The Brandeis Hoot - April 15, 2011

Vol. 8, No. 12

www.thebrandeishoot.com

Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper • Waltham, Mass.

April 15, 2011

Herbie Rosen elected union president 44 percent cast votes; down 6 percent from last year

By Destiny D. Aquino Editor

Herbie Rosen ’12 was elected president Friday morning in the first round of Student Union elections. Rosen won by more than 600 votes.

The election was highly anticipated and involved detailed pre-election coverage in all major campus publications.

Akash Vadalia ’12 who ran against Rosen for president and finished in second place felt that the election was fair and fun. “I’m glad it went to a good candidate if it wasn’t me” he said. Vadalia does not plan on running for any positions or joining Rosen’s Executive Board. “I’m going to head out on this note,” he said.

Amber Kornreich ’12 finished in third place in the presidential election and refused to comment on the election.

Four seats in the election were left unfilled due to receiving more abstain votes then votes for candidates. These seats will be filled in round See ELECTIONS, page 3

By Nathan Koskella Editor

photo by nafiz “fizz ” ahmed/the hoot

herbie rosen

Justice Marshall speaks on social justice

By Debby Brodsky Staff

margaret marshall

photo by alex patch/the hoot

Margaret Marshall, former Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and Professor Anita Hill (Heller), spoke to Brandeis students about their lifelong careers and their commitment to social justice and civil rights.

“My commitment to equality is a higher calling,” Hill said. “When things keep calling out to you, you should listen. I came to the Heller School looking to learn from the people there to see what the missing link was between the law and peoples lives, that would bring justice to them and to the next generation.”

Marshall, who recently retired from the SJC, is the first woman to have held the position of Chief Justice and is known for her decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, which states that the Massachusetts Constitution cannot deny citizens the right to same-sex marriage.

Hill testified against former colleague and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his 1991 hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and accused him of See marshall, page 2

Embattled doctor defends Autism research

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

Former British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who authored the 1998 Lancet paper suggesting that vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella can cause autism, defended his research during a speech in Rapaporte Treasure Hall Wednesday evening.

Last February, The Lancet retracted the article and in May 2010, the British General Medical Council prohibited Wakefield from practicing medicine in Britain for unethical behavior and misconduct. Wakefield’s paper frightened many parents about the potential dangers of the MMR vaccine and some claim the scare has led to outbreaks of the measles virus.

“How can you possibly determine that the benefits [of the vaccine] outweigh the risks when you have no idea what the risks are?” Wakefield asked at Brandeis on Wednesday.

Ninety percent of unvaccinated kids can develop measles after a brief exposure, and it can cause encephalitis and death, Dr. Steven Miles, Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, said in a statement to The Hoot.

“Wakefield came to Minnesota and frightened our Somali community.

We have had 15 cases and eight hospitalizations in the last month, a stunning increase,” Miles said. “Mr. Wakefield is an anti-science fraud whose words are responsible for outbreaks of measles and diphtheria across the United States. He deserves freedom of speech but he does not deserve the respect of attendance at a university like Brandeis.”

Miles said that Wakefield should not have been invited to speak.

“I can understand giving preference to community members. Wakefield is not a community member.

The people who currently have

Yo-Yo Ma to play at commencement

measles in Massachusetts are,” Miles said.

Wakefield said that the schedule and time between when vaccinations are given can have negative health effects on the patient.

“You could have a huge impact on mortality … if you simply modified the program,” Wakefield said. “We are giving children poisons in vaccines.

This may not of itself cause developmental problems but what it does do is render the children vulnerable.”

Jake Crosby ’11, a contributing editor for the publication Age of Autism, organized the event on Wednesday.

In front of a slideshow with photographs of sick children that Wakefield and his colleagues saw, Wakefield defended allegations that he and his colleagues used fraud to manipulate their data and research for the Lancet paper.

See wakefield, page 3

Internationally-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma will perform “a five- to 10-minute piece” at this year’s commencement May 22, Andrew Gully, university senior vice president for communications and external affairs, said late Thursday after the commencement honorees were announced this week.

“It just adds a great touch to a day that is already really great,” Gully said of Yo-Yo Ma’s commitment. This will be Brandeis’ 60th commencement ceremony.

Students had started a Facebook group to try to convince Yo-Yo Ma of their wish to see him perform. A similar occurrence happened at the 2010 commencement, when, after the initial announcement of honorees included singer Paul Simon, students wanted and were granted a performance by the soloist at their graduation.

The list of other attendees invited to receive honorary degrees from the university this year includes New York Times columnist David Brooks, who will be the keynote speaker.

Brooks, who has one of the most recognized voices in journalism and American political opinion, has written for The Times for more than eight years.

Thomas Buergenthal, a former member of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the U.N. judicial branch, is another. His fellow jurist Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, who will retire in September, joins him in receiving a degree.

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris will round out the list with Jehuda Reinharz, who was until very recently the university’s president and who received an original Brandeis degree in 1972.

According to a press release on BrandeisNOW, “all members of the Brandeis community are entitled to nominate candidates for honorary degrees. A committee of trustees, faculty and staff narrows the nominations to a list for approval by the board of trustees. The president makes the final selections from that list.”

Decisions, decisions

photo by alan tran/the hoot

a prospective welcome Accepted members of the potential class of 2015 attend

the annual welcome lunch at Admitted Students Day 2010.

NEWS

2 The Brandeis Hoot

April 15, 2011

Former chief justice Marshall Senate condemns SJP speaks on a career in public service

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

photo by alex patch/the hoot

MARSHALL, from page 1

sexually harassing comments towards here in the workplace.

Representatives from the Student Union and Students Organized Against Racism asked questions about how to promote women’s equality in the work force, and what Marshall and Hill want their own legacies to be.

While answering, Marshall and Hill spoke of their youth and how they became the successful women they are today.

Hill spoke of her childhood in rural Oklahoma and how she was lucky to have the opportunity to attend an integrated school, while many of her siblings did not.

Following Hill, Marshall spoke of her surprising path to law. Before studying criminal justice at Yale Law School, she was an art history student at Cape Town University in South Africa. “Once you have been active on a student campus it’s hard to stay inactive,” Marshall said. “By that stage I started a long love affair with the United States. It’s intangible, but I

tasted freedom coming from a society where there wasn’t freedom,” she said, referring to the apartheid movement in South Africa.

Hill spoke about women’s rights in the workplace and the ongoing struggle with sexual harassment. “First of all, we need partners,” Hill said. “It’s not just about what women can do, it’s about what men need to be doing as well. That puts a lot of responsibility on you, but it has to be done if things are going to change. Every one of us can use some resource we have to make a difference. Doing something should be our default.”

In addition, Marshall spoke about the responsibility of all people to speak out against inequality nationwide. “One thing you do not do, is sit by silently with racist, sexist and homophobic jokes. You just don’t.”

Marshall pointed out that the United States bends over backwards to protect speech, but has yet to achieve racial or gender equality.

At the conclusion of the discussion, Marshall spoke about her plans for the future, following her retirement.

“I really want to go back to the granular and work on something very low key.” She told students, “Try to find the way to listen to your voice and love what you do.”

Hill ended the discussion by encouraging students to challenge things they see as unjust. “You are going to be called on one day to challenge something that is wrong.

That is how things change. Every day, look for what you can do today to get what you need, to achieve your goal.”

The Student Union Senate voted Sunday to join nearly 300 supporters and sign a letter disapproving of the Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine protest at a forum with six Israeli Knesset members on April 4. Abraham Berin, executive senator and senator for the class of 2011, wrote the letter.

When Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter stood up to speak behind a podium at the forum, approximately a dozen Brandeis students, including many from the organization Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine (BSJP), began to protest, shouting that Dichter was guilty of war crimes and should be arrested for violations of international law. Members of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) also participated in the protest.

The students passed out fliers to the audience, shouted in Hebrew, “Don’t worry Avi Dichter, we’ll meet you in the Hague,” and then exited the ballroom.

Student groups filmed the protest, posted the video on YouTube and then distributed it to several Israeli media outlets. “They continued shouting and acting rambunctiously until they were escorted out. Not only was this done during a question and answer session, which innately fosters discussion, but it was offensive to the Ministers of Israeli Knesset, who were invited guests of our university. As hosts, we have a duty to offer our respect to our guests,” Berin wrote in the letter titled “Letter of Disapproval for the Actions of the Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine and members of the Brandeis Jewish Voice for Peace.”

Liza Behrendt ’11 of BSJP said that she was disappointed that the Senate

did not discuss the letter with members of BSJP. “I’m disappointed that the Senate decided to endorse the letter,” Behrendt said in an interview Thursday. “This is yet another example of the uncritical bias towards Israeli policies even when those policies violate international law.”

She said that the disapproval letter would not deter the group from further action and protest. “We will continue to organize in whatever fashion we believe.”

Berin wrote that students should have asked the Knesset members questions, rather than stand up in protest.

“Regardless of the opinions of the Israeli Ministers of the Knesset who were invited guests of the university, their beliefs are necessary to understand the dynamic of the Israeli government through their eyes,” Berin wrote.

“A rational approach would have been to ask questions and request answers, which some of the offending students did actually do. Notwithstanding the opinions of the students, their tactics overlooked the need for decorum, basic humanity, and respect.”

Last fall, when Noam Chomsky spoke on campus during Israeli Occupation Awareness Week and criticized Israeli’s policies, many students walked out in protest to his remarks, wearing Israeli flags on their backs and exiting the room in the middle of the speech.

In November 2009, when a forum with South African Justice Richard Goldstone and former Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold did not feature a Palestinian representative, about a dozen pro-Palestinian protesters silently stood up in the audience with signs taped to their backs. “They do not promote peace in this manner... We refuse to tolerate such an atmosphere at this institution of higher education.” Berin wrote.

Gaskins, McNamara honored with highest faculty awards

By Nathan Koskella Editor

Professor Richard Gaskins, the American Studies-affiliated director of the Legal Studies program, and Professor Eileen McNamara, fulltime American Studies and Journalism instructor, won the top faculty awards Thursday at the annual presentation faculty meeting.

Gaskins was named the winner of the 2011 Lerman-Neubauer ’69 Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring, an award that, according to the meeting’s presentation, is given to “not just an exceptional teacher, but also one who has had a significant impact on students’ lives as a mentor, adviser and friend.”

Gaskins has been teaching at

Brandeis since 1994, with prior experience that includes an associate deanship at the New School for Social Research. He received his bachelor’s degree at the University of Southern California and earned both a PhD in Philosophy and law degree at Yale University. Beyond both American Studies and Legal Studies, he has taught classes in departments ranging from the Philosophy, Business, and African and Afro-American Studies departments.

Gaskins led a group of 18 students last summer on the university’s inaugural study abroad program in The Hague, in the Netherlands. He taught international law and criminal justice for the six-week program and mentored while the students participated

in a mock trial competition against international lawyers--and won.

McNamara, a former columnist from The Boston Globe and a Pulitzer Prize winner, was awarded the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching. McNamara joined the university in 1995 and began teaching full-time in 2007. She attended Barnard College and graduated from Columbia University’s firstranked School of Journalism. While continuing to write, currently for Boston magazine, she teaches journalism practices and ethics.

Both Gaskins and McNamara, though affiliated with the same department, also teach many of their minors’ classes, Legal Studies and Journalism, respectively. Both were

lauded by students throughout many of their successive course evaluations that culminated in their winning some of the university’s highest honors.

The other most prestigious awards were given to Professor Tory Fair of the Fine Arts (sculpture) department, who won the Michael Walzer ’56 Award for Teaching that is given to a tenure-track member. Fair is a graduate of Harvard University and received her Master’s of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art. She accepted a tenure-track position at Brandeis in 2006, after starting at the school in 1997. An artist in residence and coordinator of the post-baccalaureate studio art program, she teaches sculpture and drawing courses with

the titles of “Introduction to Drawing,” “Three-Dimensional Design,” “Blurring the Boundaries,” “Implicating the Body in Sculpture,” “Senior Studio,” “Sculpture Seminar”, and “Intermediate Sculpture.”

Professor Michael Willrich, a history teacher, won the Dean’s Mentoring Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Students for the graduate program.

Willrich, who teaches both graduates and undergraduates, received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and joined Brandeis in 1999. His areas of expertise are United States social and political history, with special attention to legal history, urban history and the Progressive Era (1890-1920).

He teaches American Political History and other legal history courses.

April 15, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot

News analysis:

Name recognition key for Rosen

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

Junior Herbie Rosen’s victory in the presidential election represents the success of a campaign that began with the most name recognition of any of the candidates and succeeded in large part because of a detailed platform that described not just the areas of desired reform but also how to enact it.

While Akash Vadalia ’12 as Union Treasurer and Amber Kornreich ’12 as president of the Brandeis Democrats are both campus leaders, Rosen held an immediate advantage in his campaign with instant name recognition as Student Union Secretary because he sends out at least one e-mail each week to the student body.

The night before the election, all three candidates participated in an open debate. While the candidates appeared to agree on most issues, Rosen and Vadalia tried to show that their previous Union experience would make them the best fit for president. In contrast, Kornreich said that her role as an outsider to the Union would bring a fresh view at how to run student government.

She emphasized that the key to a powerful Union was one that prioritized concerns of students more than the concerns of the administrators. Rosen’s victory came after a week where he led as the favorite on Facebook, gathering the most supporters under presidential candi-

date event pages.

The Union elections also came at a time when a student advocacy group, the Justice League, has tried to launch an ambitious campaign around dining and increased student representation on university committees.

The Justice League’s initiative reflects a group of students with progressive ideas who believe that the Union is the most effective organization to deliver the change that they want.

But as president, Rosen will have a chance to evaluate how closely he wants to work with the League versus address the concerns of individual students.

The issue of dining has recently become politicized with many students explaining a different view on why Brandeis does not allow other companies to compete for the food services contract.

While the Union has recently made progress in Dining Services, with a new five meal per week dining plan and a new P.O.D. market that opened on lower campus outside Ziv Residence Quad, the Justice League wants to see an option to replace Aramark with other companies at the beginning of the year.

Dining Services will represent only one area in addition to Housing and student social life, where Rosen will soon have to balance the demands of students with the caution of administrators who believe that the current trends at Brandeis are the right ones.

Election results in, Rosen wins elections, from page 1

two elections.

According to the Student Union Constitution, if a seat receives more abstain votes then votes for either candidate, the election must be redone for that position. This cannot be changed unless there is a two-thirds majority vote of the entire student body.

Ryan Fanning ’11, member of the election’s commission explained that this system is not conducive to the voting system of instant runoff “until the Constitution is changed [the system] is useless,” Fanning said.

