185.70 - New from Amazon.com photo from internet source