Rosen felt extremely tired but “shocked, absolutely amazed and dumbfounded” immediately following the results.

“Obviously the election went spectacularly well on my side, the voting definitely exceeded my expectations and I’m so grateful,” he said. “It had three extremely capable and excited candidates, Amber had an energy that really enticed voters and Akash with all of his experience. It’s really amazing it turned out this way.”

In response to the empty seats and issues with abstaining votes and the current election

system, Rosen plans to make it one of the first discussions with his Executive Board.

This semester Rosen plans to speak at the upcoming State of the Union address and learn all he can from the current Student Union President Daniel Acheampong ’11.

“Daniel is still president and until I’m sworn in I just want to learn and listen and be a support system if he needs it.”

Following his swearing-in Rosen wants to make sure that he selects the most capable E-Board. He feels that selecting an efficient support system will make sure things are done next year.

Applications for the E-Board will be sent out following April break.

“I am absolutely amazed by the support and when we get back next year it’s really time to get things in motion,” Rosen said.

In a previous interview Rosen explained that his main objectives for next year are to make sure a student representative is on every single university committee without exception, have university assistance to students searching for off-campus housing and to renovate the housing we do have such as East Residence Hall and Usen Castle.

NEWS

3

Union Election Results President — 1,494 voters (44% of students)

Herbie Rosen — 958 votes

Akash Vadalia — 345 votes

Amber Kornreich ­— 180 votes

Abstain — 46 votes Vice President — 1,157 voters (34% of students)

Gloria Park — 483 votes

Shekeyla Caldwell — 414 votes

Andrea Ortega — ­ 236 votes Treasurer — 1,160 voters (34% of students)

Dan Lee — 572 votes

Sidak Pannu — 435 votes

Nathan Israel ­— 133 votes Secretary — 950 voters (28% of students)

Todd Kirkland — 473 votes

Elizabeth Fields — 455 votes

Abstain — 493 votes F-Board

Dillon C. Harvey, Jacob Agi, Gabe

Weingrod Nemzow, Donghae Choi,

Sunny Aidasani

Doctor who linked autism with vaccines addresses students WAKEFIELD, from page 1

“These children were not investigated as part of a scientific study. They came to Professor Walker Smith because they were sick,” Wakefield said about some of the patients. “There was no unethical research at anytime on any child at the Royal Free.”

Wakefield’s defense comes after the General Medical Council in Britain investigated the research and found that among other breaches of conduct, lawyers for parents planning to sue vaccine manufacturers paid Wakefield.

The Council also stated that Wakefield took blood samples from children at a birthday party and paid the children £5 for giving their blood.

Wakefield denied the criticism.

“Not one single patient came to us through lawyers,” he said. “They were clinical referrals.”

“Accordingly the Panel has determined that Dr Wakefield’s name should be erased from the medical register,” the Council wrote in the May 2010 report. “The Panel concluded that it is the only sanction that

is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession and is proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him.”

Since the 1998 paper, most scientists have concluded that there is no link suggesting a cause between vaccines and autism.

During his lecture, Wakefield repeatedly criticized Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer, who wrote a series of stories exposing the alleged fraud and unethical conduct by Wakefield.

He also blamed journalists for misrepresenting the issue and the facts, in part because the media gets many ads from pharmaceutical companies.

Wakefield said that he did not care what journalists like Deer had to say about him and explained that criticism of his research has only hurt sick children.

About 30 people in the audience of 80 stood up to applaud Wakefield

during his introduction and at the end of his remarks.

Today, between one in 100 and one in 150 children in the United States are diagnosed with autism. Crosby said that Wakefield’s research represents a potential cause. “[Autism Spectrum Disorder] exploded and something has happened. And tonight, we’ll discover the biggest controversy over one of the things that might have happened,” Crosby said.

Others disapproved of the talk. “I have never in my life seen such atrocious science and statistical fudging be so readily gobbled up by a group of angry parents,” Brandeis student Zach Feiger (PhD) said in a statement to The Hoot.

Suggesting that the MMR vaccine causes bowel symptoms and disease, Wakefield pointed to a photograph of a child stuck leaning over the side of a couch who had recently received a vaccine.

“This is a child who has lost the ability to communicate that he has

“ ” When medicine doesn’t have an answer, it blames the patient or the parent. This isn’t rocket science. This is treatable.

Andrew Wakefield

abdominal pain,” Wakefield said.

He showed another photograph of a child with an abnormally large abdomen, but who was otherwise extremely thin and weak. “He is sick. He looks like a child from a famine zone in West Africa,” Wakefield said.

Wakefield, who said that gastrointestinal and bowel symptoms affect between 45 to 80 percent of children with autism, said that the damage from the vaccines can be reversed.

“When medicine doesn’t have an answer, it blames the patient or the parent,” Wakefield said. “This isn’t

rocket science. This is treatable.

“My colleagues years ago said we cannot be seen to question the safety of vaccinations because we are pediatricians,” Wakefield said. “If you don’t ask the question, then you’ll never know.”

Despite the loss of his career and reputation, Wakefield defended his work.

“I’m just a doctor trying to do a job,” he said. “The job has to be done.

It’s far too important an issue to walk away from.”

4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 15, 2011

Part three in a comprehensive examination of race at Brandeis

The Architects:

Pedegogy and race at Brandeis

Professor Mingus Mapps (AAAS, POL) has been teaching race and politics at Brandeis for the past four years. As one out of the handful of African-American professors at Brandeis, Mapps points out, “I’m really lucky in a lot of ways because I teach at the intersection of race and politics, so I get a lot of student who are already interested in the subject. One of the great things about Brandeis is going into my class, and to see the exchanges that happen between people of very different backgrounds, people who have probably never been exposed to gangs before to people who have literally grown up in projects; to see them respectfully, but passionately explore some of the most important issues in American society today, and through those discussions develop some real friendships. So that’s when I feel best about what I’m doing here, in the classroom.”

He recognizes that his path here was a lucky, yet unusual one filled with chance connections and having known professors who had worked here. But Mapps also worries about why Brandeis was not known to him before.

“If you were a young African-American or Hispanic PhD. candidate, Brandeis isn’t just necessarily as well-known as the other places. I know when you’re looking for job opportunities, Brandeis is just the first school that comes up.” he said.

The question of Brandeis as a home to minority professors and students is one that remains better answered now than it was a decade ago, yet yields many more questions.

“The role that race studies play at Brandeis is less settled than the role that Biology or Political Science plays,” Mapps said. “We kind of need to press forward with that.”

Status of the faculty There are eight African-American undergraduate faculty members at Brandeis. These few comprise only 1.5 percent of the university’s total undergraduate faculty, with 2.6 percent of the total undergraduate faculty being Hispanic.

As of this academic year African-Americans comprise 1.6 percent of Brandeis’ full-time faculty, with 3 percent being Hispanic and 78 percent being white, according to a study by the university department for institutional research.

African-American percentages are further stratified in regards to part-time faculty, who often include recent doctorates and graduate students, with 72 percent being white non-Hispanic professors, 1.1 percent being African-American

By

and 1.7 percent being Hispanic. These numbers mark a decrease in African-American full-time faculty members since 2009, when 2 percent were African-American and 2 percent were Hispanic.

The low percentage of African-American and Hispanic professors is an issue Brandeis has been grappling with for many years. The decreasing percentage trend in faculty was brought up as a concern as early as 2005 during a university re-accreditation meeting.

“An issue of concern is the diversity of faculty,” the minutes of the Oct. 20 meeting read.

“This is being addressed, but progress will be slow.”

Interestingly, an evaluation of faculty appointments from 2000 to 2007 showed progress in the gender diversity of faculty, something many other schools grapple with, but not in racial diversity. In the 2007-2008 academic year, 60 percent of the faculty was men and 40 percent was woman—with increased gender diversity from the 2003-2004 academic year, when 64 percent of faculty was male and 36 percent was female.

Yet while improvements have been made during the years in respect to gender diversity, racial diversity has remained stagnant at best. Between 2000 and 2007, 73 percent of the tenure-track faculty hires were white, with the remaining 27 percent of hires being classified as faculty of color. The individual percentages of Hispanic, African-American and Asian professors with tenure, however, are unknown because all races other than Caucasian were classified as “people of color.”

“We are in the process of trying to make at least one new hire and hopefully two, so I hope to see that program grow,” Mapps said in an interview with The Hoot this week.

One or two professors, however, will not provide the significant growth Brandeis requires to reach national standards.

Nationwide statistics show that Brandeis is behind the curve when it comes to having a racially diverse faculty. In fall 1998, the total percentage of black, non-Hispanic faculty for private, not-for profit, liberal arts universities was at 10.7 percent, while Hispanic faculty was at 4.1 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty.

Ultimately, professors of color (including Asians, Pacific Islanders and Native Americans) comprised 40.5 percent of the full-time faculty nationwide.

Wittenberg,

Hiring practices behind percentages Whenever the university begins a search for a new faculty member, a committee is formed that includes a “diversity representative” (DR).

This representative is a non-voting member of the committee, who is present “to ensure that minority and female candidates are given due consideration in hiring procedures for tenured and tenure-track faculty,” according to the provost’s website.

While all members of the search committee are charged with ensuring the candidates match the search criteria, the DR “pays particular attention to the diversity of the applicant pool,” and is responsible for monitoring the applicant pool and for “alert[ing] the search committee chair if it lacks diversity so that reasons for the deficiency can be identified and further outreach incentives implemented, if necessary.”

DRs do most of their work in the early stages of a search and are responsible for maximizing outreach to minority professors. As part of this, all advertisements for faculty positions publicized by the university read, “Brandeis University is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community, and strongly encourages applications from women and minorities.”

The provost’s website also suggests DRs “ask female and minority faculty … in departments with overlapping research areas, for advice on networking contacts. They may even have acquaintances at other institutions who might make ideal hires for Brandeis.”

The identity of the DR changes in each search and is kept anonymous from the other members of the committee. At the end of the search, the DR is required to sign a Fair Search Report in approval of the chosen hire.

Krauss described these practices as “an allpoint press to try and build as diverse a pool as possible.”

Since the identity of the DR is varied and kept anonymous, it is difficult to understand the experience of agency in that position.

Tenured Professor Jane Hale (EDU) has previously served as a DR on a search committee, however, and was able to give insight into the difficulty of disagreeing with your colleagues on this particular issue of the lack of minority professors.

“The attitude that people have is ‘everything’s fine, everything’s fine. What are you upset about?’ I can’t tell you the number of

Ogbeide &

times that I have gotten upset in a meeting, and it’s ‘there goes Jane again,’ But I criticize us because I want us to better, I don’t criticize us to break us down,” she said. “I have been here 25 years and I really love my career, I love my students, but I think the faculty is really the next place to look at. I think it’s very, very, very important.”

Hale’s anecdote depicts the difficulty of being a single representative for diversity on an entire hiring committee of one’s colleagues.

Minority faculty members are not only sought after when there is an open position.

Professors are encouraged to keep an eye out for qualified minority PhD candidates both at Brandeis and when they participate in conferences.

Another mechanism that has been successful in obtaining minority candidates for hire is the “target opportunity hires program” that is used “where if someone who presents an unusual way of diversifying … becomes known to us, the department can petition the administration to hire a person even when there wasn’t a spot allocated to that department that they were trying to fill,” Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said in an interview last month.

“It is an example of how even in this chilly hiring environment, we are still on the lookout [for minority professors].”

Clogs in the pipeline The most recent obstacle the university has faced in finding minority faculty members is the university’s financial strife, which last year was described by one of the members of the board of trustees as a “$25 million budget shortfall in the typical year.” These financial troubles limit the number of new faculty hires the university can afford.

“We don’t have a lot of faculty hiring going on now,” Krauss said. “If you are not searching, you are not finding.”

But problems in faculty racial diversity predate the current university financial crisis.

Jaffe attributed the historically low percentage of professors of color at Brandeis to a combination of a “seemingly small number of qualified [minority] candidates” and “competition that is intense.”

Because of a lack of access to higher education among minority populations in the United States, Jaffe said the pipeline of PhD students of color “is not very robust.”

Gubbala

April 15, 2011

NEWS 5

The Brandeis Hoot

By the numbers Survey of 270 students, or 8 percent of the undergraduate student body

This national socioeconomic reality often forces the university to choose between quality and quantity.

“At the end of the day we are not going to choose someone who we think is less qualified because they will diversify the faculty,” Jaffe said.

This dearth in qualified candidates also means the university faces stiff competition in attracting racial minority professors to Brandeis. There have been numerous instances where minority candidates have been offered positions at Brandeis only to receive better offers from other universities, Jaffe said, citing one case that occurred a few years ago involving a Hispanic science professor.

Krauss reiterated the point.

“The truth is that when there is a really solid candidate who is a minority, that person can pretty much write their own ticket,” she said.

In recent years, the university has seen growth in the number of East Asian and Asian faculty hires across multiple disciplines. Jaffe, who served as chair of the economics department before becoming dean, said, that in the last 10 years, the economics department— usually dominated by white males—“has hired several south Asian women.

“On the one hand that means something to all of the people in the department who are not white males,” Jaffe said, “But on the other hand … you need to have different kinds of faculty of color.”

The number of African-American and Hispanic professors on campus is not only smaller than that of Asian faculty members, but these professors are also concentrated in specific disciplines, something Jaffe said is no coincidence.

The pipeline is particularly thin when it comes to the sciences, and currently the university does not have any African-American or Hispanic math or science professors. Because of this, the university sometimes relies on departments with ethnic focuses—like the Afro and African-American Studies (AAAS) department—to draw minority professors.

This practice is one the university tries not to rely on.

“It would not be sufficient to just say we are going to have a big AAAS department and most of those professors will be AfricanAmerican and thus we will have a good cadre of African-American faculty,” Jaffe said. “If that happens, then someone majoring in biochemistry will not see any non-white faculty.

But given how hard it is [to attract minority professors], it is a worthwhile component of your hiring strategy to think about the areas where you are most likely to get [minority applicants].”

Though having most minority faculty members in ethnic disciplines is not ideal, for now, Jaffe said, it is better than nothing.

“To a certain extent, it just matters who’s on campus,” he said. “African-American professors are sought out by non-majors as mentors.”

Though this cross-discipline mentoring can be positive, Krauss worries it strains minority faculty due to the growing proportion of minority students that may go to them for mentoring.

“Minority faculty here get tapped for a lot of extra-curricular activities,” she said.

Retention problems Not only does the university face obstacles in attracting minority faculty to Brandeis, it also has trouble keeping them here.

Within the last eight years the university has also lost a number of African-American professors for various reasons, Jaffe said.

“We are talking about three or four people over eight years and in each case there were specific circumstances … But we have had much more difficulty hiring and retaining African-American faculty than other kinds of faculty who are diverse in other ways.”

And when the total number of AfricanAmerican faculty members is just eight people (or 1.5 percent of all faculty), a loss of 3 to 4 professors over eight years is significant.

While the numbers may be unsettling, Krauss said faculty leaving the university is just a natural part of academia.

“The truth is we have lost a number of minority faculty either because they did not meet the standards of tenure or got recruited away. Those things happen,” she said. “In fact, in any university you don’t want to see people not get tenure, but the fact that some of your stars get recruited away is a fact of life.”

University executive summaries, however, suggest the reasoning is not that simple. In 1993 an executive summary study of minority and non-minority faculty and staff reports that not only did discrimination against black faculty and staff occur, it also “may have been a factor in blacks being denied promotions and tenure.”

The study also stated that minority and non-minority faculty felt black faculty and administrators had a more difficult time being accepted at Brandeis than other minorities. Black staff reported being repeatedly challenged by their supervisors, colleagues and those they serve in the university to prove themselves after they are hired or promoted; and “minority and non-minority faculty reported that minority faculty who specialize in minority issues are considered marginal scholars by some colleagues,” the study said.

More so than being marginalized, Mapps also points out the lack of support within the community of African-American professors solely due to their low numbers.

“I do think there is a critical mass problem,” he said. “A good way to build diversity is to have a critical mass of students and faculty of colors.”

“The faculty of color on campus: There are not that many, but a critical mass helps because there are many issues that particularly pertain to faculty of color and there are not really enough of us here to form a community and support each other individually.”

Seventy percent of faculty said more should be done to ensure multiracial understanding.

With only eight African-American professors on campus, it is understandable that their perspective is in higher demand at many activities on campus, and therefore they are often burdened with involvement in many extracurricular activities.

As Mapps pointed out, “The job is a little bit different as a faculty of color; I think literally the mentoring demands are much higher.

I think there are a certain class of students that literally require your time in a way that other faculty may not experience.

“I kind of know if you talk to any faculty of color they feel sort of frustrated and little bit depressed because, given what you would do with all your students, there’s just not enough time or bodies or resources to do what you would like to do,” Mapps said. “I think there is a lot of burn out, a lot of frustration that happens on that end of things.”

The racial breakdown of the faculty in the 2009-2010 academic year.

Diversifying the power brokers Brandeis is not only lacking racial diversity in its faculty—in its administration as well.

In the 63 years of its existence, Brandeis has never had a minority president. Of the 11 administrators listed on the “senior leadership” portion of the university website, all are Caucasian. The lack of racial diversity in the senior administration is also mirrored by the 40-member board of trustees, of which there is a single African-American member.

Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams was originally hired in 2005 as the “assistant dean of student life for the support of diversity” and said he still handles many issues of diversity in his current position.

“As an individual of color in higher education, you go into it knowing, one: There are not a lot of us. And two: On any given campus if you have someone color … you by default become ‘the diversity person,’” he said. “That’s fine, it is what it is, it comes with the territory.”

Indeed, one of the responsibilities of Adams’ position is organizing the Community Prejudice Response Task Force, which deals with allegations of discrimination whenever they occur on campus.

Also on the task force is Elaine Wong, who, in her position as senior associate dean of arts and sciences for undergraduate education, sits on the provost’s steering committee on campus diversity issues. In recent years, the committee has spearheaded a “diverse texts” project which seeks to “expose undergraduate students to a variety of human societies, cultures and countries while exploring the causes and consequences of racial, ethnic, gender, class and religious differences” by integrating core texts approved by the committee into as many courses as possible, according to the initiative’s website.

“You know, there is nothing in my job description that says ‘you will deal with diversity,’ but people bring their own passions and commitments,” Wong said of her work with the committee. “That doesn’t mean that if you’re Asian you are going to be particularly caring about Asian-American issues, but it’s possible, or you might have more sensitivity, or at least a more diverse point of view.”

Effects on students As the university waits for hiring freezes to be lifted and pipelines to be built, the faculty demographics are having a tangible effect in the classroom and on students’ education.

“I want to see professors that reflect their students,” Zakaria Hussein (TYP) said. “From a social level, if you have more professors that reflect their students, students feel more comfortable and form relationships.”

The same sentiments can be seen in reports dating back almost 20 years. The 1993 report revealed that “minority students are labeled

7 percent Asian American 5 percent International 6 percent Unknown 2 percent Hispanic 2 percent African American 72 percent white

as poorly prepared and unable to compete and counseled to avoid math and science courses [by non-minority professors]” and that the “lack of minority faculty and administrators in positions to support minority students in need of assistance exacerbates academic problems and contributes to attrition among black students.”

Then, in 2002 a report by a presidential task force revealed that, “Many minority students express dissatisfaction with the fact that there are very few staff and faculty role models and mentors from their backgrounds similar to their own.”

Without opportunity to discuss and understand race and racial incidents in their own way, the report revealed “many feel burdened by pressure to ‘represent’ their entire group because they are often the only members of that group in a given class or social setting and feel stereotyped, prejudged or unseen by members of the majority. In many instances, this is reinforced by overheard comments or hurtful interactions with students, faculty, staff and administrators.”

Wong said she has seen these same trends with current students.

“In general, what we’ve heard is that students would like to have role models and mentors in as many different disciplines as possible. They want people who are able to explain to them their own stories and paths,” she said. “Students would like our faculty to be distributed throughout the departments and they would like for an African-American [to be] in the theater department, but I could say same thing about the physics department or wherever an African-American [professor] is missing.”

The lack of diverse faculty at Brandeis is disappointing to education major Jesse Begelfer ’12, who said is worried about the effect on stuSee Architects, page 6

6 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 15, 2011

Shades of Gray

Race of faculty effects students’ education

Architects, from page 5

dents. “[Students] will never realize what they are missing. I grew up my whole life without every really realizing race. One day, I decided to take an English class on race and identity, and I was just shocked at how sheltered I had been my whole life,” she said.

“I had always known that there was something bigger that I had never understood, always known that there were inequalities out there,” Begelfer continued. “The fact that you can find Band-Aids in your skin’s color in CVS, that’s a privilege. Realizing all the white privilege was just such an ‘a-ha’ moment.”

For others, race education is not only important for them to deconstruct their particular racial experience, but also to understand how teaching surrounding the topic of race can be improved.

Taisha Sturdivant ’11 said there are things she has been taught at Brandeis that she wants to “unlearn” because “there have been some things for me that have been healthy for me to digest about race and some things that are doing more harm.”

Sturdivant said when she returned home after living at Brandeis for a long time she felt “slightly uncomfortable and unsafe in my own community.

“And then I’m like, ‘wait a second, I’ve been walking these streets my whole life, I know these people, I chill with them, I walked these streets even late at night,’” she said. “But it wasn’t until I came to school and started learning about all these sociological theories about the vilification of the dark, how black people are criminalized, the way they’re viewed in the myriad.

“I had started to internalize what I was learning,” she said. “Do I want to write off people who are not doing well in my family as ‘ghetto’ or ‘trapped in a cycle’ or do I still need to view them as a human who needs help just like anybody else who’s struggling?”

Moreover she often questions the many assumptions still made by professors and students alike in the Brandeis classroom, “I have had classes where a professor will say, ‘can we get the urban perspective?’ and literally look right at me and I will be the only person of color in the class,” she said.

“Everybody in the class will just look at me and just wait for the urban perspective. What makes you think I have the right to speak for people from the urban environment and what makes you think I want to do that? The professor didn’t even realize how disrespectful and embarrassing that was.”

More so than lack of education surrounding race, Mapps worries minority students might avoid taking courses in other subject areas if there is not a sufficient number of minority professors in that field.

“I do think white faculty can teach issues of race because white is also race,” Mapps said. “So I do think that’s a problem but it’s not the one I worry about.”

“The students in mathematics do not have any mentors within their field of study,” he continued. “Students can realize that ‘Oh, there is a black chemist, and I had never really thought about chemistry before, but maybe I can do it.’”

A golden opportunity While former President Jehuda Reinharz was in still in his presidency he recognized how dire the diversity of the faculty was, stating, “Clearly, however, more needs to be done. This is a task of the highest priority for our university and for me personally. I count on every student, every faculty and staff member to play a constructive and continuing part in this effort.”

The 1993 executive summary attributed the lack of minority administrators to “little turnover in administrative positions,” saying “they cannot offer employees promotions and career advancement, which makes retention of minority employees difficult.”

With the influx of a new administration in the year to come, however, this gives much hope to faculty who desire to see this issue given priority at the university and see this year as a golden opportunity for this university to change its ways.

As Hale told The Hoot, “I think with our new president I have hope, but I want to see a dean and/or a provost who’s black. And I want to see a power triumvirate that is not all Jewish and white.”

Newly elected President Frederick Lawrence acknowledged his power to set the future agenda of Brandeis as well as its diversity issues in an interview saying, “One of the things I do get to do is sort of articulate a theme and what I choose to talk about is important.

“I am comfortable talking about issues of race and diversity and I think maybe in some way that can be useful. Cold comfort lies in the fact that things are dramatically better than they used to be, but that is not the standard. The standard is where they should be, but the trajectory is good.”

Also Jaffe concluded in an interview with The Hoot, “I would say particularly with respect to the faculty, we have not succeeded as well as I would have liked … [We] haven’t made as much progress as I would like. But I haven’t run into

the philosophy that there’s nothing else that can be done.”

Wong agreed with him, stating, “I think there should be more staff of color in certain departments ... In offices that work with students it’s good to have, again, a range of backgrounds.

Why should it look any different than the population in general?”

For some, like Hale, having minority faculty members is the best way to prepare students for the globalized world into which they are graduating. “[Having a diverse faculty] is the smart thing to do,” Hale said. “If you want a world where everyone can work and live together, and if you want your kids to be a part of that world, you owe it to them to give them exposure to that entire world.”

Hussein agreed.

“Not having professors that are racially diverse is going against our credo of ‘truth even unto its innermost parts,’” he said. “Because I know there are qualified minority professors around and we need them here because it brings different insights to the table and with different insights you have different education. Period.”

For a liberal arts institution of our era, it seems a great portion of students will be leaving uneducated about an important issue: race. Aside from adding another requirement, addressing the issues of minorities in the undergraduate faculty is an avenue that must be looked at, and looked at soon.

As Professor Harry Mairson (BIOL) pointed out in a 2004 issue of WATCH Magazine, “Unless ‘diversity at Brandeis’ means teaching about the pluralism you seek in communities and institutions once you leave Brandeis—and it’s disingenuous to preach what you are unwilling to practice—it has to mean more than inviting others to sit at your table and eat your food. It has to mean actually deeding part of the table to your guests.”

Looking toward the future Mapps finds hope and much inspiration through his teaching that times are changing for Brandeis. “I think this is a water-shed moment. I think that we have gone through a period where the real emphasis was on building the physical infrastructure of the campus, but then there is a different step of what happens inside these buildings and frankly, I think we are still trying to sort out what happens inside these buildings,” he said.

“I believe and hope that that is a priority for our new president: what we fill these grand new buildings with, and what are these buildings for and what kind of community do they support.”

April 29: A Mosaic—a look at the role of race in student life.

... I know there are qualified minority professors around and we need them here because it brings different insights to the table and with different insights you have different education. Period.

— Zakaria Hussein TYP

I have had classes where professors say ‘can we get the urban perspective?’ and literally look right at me and I will be the only person of color in the class ... What makes you think I have the right to speak for people from the urban environment, and what makes you think I want to do that?

—Taisha Sturdivant ’11

EDITORIALS

April 15, 2011

Established 2005 "To acquire wisdom, one must observe."

Alex Schneider Editor in Chief Destiny D. Aquino Managing Editor Nathan Koskella News Editor Jon Ostrowsky News Editor Leah Finkelman Features Editor Morgan Gross Impressions Editor Alex Self Impressions Editor Sean Fabery Arts, Etc. Editor Gordy Stillman Sports Editor Leah Lefkowitz Layout Editor Vanessa Kerr Business Editor Yael Katzwer Copy Editor Savannah Pearlman Copy Editor Ariel Wittenberg Associate Editor Photography Editors Nafiz “Fizz” Ahmed Ingrid Schulte Alan Tran

Senior Editors Bret Matthew Kayla Dos Santos Max Shay

Volume 8 • Issue 12 the brandeis hoot • brandeis university 415 south street • waltham, ma

Founded By Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

STAFF Rick Alterbaum, Candice Bautista, Alana Blum, Chris Bordelon, Debby Brodsky, Emily Breitbart, Haley Fine, Emma Chad-Friedman, Jodi Elkin, Andrea Fishman, Jeremy Goodman, Edwin Gonzalez, Paula Hoekstra, Adam Hughes, Gabby Katz, Josh Kelly, Christina Kolokotroni, Anthony Losquadro, Ariel Madway, Estie Martin, Alex Norris, Alexandra Patch, Lien Phung, Andrew Rauner, Alexandra Zelle Rettman, Ricky Rosen, Nate Rosenbloom, Imara Roychowdhury, Morgana Russino, Aaron Sadowsky, Jessica Sashihara, Aliza Sena, Emily Stott, Brian Tabakin, Ryan Tierney, Steven Wong, Yuan Yao and Suzanna Yu

Mission The Hoot is a community student newspaper of Brandeis University. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

The Brandeis Hoot 7

Demoted department merits praise

F

our esteemed faculty members were honored by the university at this week’s faculty meeting and received prestigious awards for mentorship and excellence in teaching. Half of these professors, including those taking home the two most prestigious prizes, belonged to the American Studies program.

Last year the American Studies department, which hosts one of the oldest majors on campus and which also oversees the extremely popular minors of legal studies, journalism and environmental studies, was cut to become an interdisciplinary program.

It was placed on a hiring freeze with the expectation that no more faculty would be tenured and tied solely to the department.

The Hiatt Career Center website says that the American Studies program “offers an interdisciplinary approach to the myths, values, symbols, institutions and behavior of the peoples of the United States, and to the questions raised by the influence of America in shaping the modern world. The American Studies major prepares students for a wide range of careers including law, business, public policy, communica-

tions and education.”

In recent history, Brandeis American Studies alumni have gone on to become company presidents, acclaimed authors, assistant attorneys general and respected academics.

Almost half of the current American Studies faculty has received a university teaching award. Three of the faculty hold endowed chairs.

The student body, through their evaluation forms and nominations, and university administrators and outside donors on the awards committees, have exhibited their admiration towards the former “department” of American Studies.

We feel that President Lawrence having received his degree in American Studies during his undergraduate career at Williams should further support the understanding of the value of this major.

We believe that the foundation of the major is threatened if the hiring freeze is not removed and the department restored to full status. It is evident that American Studies professors have made a visible impact on this campus.

If the hiring freeze were not to be lifted and the classes that constitute the

major are absorbed by other departments, then the students will lose the ability to learn American Studies from experts in this field of academia— tenured experts who have, after all, received the university’s highest accolades.

The study of America and its culture, as taught by History, Politics, Sociology or any other department’s faculty, would simply not be of the same caliber that having a department and an individually-tenured faculty allows it to be. Yes, today the program functions the same as it did as a department but, as professors retire, the core and heart of this major will be diluted.

It is our hope that with all the changes and advances President Lawrence is bringing to our campus, he, the American Studies grad, and the Board of Trustees will reconsider the changes to American Studies made by last year’s “2020 Committee” and return it to its rightful position as a department. He and his new provost should see that the major may hire new professors who will then be able to continue to enrich the lives of students and the Brandeis community as the current American Studies faculty has done.

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Please submit letters to letters@thebrandeishoot.com along with your contact information. Letters should not exceed 500 words.

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Don’t let Wakefield go unchallenged

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ndrew Wakefield has caused great harm through his research, which is filled with fraud and unethical conduct far more than it is with facts. Wakefield has every right to free speech and students at Brandeis have every right to invite him to speak here, regardless of how controversial and discredited his work has become.

But this university also has an obligation to present the opinions of those who refute Wakefield and his work.

Yes, many stood up to ask questions after his talk about the connection

between MMR vaccinations and autism, but had a Brandeis science or health policy professor sat on the stage to debate him, it would have fostered true knowledge and a dedication to Brandeis’ highest values.

Wakefield is undoubtedly a compelling speaker and he presented a formal PowerPoint filled with scientific language. For those who know little about autism, vaccinations or the controversy surrounding Wakefield’s work, they would have little reason to know that he lost his license to practice medicine in Britain or that the very article he

wrote in 1998 was later retracted.

Universities must be a forum for promoting education and knowledge, and this means that when an individual who wishes to speak is essentially rejected by the entire community in which he or she works, we have a responsibility to explain the other side.

The problem with allowing Wakefield to speak without any opposing view is that it makes him seem far more credible than he is. He has already caused enough harm in the world. We hope that all Brandeis students recognize the errors and flaws in his work.

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Sports

8 The Brandeis Hoot

April 15, 2011

MLB power rankings: Texas takes the top

By Gordy Stillman Editor

It’s been a great week in baseball. Every team has at least a few wins and it’s starting to become visible which teams are actually surpassing expectations as opposed to the teams that just had surprising starts. Unfortunately for some, it’s also becoming clear which teams with high expectations are falling apart. Luckily for some, the season lasts until October and there should be time to recover.

The records are as of April 13.

1. Texas Rangers (9-3): The Rangers are a full three games ahead of their nearest competition in their division. With the most wins and only three losses, the Rangers edged out the Phillies for the top spot this week.

2. Philadelphia Phillies (8-3): Each Phillies loss has come from a different rival in the National League (NL) East. A loss to the Braves is understandable but the Phillies cannot afford to lose to their own division.

3. Cincinnati Reds (8-4): The Reds are staying in great shape with the only winning record in their division. Other than losing a series against the Diamondbacks, the Reds have nothing to complain about.

4. Cleveland Indians (8-4): The Indians are joining the Reds in the top five for the first time in a long time.

5. Colorado Rockies (8-2): Last week they swept the Red Sox and continued the trend by sweeping the Mariners. Their eight-game win streak was finally capped with a 2-0 loss to the Angels on Tuesday 6. New York Yankees (6-4): The Yankees may be a little high for a 5-4 team. They keep alternating between winning and losing and surprising the critics who thought the Yankees were out of the running from the start.

7. Chicago White Sox (7-5): The White Sox may have handed the Rays their first win but, with second place in the American League (AL) Central, a single loss can make all the difference.

8. Atlanta Braves (5-7): The Braves are the only team in the top 10 because many of their losses have come against other great teams. Last weekend they lost two games to the Phillies after losing three of a four game series to the Brewers.

9. Baltimore Orioles (6-4): The Orioles have the best record in what is often called the most competitive division in the major leagues. With only six wins, and most of them against the

struggling Rays and Tigers, the Orioles potential remains unknown.

10. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (7-5): Unlike the Dodgers, the Angels have not yet played a division rival. Additionally, they handed the Royals three of their current wins.

11. Los Angeles Dodgers (6-6): The Dodgers and their AL counterparts the Angels are practically the same rank. The biggest difference for the Dodgers is that they have so far only been playing division rivals.

12. Kansas City Royals (7-4): The Royals have quickly fallen to third in their division after starting the season 4-0. They can currently be proud to have wins against every opponent they’ve faced.

13. San Francisco Giants (6-6): The Giants have yet to sweep a single opponent. Additionally, their only winning series has come against the struggling Cardinals.

14. Minnesota Twins (4-7): The Twins may

seem a little high but, after looking at their last week of games, every loss has been by two runs or less. Additionally, the Twins tend to start the season slowly before rising through their division later in the season.

15. Toronto Blue Jays (6-6): The Blue Jays travel to the west coast has been less than successful with a four-game losing streak. The Jays need to get back to winning series as they prepare to visit the Red Sox and host the Yankees.

16. Milwaukee Brewers (6-5): After starting 0-4, the Brewers are on the rise. They nearly swept the Braves and the Cubs to bounce back to a split record.

17. Chicago Cubs (6-6): Sure, the Cubs have wins, but they’ve played against three of last year’s worst teams.

18. Oakland Athletics (6-6): The Athletics finally won their first series in three close games against the Twins. Sitting in third place, they are a full four games behind the division-leading

Rangers 19. Washington Nationals (5-6): The Nationals, so far, have only lost one series. Managing wins against tough foes such as the Phillies edges them above their division rival: the Marlins.

20. Florida Marlins (6-5): The Marlins are doing decently considering they’ve mainly been facing their division rivals. Unfortunately, they are in the middle of a trip to Atlanta and Philadelphia to face the two best teams in their division.

21. San Diego Padres (5-6): They started off strong with two wins against the Cardinals, but have been slumping in the last week with losses at home to the Giants, Dodgers and Reds.

22. Detroit Tigers (5-7): The Tigers wins have been few and far between. In every series so far, they’ve had a disappointing 2-1 record.

23. Pittsburgh Pirates (5-6): The Pirates are on the rise with only one lost series. Losing to the Rockies isn’t good but it’s more understandable than losing to, for instance, the Astros.

24. Arizona Diamondbacks (5-6): Perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the past week, the Diamondbacks upset the Reds and delivered them two of their losses.

25. New York Mets (4-7): The Mets may have had a good start, but losing to the Phillies, Nationals and Rockies has more than undone their early successes.

26. St. Louis Cardinals (5-7): Albert Pujols should have gotten a contract before the season started. With the way the Cardinals are struggling, he may have a harder time getting the terms he wanted.

27. Seattle Mariners (4-8): The Mariners started off greatly with two wins against the Athletics. Unfortunately, getting swept by Cleveland after a bad series in Texas further deepened the hole they need to climb out of.

28. Boston Red Sox (2-9): The Red Sox finally won in their home opener against none other than the Yankees. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been enough to turn around the disappointing start to the season.

29. Tampa Bay Rays (3-8): The Rays also got to win last Friday with a close match against the White Sox. A trip to Boston hasn’t hurt; they’ve lately been winning against their division foes as well.

30. Houston Astros (3-9): With the exception of their first win, when the Astros win, it’s usually a blowout. If they could start winning more frequently, they’d become a legitimate threat in their division.

graphic from internet source

NBA playoffs: a look at the games ahead

By Brian Tabakin Staff

Eastern Conference: 1. Chicago Bulls (62-20) vs. 8. Indiana Pacers (37-45): The Bulls have systematically dominated the Pacers this season, winning their head-to-head series 3-1 with the sole loss coming in a 115108 shootout. The Bulls have won their games against the Pacers by an average of 18 points. The Bulls have the likely MVP in Derrick Rose and the likely Coach of the Year in Tom Thibodeau along with the best bench in the league. Meanwhile, the Pacers are arguably the worst playoff team in recent memory. Even with their lack of playoff experience, the Bulls should handle the Pacers with relative ease.

Bulls win in four games.

2. Miami Heat (58-24) vs. 7. Philadelphia 76ers (41-41): Since starting the season 9-8 and garnering much ridicule, the Heat have come into form and become one of the most dominant teams in the NBA, led by their trio of Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. While the 76ers are one of the feel-good stories of the league, having improved from 27 wins last season to a playoff team this year, their storybook turnaround will come to a crashing halt against the Heat. The 76ers just do not have the star-power or talent to compete with the Heat.

While I don’t see a sweep here, the Heat will not have much trouble here.

Heat win in five games.

3. Boston Celtics (56-26) vs. 6. New York Knicks (42-40): As has been typical with this Celtics team during the past two years, the Celtics raced out of the gate with the league’s second-best record before the all-star break. However, after the earth-shattering trade of Kendrick Perkins, the Celtics have stumbled towards the finish line, hovering around .500 since the all-star break with head scratching losses to teams like the Clippers and Bobcats. However, the Celtic’s defense is still elite, having actually slightly improved since the trade of Perkins. For all the talk of the loss of Perkins, the success of this team will hinge on the Big Four of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo. The Knicks are returning to the playoffs for the first time in seven years with the additions of Amare Stoudemire, Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony. However, the style of play the Knicks employ is not suited for the playoffs. They do not play defense and their fast-paced style is not suited for the playoff enviroment. New York may be buzzing about the return of the Knicks, but the Knicks will be easily outmatched by the Celtics.

Celtics win in five games.

4. Orlando Magic (52-30) vs. 5. Atlanta Hawks (44-38): Most people expect the Magic to sweep the Hawks as they did last year when they won each game by at least 10 points. However, this matchup has

been drastically altered this year with the addition of a little-known center Jason Collins to the Hawks team.

The Hawks won the regular season series against the Magic 3-1 due in large part to the play of Collins. Collins has been able to guard Magic superstar Dwight Howard by himself, frustrating Howard and limiting his impact on the game. The Magic’s game is predicated on Howard drawing a double-team and then kicking out the ball to their open three-point shooters. With Collins’ ability to cover Howard alone, the Hawks have fundamentally altered this matchup.

I still do not believe the Hawks have enough talent to beat the Magic, but this series will be much closer than anyone is anticipating.

Magic win in seven games.

Western Conference: 1. San Antonio Spurs (61-21) vs. 8.

Memphis Grizzlies (46-36): While the number one seed hardly ever struggles in the first round against the eighth seed, this matchup could be very different. The Grizzlies and Spurs split the season series at two games apiece. San Antonio is an aging team that likes to play at a slower pace while Memphis is a young team that likes to run up and down the floor.

Furthermore, Memphis has one of the best wing defenders in the league in Tony Allen, who will be able to drive San Antonio off the three-point line.

However, while Memphis will definitely give San Antonio trouble, San Antonio’s Big Three of Tim Duncan,

Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker will be too much for this young Grizzlies team to handle.

Spurs win in six games.

2. Los Angeles Lakers (57-25) vs. 7.

New Orleans Hornets (46-36): The Lakers absolutely dominated the Hornets in every facet of the game in the regular season. Hornets’ star Chris Paul no longer has the explosiveness he once had after being plagued by knee problems. Furthermore, after the loss of big-man David West, the Hornets have no one to match up against the Lakers dominating front line of Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Oh, and there’s that guy named Kobe Bryant too. The Hornets were a feel-good story this season, but the Lakers will destroy them, sending the Hornets into the offseason with the franchise’s future in New Orleans in doubt as well as the future of all-star point guard Chris Paul, who is eligible for free agency after this season.

Lakers win in four games.

3. Dallas Mavericks (57-25) vs. 6.

Portland Trail Blazers (48-34): Since losing the NBA finals to the Miami Heat in 2006, the Mavericks have failed to advance out of the first round in three out of the past four years. Unfortunately for the Mavericks, I don’t see that trend reversing this year. The Mavericks are dependent on all-star Dirk Nowitzki and, since losing the 2006 NBA finals, many teams have developed an effective strategy to contain and limit

Nowitzki’s impact on the game. Portland has been plagued by injuries all season; however, in the presence of these injuries, LaMarcus Aldridge has emerged as a bona fide superstar and Brandon Roy has slowly returned to his pre-injury all-star form. Portland is one of the few teams in the NBA that can match the Lakers’ size and this size will be too much for the Mavericks to handle.

Trail Blazers win in six games.

4. Oklahoma City Thunder (55-27) vs. 5. Denver Nuggets (50-32): Since acquiring Kendrick Perkins at the trade deadline from the Boston Celtics, the Thunder have been infused with an interior toughness that had been lacking until that point.

With all-stars Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, emerging star James Harden and a solid bench, the Thunder will make quick work of the Nuggets. The Nuggets have been one of the most effective offenses in the league since trading away their superstar Carmelo Anthony and have also developed a strong defense that they had lacked with Anthony. The Nuggets basically have two starting fives giving them one of the best benches in the league. However, the Nuggets don’t have any super-stars but rather a collection of B players, and in the league today, you need super-star talent to win.

Thunder win in five games.

Finals Prediction Boston Celtics beat Oklahoma City Thunder in six games.

April 15, 2011

SPORTS 9

The Brandeis Hoot

UAA standings and over-all records

Baseball: Judges go 3-2 in the last five games

By Brian Tabakin Staff

Baseball Team

UAA

All

Emory

5– 1

25 – 12

Case Western

4–2

25 – 11

Washington

3–3

21 – 13

Brandeis

2–4

17–12

Rochester

1 –5

9 – 13

Chicago

0–0

10 – 6

Box Scores Rhode Island College

Win

5–3

@Wheaton

Loss

6–0

UMass Dartmouth

Win

3–2

UMass Dartmouth

Win

14 – 7

Worcester State

Loss

10 – 8

Softball Team

UAA

All

Emory

8– 0

32 – 2 – 1

Washington

6–2

26 – 7 – 1

Rochester

3–5

17 – 9

Brandeis

3–5

14 – 15

Chicago

0–0

16 – 8

Case Western

0–8

14 – 20

Box Scores Babson

Loss

11 – 0

Babson

Loss

6–0

@Tufts

Loss

8–2

@Tufts

Win

4–0

Men’s tennis Team

UAA

All

Emory

0–0

17 – 3

Chicago

0–0

14 – 3

Washington

0–0

12 – 4

Carnegie Mellon

0–0

13 – 8

Brandeis

0–0

9–6

NYU

0–0

6–4

Case Western

0 –0

10 – 7

Rochester

0–0

11 – 8

Box Scores @MIT

Win

6–3

@Trinity

Loss

7–2

Women’s tennis Team

UAA

All

Chicago

0–0

15 – 2

Rochester

0–0

13 – 3

Emory

0–0

16 – 4

Washington

0–0

12 – 4

Brandeis

0–0

10 – 6

Carnegie Mellon

0–0

10 – 6

Case Western

0 –0

7–6

NYU

0–0

0–8

Box Scores @Trinity

Loss

5–4

Wellesley

Win

5–4

graphic from internet source

Last Thursday, the Judges rallied from three runs down in the seventh to take a 5-3 victory against Rhode Island College. During the first six innings, sophomore RIC right-hander David Hoey held the Judges at bay, allowing just three base runners and striking out seven batters. Brandeis starter John McGrath ’11 was charged for two solo homers in the fourth inning and allowed RIC to score a third in the top of the sixth, leaving Brandeis in a 3-0 hole. The Judges’ bats came alive in the bottom of the seventh as Nick Cortese ’13 opened the inning with a single and designated hitter Rosenberg doubled. Cortese scored on a wild pitch and Rosenberg scored on a Sean O’Hare ’12 groundout. McGrath retired the Anchormen in the eighth to keep the deficit at one. In the bottom of the eighth, the Judges tied the game and eventually took the lead on a killer line-drive into right field by Pat Nicholson ’11 that drove in two more runs to give Brandeis a 5-3 lead. McGrath again retired the side in the ninth, fielding a grounder and striking out the next two batters for the win.

On Saturday, the Judges suffered their first loss, ending a five-game winning streak against Wheaton College. The Lyons dominated the Judges en route to a 6-0 shutout victory. The Lyons, winners of 12 of their past 14 games, sent rookie right-hander Nick Filloramo to the mound where he pitched a complete game, allowing just six hits and no runs. Lefty Mike Swerdloff ’13 took the loss for Brandeis giving up four earned runs on six hits in 7 1/3 innings.

On Sunday, Brandeis swept the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in two very different games. In the first game, Brandeis starter Dylan Britton ’12 allowed just one run on four hits in five innings of play. Britton gave a run in the top of the fourth, but the Judges responded by scoring two runs in the bottom of the fourth

photo by paula hoekstra/the hoot

on a single by Kenny Destremps ’13 and an error by UMD second baseman Dan DeMello. UMD scored the tying run in the top of the seventh but the Judges responded in the bottom of seventh with a walk-off single by Nicholson to win the game 3-2.

In the second game, offense led the way as the Judges took a 14-7 victory.

UMD took an early 3-0 lead on three RBI singles in the first inning, forcing Brandeis Coach Pete Varney to pull starter Colin Markel ’14. However, the Judges responded by scoring six runs in the bottom of the first, knocking out the UMD starter. The Judges tacked on two more runs in the second—one run in the third, two in the fourth and three in the fifth—to take a dominant 14-3 lead heading into the top of the sixth. Pitcher Stefan Weiss ’13 relieved Markel and gave up just four hits through the fifth inning. He gave up four runs in the top of the sixth but left-hander Jesse Link ’13 came in on relief and closed out

the game. Weiss was credited with the win. Cortese led the charge for the Judges going 3-for-3 with three runs scored, Destremps went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and O’Hare finished 2-for-4 with four RBIs. After sweeping the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the Judges lost a heartbreaker to Worcester State, with a final score of 10-8 in 10 innings, and fell to 17-12 on the season. Brandeis scored their eight runs on eight hits, but played a lot of small ball. The Judges reached base by walk seven times, had two men hit by pitches, executed three sacrifice bunts and stole five bases without anyone getting caught. Second baseman O’Hare was the only player with multiple hits, going 2-for-3 with two walks, two runs scored and a steal.

Third baseman Brian Ing ’14 had a double while catcher Destremps and first baseman Eric Rosenberg ’11 each hit a homer.

Worcester State led a steady offen-

sive attack scoring 10 runs on 17 hits.

Worcester State got out to an early lead scoring three runs in the first inning off of Brandeis starter McGrath.

Brandeis got back into the game with three two-run frames in the second, fifth and sixth innings taking a 6-3 lead into the top of the seventh. In an unlucky turn of events Brandeis was forced to pull McGrath due to a possible injury and Worcester State immediately took advantage of the bullpen, tying the game at 6-6 by the end of the inning. Worcester State retook an 8-6 lead in the eighth and carried that lead into the bottom of the ninth.

Rosenberg took WSU closer Shaun Slattery deep to knot the game at 8-8 and take the game to extra innings.

However, WSU would take a 10-8 lead in the 10th and Brandeis was unable to respond.

The Judges continue play on Sunday when they play at Western New England College at 1 p.m.

NHL playoffs: preview and picks

By Jeremy Berman and David Fisch Special to the Hoot

Welcome back to the best month in professional sports. MLB just started, the NFL draft is only a couple weeks away and NBA playoffs are quickly approaching. Greatest of all, though, is the NHL playoffs. One of the biggest secrets in professional sports is that the hockey playoffs are the best in sports. Without further ado, here is our first-round playoff breakdown: Eastern Conference: 1. Washington Capitals vs. 8. New York Rangers: This matchup features two teams that surprisingly play in a similar style.

Washington ditched their fast-paced, high-offense, little-defense approach this season and instead focused on a controlled and defense-oriented style.

Shockingly, this led to an extreme down year for Alex Ovechkin, who was held to only 32 goals. This caused Washington to have fewer goals on the season than the Rangers (this is actually surprising and interesting if you follow hockey). The Rangers also won the season series 3-1, with two of those wins ending in blowouts. With Dennis Wideman and Tom Poti likely out for the series, and Mike Green returning after a long absence (and probably out of shape), the Capitals defense may suffer. As long as the Rangers can continue to shut down Ovechkin (they have not allowed him to score against them so far this sea-

son), they have a very good chance at pulling the upset. In a close series, it is always wise to pick the better goalie.

Henrik Lundqvist is by far the better goalie than Michal Neuvirth is, an untested rookie.

Rangers in seven games.

2. Philadelphia Flyers vs. 7. Buffalo Sabres: What seems like an easy call on paper is actually more complicated in reality. Chris Pronger, the Flyers’ best player, may not come back from injury. Combining that fact with Buffalo’s obvious advantage at the goalie position makes for an interesting series. The only way for Buffalo to pull out the victory is for Ryan Miller to repeat his dominant goaltending performance from the Olympics.

Flyers in six games (assuming Pronger comes back).

3. Boston Bruins vs. 6. Montreal Canadiens: This series provides an excellent matchup between two of the original six franchises with two of the best fan bases. The Canadiens rely on their top line, led by Tomas Plekanec, to score goals. They will need a big series from this group to advance to the second round. Boston’s physicality and strong defense, led by captain Zdeno Chara, will look to shut down Montreal’s top line. If they are successful, they will win the series. It will be interesting to see how Chara, who has only reached the third round of the playoffs once in his long NHL career, and the Bruins play following last year’s historic breakdown. They became the first team ever in the NHL to lose a series

after winning the first three games.

Bruins in seven games.

4. Pittsburgh Penguins vs. 5. Tampa Bay Lightning: Presumably without their two best players, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins seem outmatched on paper. Still, both teams have a lot of experience on the roster, with neither having a major advantage at the goalie position. Tampa Bay has the advantage on offense, while Pittsburgh has the advantage on defense. Both teams enter the postseason on a winning streak. Crosby is obviously the x-factor in this series, with his presence (or lack thereof) shifting the balance of power.

Lightning in six games (assuming Crosby does not return).

Western Conference: 1. Vancouver Canucks vs. 8. Chicago Blackhawks: Last year the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. As the defending champions they must be given some respect. However, that respect only goes so far as they are a vastly different team this year due to a salary cap-caused roster purge this past offseason. The Canucks’ Sedin twins will prove to be too much for the defending champs to handle.

Canucks in five games.

2. San Jose Sharks vs. 7. Los Angeles Kings: The Sharks’ potent offense, led by Joe Thornton, was able to guide the Sharks to the second seed during the regular season. However, the Kings

style of aggressive defense will shut Thornton down. In addition, the Sharks just seem unable to play good hockey in the playoffs as they haven’t gotten beyond the second round since before the 2004-2005 lockout.

In our Stone-Cold-Lead-Pipe-Lock of an upset …

Kings in six games.

3. Detroit Red Wings vs. 6. Phoenix Coyotes: The Red Wings were led by stellar play from their goaltender, Jimmy Howard, during the regular season. We expect this to keep up during the playoffs, especially because the Red Wings are such a historical hockey franchise. The Red Wing fans also have an interesting tradition of throwing octopi onto the ice after a player scores a hat trick and, since there is nothing people like to see more than flying octopus parts, we hope to see lots of hat tricks from Red Wing players.

Red Wings in four games.

4. Anaheim Ducks vs. 5. Nashville Predators: In the real world a Duck would be no match for a Predator, however, in this playoff series it’s a whole different story. These Ducks have Corey Perry and his 50-goal (50-48) season to back them up. If Perry isn’t up to the task of carrying the Ducks, we expect goalie Dan Ellis to pick up the slack.

While Ellis’ regular season numbers are rather pedestrian, we expect him to have the amazing kind of post-season had by the Montreal Canadiens’ Jaroslav Halak last year.

Ducks in five games.

10 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

Brandeis Briefs

April 15, 2011

This week in pictures

Romer lectures on urban development at IBS talk

Jammin’ for Tibet

By Nafiz “Fizz” Ahmed, Editor

photo by nafiz “fizz ” ahmed/the hoot

Renowned economist and Charter Cities founding visionary Paul Romer speaks at the International Business School Monday. He and his organization educate concerning and promote urban development and entrepreneurialism.

LTS search committee formed

supporting tibet Phront presents a benefit concert and BBQ to raise money for Students for Tibet on Thursday, April 14.

‘Deis 80’s Block Party

Brandeis will form a new search committee as it looks for the next Director of Library and Technology Services to replace current director Perry Hanson as he plans to retire, Provost Marty Krauss wrote in a campus wide e-mail on Wednesday.

Professor Ann Koloski-Ostrow and Vice President for Planning and Institutional Research Dan Feldman will serve as co-chairs of the committee. The recruitment firm Isaacson Miller will help to coordinate the search.

Other members of the search committee include, Jodie Lynn Austin-Cypert, Graduate, PhD; Eric Chasalow, Professor of Music; Michael Gilbreath, Director of Development Planning & Operations Bill Burger, Associate Vice President for Communications; George Hall, Associate Professor of Economics; Mark Hewitt, University Registrar; Tim Hickey, Chair, Faculty Senate; Sahar Massachi ’11; Steve Karel, Senior Research and Technology Specialist, Division of Science; Sharon Reif, Senior Scientist and Lecturer, Heller School; John Turner, Director for Networks and Systems, LTS; Michaele Whelan, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and the Rabb School; Lois Widmer, Associate Director for E-Research, LTS; and David Woodward, Assistant Vice President, Office of Budget and Financial Planning.

a brandeis party Students enjoy a Bronstein Week event on Friday, April 8.

By Nate Rosenbloom, Staff

FEATURES

April 15, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot 11

This Week Men’s club volleyball team advances to Nationals in History

By Morgan Gross Editor

Brandeis

2004 Tuition rises by 4

percent, increasing the cost of a full year of classes to more than $30,000.

2005 U.S. Congressman

Barney Frank (DMA) visits to talk about Iran and nuclear proliferation.

Massachusetts

1775

The American Revolution begins with the shot heard ’round with world, fired at Lexington and Concord.

1952 Thomas P. O’Neill

announced that he would run for the Congressional seat being vacated by John F. Kennedy.

United States

1790

American statesman, printer, scientist and writer Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia at age 84.

In his first year, David Perlow ’11—a men’s baseball recruit—never expected for volleyball to become a key part of his life. Perlow—now a candidate for a dual BA/MA in International Economics and Finance—had always participated in multiple sports simultaneously all throughout his high school career and he continued this trend during the beginning of his Brandeis career.

Perlow focused primarily on his main sport and would only occasionally switch the rag-tag team of boys who comprised the team at this time.

By the end of his sophomore year, however, Perlow’s involvement with the volleyball team began to build and he began to feel a conflict between his two sports.

He had to pick between baseball and volleyball and he chose to stick with volleyball. Now, at the end of his senior year and as the team’s captain, Perlow has never looked back on his choice.

It is easy to understand why there was a conflict presented in Perlow’s involvement with both sports, as the volleyball team practices intensely throughout the season. Their workouts are comprised of passing, blocking, hitting and defensive drills. The team practices from 9 to 11 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday nights; their intense regimen is focused on the goal of improving the team’s abilities and preparing them for the competition that they’re bound to face.

The team will need to continue to train hard in order to reach their eventual goal of being promoted to Division I, the rank that is assigned automatically to schools with an undergraduate population of more than 15,000 students—with Division I-AA being used to categorize teams of lesser quality.

It seems that Perlow and his teammates are well on the way to this goal.

In the 2007-2008 season—Perlow’s first year on the team—they performed adequately; however, just two years later, the team took an unprecedented jump in standings, going undefeated in Division II and winning their regional championships—a tournament whose participants are defined solely through skill and performance throughout the season.

At regionals, last year’s team competed against such qualified teams as University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island and Northeastern

2002 ABC airs the

10,000th episode of “General Hospital,” the network’s longest-running soap opera.

1917

World

British forces in Palestine make their second attempt to capture the city of Gaza from the Ottoman army.

take 1945 Americans more than half a

ton of uranium from Germany, in an effort to prevent the Russians from developing an A-bomb.

Admitted Students Day by the numbers 2010 35% Brandeis’ acceptance rate 155 prospective students stayed overnight 54% chose Brandeis

2011

1,400 students registered for ASD 320 prospective students stayed overnight with 250 hosts

photos by nafiz ‘fizz ’ ahmed and ingrid schulte/the hoot

The volleyball team after their third-place win at their first Division I Regionals.

University. During the course of the competition, the Brandeis team defeated the University of New Hampshire team—the reining Division I-AA champions at that time.

According to Perlow, this victory against UNH was a “big accomplishment” as the two teams had been rivals all year. He went on to explain that the team’s victory over UNH was “definitely our most satisfying accomplishment” of the season. That same team also placed fifth in their national champions.

Perlow was confident that this year’s team would be even more successful but, unfortunately, a last minute injury of star player, Josh Magid—a graduate student—caused them to be bumped (just barely) from the gold bracket, with the loss of a playoff game. The game was excruciatingly close with a final score of 28-36. Despite their loss, the team still landed within the silver bracket and placed in the top 20s in the nation.

Now, in the wake of their recent success, the team is working to continue their competition with Division I schools.

Off of the court, the team is comprised of a diverse group of Brandeis students with varied levels of volleyball experience. Some players have been involved in volleyball since middle school and some have their first experience with the sport at Brandeis.

The team is comprised of players from all over the globe including El Salvador, The Phillipines

photo courtesy of josh magid

and Ukraine. There are also representatives from both the undergraduate and graduate communities on campus.

Perlow was quick to explain the close bond between him and his teammates. He explained that playing with his teammates is “like competing with my friends” and that their relationship is comprised of “more than just being teammates,” going on to say that “they make my weekends and weekdays at Brandeis fun” and that he is always amazed to see the camaraderie that the team displays as they come together despite their differences and diversities.

It is important to acknowledge the team’s five seniors and their extraordinary commitment to the team throughout their involvement.

According to Perlow, the other seniors were a source of constant acceptance and encouragement to practice and become the better volleyball player that he is today.

He explained that playing on a Brandeis sports team has been a unique experience. At nationals, the team was pitted against some of the best men’s volleyball teams in the country. As they were by far “the most unathletic looking team at the competition,” a bunch of “skinny, scrawny, Jewish kids and international students.”

Nonetheless, the team managed, before Magid’s injury, to sustain the number nine spot in the country—not too shabby for a bunch of “skinny, scrawny” kids.

12 The Brandeis Hoot

How prospies think

By Alex Schneider Editor

Monday was Admitted Students Day, a time when hundreds of high school seniors descend upon campus to learn about our university. They eat our food, sit in on our classes, meet our administrators and club leaders, and even sleep in our dorms.

They arrive as early as 9 a.m., they stay awhile and by 2 p.m. they leave us, driving away with their parents and siblings, pausing only momentarily on the way out to yield to a stopped commuter rail train.

We were all prospective students once, some more recently than others no doubt. We all read the pamphlets and clicked through the outdated admissions website. We asked questions: Which APs count for credit? What do you do for fun on the weekends? How is the food?

For prospective students, everything is a comparison. Of course, there are those lucky students who visited just one school, applied early decision and never thought of going anywhere else. But for most, Brandeis was one of a few choices and there was a tangible reason to choose to come to sunny Waltham.

I hosted three prospective students on Sunday night, and I found this perspective to be refreshing. We were on our way to see “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and we were discussing clubs at Brandeis. At another college in Oregon, one student explained, the clubs are designed to give free food to students who are studying in different academic departments.

Free food? “I wish they gave us free food,” I said.

But that wasn’t his point. Yeah, he said, they give you food, but the clubs are all about studying. That’s too serious. Everyone just studies.

Later, we were discussing housing, and I mentioned that, living in Ziv, we unfortunately live in the shadows of The Village and Ridgewood, two really nice new dorms that I will never have the chance to call my home.

But that’s alright, one of the prospective students said. A dorm is just a place you live in for a while, but the people and the campus make up for it.

— As matriculated students at Brandeis, we no longer have the luxury of choice. But that does not mean we should not focus on all the great things Brandeis has to offer.

The prospective students who stayed in my dorm were dismayed that we don’t have a pool but were excited to hear progress had been made. They were completely confused by the dining program but that wasn’t a top concern. They wished we were closer to Boston but, hey, if you can hear the commuter rail running every hour, we can’t be that far away, right?

Prospective students aren’t much younger than us, but they look to us for insight. When they come to campus, they have questions and we have answers and that forms an instant bond of friendship.

Despite the age gap, we too have much to learn from them. That we should expect more from our school but be positive about what is here. That we should expect Brandeis to maintain services and studies that either exceed or are on-par with other similar institutions but that all schools have their faults, their quirks. That compared with prospective students from high schools in places like California where cut backs have ended theater, sports, after-school activities and advanced courses, Brandeis has braved the worst recession since the Great Depression and we still have all the art in our museum.

And perhaps most importantly, the applications to Brandeis keep rolling in. For whatever reason, high school seniors want to come to Brandeis. It wouldn’t hurt to think like them.

ImpressiOns

April 15, 2011

The Self Shelf

Exploring the sunny side of Brandeis

By Alex Self Editor

Today I found myself walking in the spring sun, fresh off finishing my final class before break. I was walking out of the library and I found myself immersed in a gigantic tour group led by none other than Herbie Rosen. My usual reaction to tour groups is a mixture between curiosity and vague consternation as I’m often hurrying off somewhere or other. I was in a good mood, though, and so rather than fight my way through the crowd, I walked with them. As it happened, they were heading in the same direction as I was so I ended up walking with them for a good five minutes. While walking with them, I struck up a conversation about Brandeis with the father of a prospective student. My personal beliefs are that Brandeis’ academics are the school’s greatest strength but what was more interesting to me was the man’s perceptions of the school. He talked about how he had heard that the school’s academic scene seemed amazing to him and how he was leaning towards sending his daughter here instead of schools like Swarthmore, Carnegie Mellon and Bryn Mawr. We had a short but enjoyable conversation that was essentially about how wonderful Brandeis is as an institution.

I realized at that moment, once again, how lucky I was to be attending Brandeis. For all of the optimism that will follow in this article, I admit that I, along with many of my peers, have a tendency to complain about problems with the school. Dining services, run-down housing and the ever present ire about Rabb Steps are just some of the issues that annoy Brandeis students on a daily basis. Many of these issues have graced the editorial pages of this paper during my tenure at Brandeis. Thus, my intention here is to write about some of the reasons Brandeis is such a wonderful institution, despite all of its shortcomings.

The first reason that Brandeis is a wonderful institution is its students. Brandeis students tend to be idiosyncratic and it is this uniqueness that brings the school vibrancy and social culture that is different from any institution of which I have been a part. At my high school, there were maybe five to 10 clubs that people could join.

Brandeis, on the other hand, has a seemingly infinite amount of social groups, from the Mock Trial team to the Quidditch Club to the Justice League. These hundreds of clubs present every student with an option that is tailored to their interests. If you’re interested in debate, you join the debate society. If you’re interested in trivia contests, you join Quiz Bowl. If you’re interested in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you join the Brazillian Jiu Jitsu Club. Thus, everyone can find a niche

the tour Raechel Banks gives an admissions tour outside Shapiro Campus Center.

to suit their wishes here. Furthermore, this diverse club scene allows nearly everyone to find a group of similarly minded people they can associate with. I found many of my best friends in my clubs.

Additionally, I think it is this culture of variety which leads to Brandeis students’ general good nature. Having attended Brandeis for two years, I have honestly not come across a single student I dislike. It seems that everyone goes out of their way to make people feel welcome or at the very least not to make anyone feel unwelcome. Above all, Brandeis students are not only a student body but a student community where each person looks out for another. Another strength of Brandeis students is their commitment to social justice, something which was actually brought up by the man I walked with in the tour. Few other institutions have a student body that is more attuned to promoting humanitarian causes in America and across the globe. An example of this took place last year when the campus raised $30 thousand for Haiti after earthquake there and is still continuing its efforts to support the country. Thus students not only care about themselves but about the rest of the world as well.

Another main strength of Brandeis, however, is the academic atmosphere. First of all, I must admit that I speak from my own experience but I have thoroughly enjoyed nearly every class I have taken at Brandeis. In my first world history class, I learned more in an hour than I had through a year of the same subject in my high school. The professors are knowledgeable and they are willing to take time out of their schedules to talk to you. Despite the fact that they are brilliant people with myriad students, most professors are still willing to take the time and ef-

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

fort to help you with a paper or go over an exam with you. Furthermore, the small class size allows you to engage with subjects on a more personal level, which is incredibly effective in helping you to internalize the information. For example, I have one class that feels more like a family member telling a story than a history seminar.

Finally, I wish to talk about the dreaded Brandeis campus. Out of all the aspects of Brandeis, it seems that it is the landscape and architecture that is the pincushion for the most barbs. Yet while running a week ago, I realized that the Brandeis campus is like a city on a hill.

It is an entirely insulated, self-sufficient community where almost all students are within a five-minute walk of each other. Thus, despite the hills, the campus is more interconnected than it might have been had it been more spread out in a flatter area. Additionally, while many decry the isolation of the campus from more developed areas such as the ones at Boston University, it is this isolation which brings the community together. On a morning walk to Einsteins from my dorm room in the castle, I can run into several of my friends and acquaintances on a regular basis. In regards to the architecture, I have one sentence in response. We have a castle on a hillock overlooking the entrance. With this and other unique buildings like the Student Campus Center and the Mandel Center, Brandeis is, at the very least, a unique-looking school with a campus that stands out (especially when you’re running towards it from miles off).

Thus, the next time you’re feeling bad about the lack of soap in your dorm or the prospects of a Sherman dinner, take a moment and think about all the strengths of Brandeis. Perhaps you’ll find yourself joining a tour group soon.

Book of Matthew

Death, taxes and incompetent Republicans

By Bret Matthew Editor

I hope you’ve all filed your returns, because Tax Day is April 18 this year, and you don’t want to miss it. No, really, you don’t. They have penalties for that.

Yes, I know it can be depressing to sift through all that paperwork and figure out how much Uncle Sam withheld from you this time, but if it makes you feel better, you’re not alone. We all have to pay the price for a stable and secure society. And besides, it’s good to know that the wealthiest among us—those who have benefited the most from society—are the ones who will pay the most for it.

Oh … wait … nevermind. This is America, where the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations pay little or no income taxes.

For as long as I have been politically aware, the tax debate has been pretty absurd. Sure, while I was growing up, President Clinton was busy balancing the budget with a timely combination of tax increases, spending cuts and a booming economy, but I didn’t start paying attention to government policy until President Bush took office and decided that no one should pay taxes—he argued that the less money people had to pay, the more government revenue would magically appear.

As we all know, that hasn’t worked out so well.

After 10 years of generous Bush tax rates, government revenue is at its lowest point since 1950 and

the total national debt has increased from less than $6 trillion to more than $14 trillion. Meanwhile, thanks to convenient deductions and some fancy arithmetic, corporations like Bank of America, Boeing, General Electric and Wells Fargo all escaped paying a cent of federal taxes. Even Google and Facebook—two companies that go out of their way to appear friendly—used questionable banking maneuvers to cut their tax bills by billions of dollars.

Some people might call this unfair, or cheating, or outright theft. Some might even say that it’s a good time to start talking about eliminating loopholes and bringing tax rates to more reasonable levels. But, as it turns out, the word “reasonable” doesn’t mean the same thing to a high profile Republican as it does to you or me.

When a ThinkProgress reporter asked former House Speaker and possible Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich what he thought about big businesses that were avoiding paying taxes, Newt shot back with a particularly slimy response. Tax loopholes, he argued, are actually incentives created by the government to encourage businesses to hire more workers.

Which they haven’t been doing, if unemployment statistics are any indication. But they have ensured that their CEOs and other top executives are paid several hundred times the amount that the average American workers receive.

But Gingrich, like most Republicans leaders, doesn’t care that taxpayers are subsidizing expen-

sive vacations and private jets for the super-rich.

He wants taxes to stay low—specifically, he wants taxes for his wealthy donors to stay low. It’s the same strategy that Republicans have been using for about 30 years, and they’ve gotten so good at it that they can argue, with a perfectly straight face, in favor of tax cuts as a panacea for any economic situation. And somehow, their constituents— many of whom are not wealthy—still buy it.

And really, that’s all it comes down to. That’s why Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has all but trashed his formerly moderate political stance in favor of one that more closely mirrors Gingrich’s. That’s why Representative Paul Ryan recently proposed a budget (or, as he put it, a “roadmap”) that would supposedly solve America’s fiscal woes while still lowering taxes for the wealthy. If you feed your constituents the same talking points long enough, you get to a point where they will not accept anything else (see: Tea Party), no matter how destructive your plan.

A few days ago, President Obama revealed his own plans to solve the rising debt, which include, as responsible plans should, spending cuts and tax increases. Almost immediately, Senator Mitch McConnell insisted that tax increases were “off the table.” And so it goes. As this debate heats up, be prepared to hear every Republican in Washington say roughly the same thing. It’s not because they’re right. It’s because they’ve run out of other things to say.

April 15, 2011

IMPRESSIONS 13

The Brandeis Hoot

BDS undermines efforts to end the occupation

By Brian Reeves

special to the hoot

Debate on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is almost never void of emotion. In a struggle where both sides play the victim of wanton aggression, opponents often engage in polarizing discourse aimed to delegitimize the other’s claims. The same rhetoric can be found in arguments surrounding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

If 10 years of studying the conflict have taught me anything, it is that behind every slogan and movement is an argument that can either be justified or rebuffed by facts and, if you earnestly seek the truth, then you need not fear becoming informed on other viewpoints. It was with this mentality that, to the best of my ability, I analyzed the validity of the BDS argument and concluded that the opponents of BDS were correct indeed.

Although I remain highly critical of the traditional pro-Israel advocacy groups’ disregard for Palestinian suffering and anti-democratic forces in Israel, I believe it is high time for the BDS movement’s efforts to be exposed as both morally reprehensible as well as ineffective (if not counterproductive) to ending the occupation and finding a just solution to the conflict.

The first faulty BDS claim to examine is that Israel is an apartheid state like pre-1993 South Africa and that, just as BDS worked in South Africa, it should somehow work in Israel.

For the treatment of minorities in Israel proper, there is no comparison.

Despite widespread discrimination against them, Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens still enjoy the benefits of a democracy, including the right to vote, a free press and even an independent judiciary. The fact that an Arab judge recently sentenced an Israeli (Jewish) president to several years in prison serves to prove that the Israeli democratic system, although still below the standards we hold in the United

States and Western Europe, is far from apartheid.

Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories is more complicated but the verdict is the same. For one, apartheid is a system based on discrimination of race; the occupation was initially the product of regional territorial disputes following the Six-Day War and has, since the First Intifada, been premised on security concerns in the absence of a two-state solution. Yes, Palestinians deal with daily racism in what is clearly an ethno-nationalist conflict but Israel did not, for example, blockade the Gaza Strip because it believes Arabs need to be subjugated; it did it to stop the thousands of rockets that Palestinian militants were firing at Israeli civilians.

Overlooking such a central component to Israeli mentality as security is reckless. This approach by BDS supporters is not surprising, however, given the nature of the movement. With South Africa, the goal of BDS was clear: to end apartheid. The BDS against Israel camp, on the other hand, is much more fractious, featuring organizations who share clashing objectives—from merely the end of the occupation to the dissolution of the state of Israel.

Without a clearly defined objective, all BDS participants, even those who truly believe they are punishing Israel for its own good, are indirectly abetting those who could care less about the safety of Israel’s citizens. To find an example of this collusion, one need not look far.

On April 13, Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine—a club that does not take a stand on how a final settlement to the conflict should look—brought prominent BDS leader Omar Barghouti to campus. It is no secret that Barghouti calls for a Palestinian (or at least a bi-national) state to replace all of Israel.

Just what is the problem with a bi-national state? Given the decades of conflict over Jewish and Palestinian nationalist claims and the support among the majority of both groups for a two-state solution, the

bi-national option unjustly ignores the will of the people most affected by the fighting. Although bi-nationalism worked in South Africa, let us not forget the closer, regional examples of the bi-national experiment: the cases of Lebanon and Iraq. The years of unresolved religious and ethnic conflict in those countries serve as a reminder of what happens when outside powers impose territorial “solutions” at the expense of the local inhabitants’ aspirations.

Israelis and those who support the two-state solution have good reason to be weary of the BDS movement’s implicit and sometimes overt advocacy for a so-called one-state solution. As J Street points out, BDS groups, “fail explicitly to recognize Israel’s right to exist and they ignore or reject Israel’s role as a national home for the Jewish people.”

Moreover, as liberal Zionist writer Bernard Avishai mentions, by boycotting international companies that do business in Israel, they “will be forced to understand that selling to Israel will carry a price …The implicit premise here is that the occupation flows from the fact of Israel itself.” Even BDS efforts targeted solely at international corporation services in the settlements will precipitate this reaction. Starbucks, for instance, pulled out of Israel altogether after it was condemned for establishing cafes in the settlements. On a related note, while calling for companies and governments to sever ties with the Israeli military may on the surface sound like a reasonable attempt at promoting non-violence, Israel uses this same military equipment as a deterrent against external threats such as Hezbollah, which currently has 45,000 rockets (some with the capability of hitting Tel Aviv) in its arsenal.

Not only is BDS against Israel morally repugnant, but also it is ineffective, if not counterproductive, to fostering peace in the region. For starters, it encourages Israeli recalcitrance in the peace process because it makes Israelis, who are already hypersensitive to global pressure, feel like they are being victimized. Proponents of BDS often contest that this international isolation will force Israelis to “see the light” and take a serious approach at ending the occupation. This train of thought is just as arrogantly misguided as the Israeli government’s reasoning for blockading Gaza, namely so that Palestinians would learn to view their Hamas overlords as the culprit for their collective imprisonment. To the contrary, even after Operation

Cast Lead, Hamas remained in power and Gazans still blamed Israel for their suffering. Furthermore, Israel’s decision to ease the blockade in the wake of the Flotilla Incident nearly bankrupted the Hamas-owned underground tunnels once Israel started flooding Gaza’s markets with goods.

The lesson learned here is that a resolution to the conflict requires creative thinking, not simplistic campaigns of coercion.

If the effects of BDS are felt in Israel, a number of trends are much more likely to happen. First, as we are currently witnessing in Israel, right-wing members of Knesset are willing to curb basic democratic freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of where to live—in order to protect its Jewish character.

If they will go to this extreme because some Israeli humanitarian organizations, like B’tselem, criticize the occupation, imagine what they would do in the face of an international BDS campaign.

Second, many Israeli moderates will not be helpful in ending the occupation either. Forty percent of Israelis are secular and cosmopolitan, and make up the large majority of center and center-left voters. Due to Israel’s large high-tech sector (a $25 billion industry), thousands have left Israel and permanently resettled in more capitalist countries, mainly the United States. Israel’s wars have catalyzed this trend of emigration.

Why would the impact of BDS, which affects these Israeli livelihoods, be any different? Third, as J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami notes, because BDS punishes all Israelis regardless of political affiliation, right-wingers and leftists alike will ask themselves, “How can we make concessions for peace when everybody’s against us?” For example, even the left-wing Meretz Party, which itself has recently called for a boycott of locally-produced settlement goods, had supported Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (invasion of Gaza) just days after Hamas refused to renew a ceasefire.

BDS is also harmful to the Palestinian economy. A large sector of Palestinian society relies on Israeli employment (although the Israeli economy does not rely on them), and therefore categorically opposes BDS, which if successful would put their own jobs at risk. Likewise, the Palestinian General Trade Union stands in opposition to BDS, preferring instead to work with the Israeli Histadrut (trade union umbrella). Indeed, economic cooperation of this nature increases Israeli-Palestinian interaction and the more their economies are interdepen-

dent, the less attractive factors on the ground that perpetuate violence on both sides become.

One last reason, albeit perhaps the most important, on why BDS will prove ineffective is that it is highly unlikely that it will garner enough support in the United States—Israel’s biggest trading partner and closest ally—to make an impact. The United States profits immensely from Israel in the economic realm, among other areas; Christian Zionists have millions of dollars invested in Israeli projects, including cooperation initiatives with the settler movement; and American Jewry, which is closely engaged in developing a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, is too acutely aware of the Palestinians’ share of culpability in the absence of peace to support a campaign that, by its very nature, is one-sided against Israel.

In writing this column, I was hoping to provide fuel for people seeking to challenge BDS against Israel. At this point, however, I feel morally obligated to reiterate that while its tactics are deplorable, the plight of the Palestinians is very real and must be ameliorated.

If you care about Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish state, and if you truly desire—as I do—to see Israel fulfill its destiny as a light unto the nations, then you must struggle to fight for a comprehensive two-state solution in which Palestinians can be free with a state of their own. Even now, anti-democratic forces in Israel threaten to destroy any window of a peaceful future and to lead Israel into a spiral of unrelenting violence. For those in the Jewish community, our parents’ generation helped Israel become the affluent, modern nation it is today, but they failed to nurture the appropriate conditions for peace. It is on our generation to find a sustainable course for peace, and to affirm that the celebration of our people’s nationhood is not contingent on the oppression of another people.

I would like to end with an appeal.

I come to you as a member of J Street, but I appeal to you earnestly when I call on everyone to adopt these points if they want to help bring about a genuine resolution to the conflict.

Generate an open dialogue featuring all points of view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Teach your friends and family about the different narratives in the conflict. Lobby the United States to be a more engaging mediator. Support the Israeli and Palestinian organizations that foster cooperation and coexistence.

And finally, believe in peace.

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

Standing up out of turn for human rights

By Noam Lekach

Special to the Hoot

Brandeis is sending its students for a semester in the Hague to learn about international law straight from the source: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Those students could tell you that torture is a crime against humanity, that extrajudicial killings are unlawful and that to kill innocent civilians carelessly in pursuit of a terrorist constitutes a war crime. But Brandeis, which claims to stand for social justice, has failed to bring those lessons home.

On Monday, April 4, our university played host to six Israeli parliament members at a town hall-style meeting with students. Among them was Avi Dichter, the former head of the Shin Bet, the Israeli Secret Services. Dichter was responsible for the torture of detainees and implemented the policy of extrajudicial assassinations, both of which are violations of inter-

national law. Multiple human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have highlighted an incident in 2002, when Dichter ordered the use of a one-ton bomb to assassinate Hamas militant Saleh Shehada in his Gaza home. This reckless attack, which took place in a densely populated neighborhood, killed 17 civilians, including nine children.

Brandeis made the deliberate decision to host a man who is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. These facts were not unknown to the organizers. Dichter is unable to travel to many European countries for fear of arrest and conviction; sadly, the United States shields him and other officials from facing justice.

I and several other members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) decided not to allow this to fly under the radar. We sat politely through the event but when Dichter was called to the stage we stood up and demanded he turn himself in for a fair trial.

Recognizing we were unlikely to convince him to take responsibility for

his actions, we planned our action to last no more than 40 seconds from the moment we stood up to the point when we all left the hall. As soon as we left, Dichter told a joke about us and continued his remarks.

Our action respected Dichter’s right to free speech. Our action challenged the normalization of war criminals and the whitewashing of crimes against humanity. The international justice system lacks implementation mechanisms; it cannot enforce its rulings and cannot arrest any individual who is not from a member of the Rome Convention. Thus, international law is currently more of a recommendation—a set of norms that countries are encouraged to follow—than an actual law. Our duty as justice-seeking citizens is to enforce these norms and we must begin by pointing out their violation. We must never accept impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In response to our interruption, some students have begun a fingerwagging campaign and published a disapproving letter charging us with

curtailing Dichter’s right to freedom of speech. I would not mind the petition if the Student Union had not inappropriately endorsed it as a group.

As the Justice noted earlier this week, a representative body such as the Student Union should not condemn some of its members when no Union bylaws were violated. Moreover, the Union made its decision without hearing from the students involved, relying on the charged caricature of our actions as the letter portrays them. I urge the Student Union to withdraw its signature and hear our version before it chooses to disapprove of us.

The writers of the petition have neglected to mention the context of our actions—our university’s embrace of a war criminal—and, in so doing, missed the point completely. If the action had been about silencing or opposing alternative opinions, a 40-second disruption would be exceedingly inadequate. Our interruption was not about stating our opinions but about setting norms. I expect U.S. citizens to hold their leaders accountable for

their war crimes in the same way that I as an Israeli citizen do. If we will not set these norms, the ICC will remain a tribunal solely for African leaders.

As this goes to print, 273 people have signed the letter disapproving our actions. Only eight students, however, chose to disapprove of the fact that Brandeis hosted a war criminal. We would hope that more people would say something if a Hamas official responsible for war crimes were to be invited to Brandeis. Instead of pointing fingers, I urge the signers of the letter to actively seek an end to the crimes of your own country: Close Guantánamo, bring back the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and end the U.S. cover for Israeli war crimes.

In the meantime, please permit me and other people of conscience to do the bare minimum—to stand up and oppose the violators of human rights.

And you are more than welcome to join us!

Noam Lekach ’14 is a member of Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine.

14 IMPRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 15, 2011

Leading the charge against lead poisoning

graphic by leah lefkowitz/the hoot

By Sahar Massachi Contributor

You know what scares me? Nuclear explosions. I mean, there was always risk, but the situation in Japan really puts a spotlight on the need for rigorous inspection of our nuclear power plants. Luckily for us, the Massachusetts government spends money every year on a set of programs given the oh-so-functional name: “Environmental Health Assessment and Compliance.”

Sure, this money goes to inspecting nuclear facilities and dealing with radiological hazards. It also pays for

food and drug protection, as well as consumer protection, making sure that our toys don’t have lead or toxins in them. We can all agree that poisoning our children is the opposite of what we want to do.

Lastly, this money goes to lead abatement more generally. Lead poisoning is a serious problem. Unlike many other toxins, the damage caused by lead is neurological. Everyone knows that large amounts of lead mean bad news, especially for children. I’d like to take a moment here to thank and congratulate the state of Massachusetts. They have done a good job of stopping egre-

gious levels of poisoning. In Boston, for example, the number of cases bad enough to count as “official lead poisoning” dropped from 5,590 cases in 1993 to 163 cases through the first nine months of 2010. That’s the good news.

This is the bad news: There are many children who have large amounts of lead in their bloodstream but not enough to qualify as officially poisoned. These children likely have lost an average of seven to eight IQ points; are likelier to have ADHD and behavior problems; and are likelier to be juvenile delinquents. This is a problem. Some neurobiologists

studying the issue have concluded that no level of lead ingestion is safe for children and definitely not the level we’ve agreed to so far.

The city of Detroit just completed a large study of their entire student population. We’ll get back to Massachusetts in a minute, but let’s first see what the latest research can teach us. Of 39,000 children tested in the Detroit Public Schools, 22,755 had a history of lead poisoning. With this large sample size, the scientists were able to make very accurate statistical inferences. Their findings: The higher the lead blood levels, the lower the test scores. Children in special education programs were more

likely to have lead poisoning. Sixty percent of those testing below-average had lead poisoning.

We are setting up our children to fail.

The best studies on the economic benefits of lead abatement have spanned the country as a whole, not focusing on Massachusetts. To quote one paper: “Lead-safe window replacement in all pre-1960 U.S. housing would yield net benefits of at least $67 billion, which does not include many other benefits. These other benefits ... include avoided Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, other medical costs of childhood lead exposure, avoided special education, and reduced crime and juvenile delinquency in later life.” The money we put into lead abatement saves money for our education, justice, medical and juvenile delinquency systems.

The money we put into lead abatement gives children an equal chance to succeed. It just makes sense.

Right now, the Massachusetts legislature is marking up the budget. All this—lead abatement, nuclear inspection, consumer protection, food and drug protection, radiological inspection—is funded by one tiny piece of budget, called a line item. The line item number is 4510-0600. Right now, they are thinking of giving all these programs something to the tune of $3.2 million. It’s not nearly enough.

In 2001, for example, they used $6 million (adjusted for inflation).

Protecting us from nuclear explosions—and children from brain-destroying toxins—is important. It is important that we do something to make sure that this protection happens. Please, could you call your representative in the Massachusetts legislature, and ask him or her to return line item 4510-0600 to 2001 levels?

Pay for cancer screenings? Care about women?

No chance, let’s shut down the government instead!

By Sam Allen Staff

The United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, last week almost shut down the government because congressional Republicans were adamant that pap smears and cancer screenings should not be provided to women. The patriarchy, otherwise known as the Republican party, had wisely decided that it would be better for women to suffer, rather than spend $300 million, or less than one hundredth of one percent of the federal budget, on saving their lives. It is important that we realize that Title X spending, which is the budgetary term for Planned Parenthood spending, is not about abortion, as some Democrats tried to claim, but about the denial of health services to women that they don’t really need.

Instead of paying for breast cancer screenings as Democrats want, we should instead continue to keep massive tax breaks for oil companies as the Republicans have sagely suggested. Americans should vote for, and kiss the ring of the party that cares more about oil companies and Wall Street than citizens. Citizens do not drive economic growth; oil barons and Wall Street titans do, something all Americans must accept. Therefore, we as a nation should follow the Re-

publican example of ensuring that public policy gives welfare to vital corporations, not undeserving single mothers working four jobs.

The budget battle that ensued last week finally illuminated the true and honorable nature of the Tea Party movement. They have shown that their talk of fiscal conservatism is just a cover to hide their real intentions.

They want to return society to a past era, where men were men and women shut their mouths. Women’s health isn’t a real issue, and the Tea Partyinfused Republican Party is helping the nation see the light. The Republicans and the Tea Party are fighting for a society where women are put back in the place nature intended, barefoot and pregnant with a man controlling them, or starving on the street selling their bodies. While the honorable men of the Republican Party failed in their quest to deny women the rights they obviously don’t deserve because of Democratic “feminazi” obstruction, next time we should pray that they succeed in their holy crusade against the gender of Eve. We as Americans should all support such a noble cause, and hope that the next time the government ceases to function that women will pay the price— the price that God and the Tea Party demand as payback for Eve’s foolish decision millennia ago. graphic by steven wong/the hoot

April 15, 2011

IMPRESSIONS 15

The Brandeis Hoot

Sudan revisited International justice and human rights Katherine Alexander and Tenzing Sherpa Special to The Hoot When we talk about conflict resolution, it’s easy to overlook the creative arts as a viable approach to building peace. Yet, here at Brandeis University, the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at the Ethics Center is part of an international effort to bring the transformative power of art to zones of violent conflict. In 2005, Brandeis University’s Ethics Center and Theater Without Borders began a partnership to form the Acting Together Project, which involves theater artists, leaders of rituals, and peacebuilding scholars and practitioners creating performances in different regions of the world.

The Al-Bugaa Theater Troupe, founded by the Sudanese peacemaker Ali Mahdi Nouri, offers an example of art contributing to peace in the midst of violence. The Al-Bugaa Theater Troupe employs former child soldiers, victims and aggressors. The troupe is based in Khartoum, Nuba Mountain and Darfur, and they stage plays in this war-torn region in order to allow people displaced by the war to experience the excitement and pleasures of performance. In November 2011, Ali Mahdi was awarded the Freedom to Create Prize for his impact in this region. He and members of his group attended the October 2010 screening of the Acting Together documentary in New York; they have presented with Acting Together project participants at conferences here in the United States and abroad.

Atem Aleu, a graduate of Brandeis’ Cultural Productions Program, now completing an MA in Coexistence and Conflict at the Heller School, is a Southern Sudanese activist and artist. Granted asylum in the United States in March 2001, he went on to study fine arts at Brigham Young University. His work shows his history and experiences in the Kakuma Refugee Camp. Atem helped organize the African Refugee Artists Club while at Kakuma Refugee Camp in order to bring fellow artists together and share stories of their experiences through art. His work is both an expression of hope for the future freedom of his people but also an articulation of the beauty he finds in his new home. Through art, Atem is able to bridge the divide between our life in America and his experiences in Sudan.

In the darkest times of violent conflict and wartime atrocities, art can be crafted to bring people together by transcending societal, cultural and linguistic barriers. In Sudan, courageous artists such as Ali and Atem are proof of art’s profound power to influence hearts and mind.

The Ethics Center Leadership Council (ECLC) is a pilot program recently created by the Ethics Center to help promote awareness about ethics, peacebuilding, justice and human rights. In our first foray into the undergraduate campus limelight, we’re hoping to revisit a discussion on the continuing atrocities in Sudan that seem forgotten alongside our own domestic troubles and political turmoil. We hope to explore the issues surrounding situations in Sudan from various ethical perspectives to give a more comprehensive understanding of how events have come to be and what measures are being taken to limit the consequences.

Arts and peacebuilding Yuan Yao Staff

and

Anna Khandros Special to The Hoot

After years of mass atrocities in Darfur, one of the most frequent demands of survivors is that the individuals responsible for rape, murder and destruction of villages and livelihoods be held accountable. By 2008, 2.5 million internally displaced persons were living in large camps across Darfur and there were also approximately 300,000 Darfuri refugees living across the Sudanese border in neighbouring Chad. The death toll had climbed to roughly 300,000, with some estimates as high as 400,000.

In July of that year, an arrest warrant was issued for Omar-al Bashir, Sudan’s sitting president, by the International Criminal Court on crimes against humanity and war crimes, and charges of genocide have since been added. This warrant was criticized on all sides, with Russia and China complaining that it violated Sudan’s sovereignty, while NGOs worried that the charges would endanger peacekeepers and aid workers in the region, sacrificing peace for justice.

The debate over the Hague’s indictment initially brought up interesting alternatives thought to serve peace and justice. One option, voiced by Sudanese politician Sadiq al-Mahdi, was the creation of a hybrid court for Darfur in Sudan, which would have both Sudanese and international justices. This mixing of national and international procedure had been accepted in Sierra Leone and Cambodia by 2008, and since then has also been implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the War Crimes Chamber is one of the busiest courts in the world.

This option may have been accepted by Sudan more readily than the ICC arrest warrant, which was touted as being a weapon of neocolonialism, leading to the more recent criticism that the ICC is a court for Africa. The ICC has ongoing cases and investigations in five countries of sub-Saharan Africa: Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic and Kenya.

Despite these regional criticisms, the fact remains that the Sudanese government coordinated numerous attacks on civilians, destroying more than 400 villages, displacing millions of civilians and violating numerous international humanitarian legal treaties. Throughout these conventions, including the Geneva Conventions, the protection of civilians is paramount. Despite massive violations of international law, al-Bashir has yet to be brought to justice in the Hague.

President al-Bashir has so far defied the court’s orders and denied all accusations, which has restricted his dealings with other leaders. Even while justice hasn’t been served, the 111 countries that adhere to the ICC’s jurisdiction have shunned al-Bashir, and while the leaders of many Arab and some African countries continue to meet with him, others have warded off visits by warning that as court members they are legally bound to arrest him. As a result, al-Bashir has avoided a number of conferences and celebrations in Africa, Europe and the United States in the last two years.

We are not in high school anymore

Sexcapades

By Sophie Riese Columnist

The terms “slut” and “ho” are thrown around a lot. During a dinner conversation earlier this year, my mom asked me exactly how I define a “slut,” or if instead it’s just a term that I use to encompass people I don’t like and people whose sexual morals may not be the same as mine.

Worse is, when I then went on to say what I thought a “slut” might be, my parents, brother and friend all disagreed.

Maybe we need to reevaluate some of the terms we use because, well, everyone uses them for different reasons. Like the emergence of the word “bitch” a couple years ago to describe everything from friends to frenemies to downright enemies, our language doesn’t seem to fit properly into the way we live. We are college students at a really great school and yet the number of times I hear (or say) derogatory statements about other students per week is astounding. Maybe what we need is a little maturity boost—we’re not in high school anymore.

If you’re not friends with someone anymore, be friendly when you’re in social situations and, beyond that, forget about them.

I’m a huge trash talker; I can’t even try to pretend I’m not. People who I feel have hurt me are definitely fair game. Like I said in a previous article, however, this way of speaking and thinking has to change. I’m going to be a teacher next year and I can’t respond to perceived offences by thinking, “oh my God, that woman is such a graphic by Leah Lefkowitz/the hoot

bitch!” And on the slut front? Why should I care what other people are doing with their bodies?

Or even worse, if I’m using it with absolutely no sexual connotations, then I’m just labeling people who don’t deserve it.

This is not to say that I don’t believe some people deserve the term “slut.” In fact, I would say that it is rather naive to think that’s true.

We all know someone who acts first and thinks later, or doesn’t think at all. The guys who go out just to get drunk and find girls are just as worthy of the term slut as the girls who do the same, if you believe that makes a person a slut.

I think there’s nothing wrong with being single, having fun and dating/sleeping around.

The key is being safe, honest and careful. The trap we often fall into, however, is failing to understand exactly how people choose to live their lives—that’s why we call them sluts! What’s it to you if they sleep around? Hopefully, everyone is using protection so that they and their partners are safe but, beyond that, why should you care?

Calling people sluts creates rifts in our social groups. Inevitably it will get back to them and, whether or not their actions justify the use of the word, they probably won’t appreciate the label.

Overall, I think that greater respect in sexual situations and about people’s sexual choices is required to make a cohesive and comfortable community at Brandeis. We all complain that there’s so little sex happening, but maybe it’s because we rag on the people who have it. Ever think about that?

16 The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS Etc.

April 15, 2011

A funny, if adequate, night at the ‘Forum’

By Yael Katzwer Editor

Last week’s staging of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” directed by Lizzy Benway ’14, was highly entertaining, yet something was lost in translation.

Although the Hillel Theater Group’s (HTG) production was very enjoyable while in the audience, in retrospect it was unimpressive and a bit flat.

This, however, was not due to a lack of trying. The set, designed by Jessica Rassp ’13 and Maayan Bar-Yam ’12, was beautiful, detailed and functional.

Like a classic Roman play, the stage consisted of three house-fronts with doors leading to the interiors, which the audience never saw, and the play’s main action took place in the street in front of the houses. The middle house was painted to look like marble and included a functional balcony that many characters stood on throughout the play.

The house to the left, owned by Marcus Lycus (Isaac Rabbani ’14) the procurer of women, was decorated with pornographic outlines made to look like classic Greek vase paintings and a sign above the door boasting the name Priapus, a Roman fertility god.

The house on the right, owned by Erroneus (Zev Hait ’14), was covered in Latin graffiti, denoting Erroneus’ long absence. The best of the graffiti read, “Romani ite domum,” which was a very clever reference to “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.”

Aside from the sets, the best part of the show was the music and the corresponding choreography. The music, conducted by Yoni Battat ’13, was perfect, despite overpowering some of the actors’ voices. By having such a large orchestra, Battat and Benway were able to do justice to Sondheim’s enthusiastic music. The only song that was not a success was “Bring Me My Bride” at the end of the first act, but this was because of the underwhelming vocals and not the orchestra.

Junior Beth Green’s choreography

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

forum At top, the cast of HTG’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” brought ancient Rome to life. At bottom, Christopher Knight (Senex), David Frederick (Pseudolus), Herbie Rosen (Hysterium) and Isaac Rabbani (Marcus Lycus) experience some male bonding.

was stellar and really captured the humor in the play. While it seemed that some of the actors had trouble accomplishing some of the moves, the dance at the end of “Comedy Tonight,” which included the entire cast, was flawless. Two choreographic standouts were the dancing in “Everybody Ought to Have a Maid,” which was playful and complementary to the song, and the fight scene near the

end between Pseudolus (David Frederick ’11) and the guards. Frederick employed moves from “The Karate Kid” and “The Matrix,” before eventually incapacitating the last guard with what appeared to be a Vulcan nerve pinch.

Along the same vein, the cast made used physical comedy well. The Proteans, played by Sophie Golomb ’13, Jamie Perutz ’13 and Jade Sank ’12,

made great use of their bodies during “Comedy Tonight” to act out what Pseudolus was singing, causing the audience to convulse with laughter.

The actors also interacted with the audience by dancing with them and sitting on their laps, again causing guffaws.

One comedic misstep in “Forum,” however, was the portrayal of the Eunuchs, played by Andrew Litwin ’11

and John Schnorrenberg ’14. They were rendered as homosexuals in pink robes that chased after all the men in a sexual mania. A eunuch is a man who is castrated either in order to halt the production of the hormones that cause sexual attraction or to halt the production of the hormones that cause the voice to deepen during puSee FORUM, page 19

Activist poet Goodheart presents ‘Earthquake Season’

By Kayla Dos Santos Editor

Poet Jessica Goodheart read selections from her first book of poetry “Earthquake Season” and brought to life brief snippets of bright imagery for members of the Brandeis campus on a rainy evening.

This wasn’t Goodheart’s first time at Brandeis campus; in fact, the university has a unique place for Goodheart. Her father, Eugene Goodheart, taught English at Brandeis, so the university played a significant role in her past. The audience, comprised mostly of members of the Brandeis faculty, was warm in their reception of Goodheart.

Currently, Goodheart is an environmental activist who works for an advocacy organization based in Los Angeles. LAANE promotes the development of a “new economy” with an emphasis on a healthy environment and good jobs.

Although some of Goodheart’s poetry featured natural imagery, her focus was on various human dramas. Her poems were populated with unfulfilled servants, Wal-Mart workers, mothers and office denizens. They dealt with human needs and wants.

One of her poems, dedicated to Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart worker who died in the crush of people who swarmed the store on a Black Friday, focused on humanity’s destructive desires. She portrayed Damour as a stone and the shoppers as an indifferent wave.

Her strongest poems, however, were those which displayed Goodheart’s biting sense of humor. Her poetry dealing with motherhood was greeted by chuckles from the audience and nods from the female attendees as if to say “that’s right.”

In “Caesarian,” Goodheart tells her newborn child who had been plucked from her, “I was not ready to meet you this way.” Another poem dealt with college-aged “babies” whose parents had to clap for them and praise a job well done.

Not all of Goodheart’s poems were amusing; however, some resulted from adversity. One poem was a response to her 2005 cancer diagnosis.

Using the imagery of Russian nesting dolls, “Matryoshka” was powerful in its depiction of a woman who discovers that in her “right breast a ragged flower bloomed.”

Sprinkled throughout Goodheart’s poetry were flashes of brilliant imagery. In describing a c-section, she said that she was “split like a blood orange;” in a poem about a child at

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

jessica goodheart

the beach, she beautifully depicted “the wind’s fingers takes his face in hand.” Another memorable moment was when, in the poem “My Doorman is a poet in need of praise,” she said that “doors are like books that he opens and closes.”

Most of Goodheart’s pieces were brief, and she seemed to go from

one to the other very quickly. There was no time for a reflective pause between poems, for them to sink in; instead, they settled lightly on the audience who had no time for deeper introspection. This could have also been because a few of her poems, while employing vibrant imagery, seemed to exist solely on the

surface. What more meaning could “Advice for a Stegasaurous” have?

Or “Stick Your Head in the Copier”?

This begs the question: Should all poems have deeper meanings?

Whatever the answer may be, Goodheart’s reading made for a delightful evening of poetry, a relaxing way to spend time before the break.

April 15, 2011

ARTS, ETC. 17

The Brandeis Hoot

Annual Liquid Latex show bares all To see photos, please see print edition.

photos by haley fine/the hoot

living in latex Clockwise from top right, performers appear in “Runway,” “Lady Marmalade,” “Techno Genesis” and “Global Exposure” as

part of Liquid Latex’s annual show, which was held Thursday night in Levin Ballroom.

By Sean Fabery Editor

Entering Levin Ballroom on Thursday night, the energy was palpable—people were getting ready for a good show. The moment the lights went out, the audience erupted into cheers. It was time for Liquid Latex.

In the 11 years since its inception, Liquid Latex has exploded. Something about the combination of a little latex and a lot of imagination is simply irresistible. It was even featured in Playboy magazine as the best college-supported art project in the nation, earning it some prurient street cred. Whether you think it’s silly or spectacular, it’s one of those events that’s quintessentially Brandeisian.

For those who previously knew Liquid Latex only by reputation, this installment was definitely a great introduction.

Usually there’s one or two acts every year that don’t go anywhere, the kind where it’s evident that someone just really wanted to get naked on stage prior to graduation (no judgment). This year’s performanc-

es, however, were great across the board, deftly mixing beautiful paint designs, expert choreography and killer soundtracks.

The show’s first act began with “Arkham Asylum,” a tribute to the villains of the “Batman” universe.

The baddest mamajamas in all of Gotham City—Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy—join forces with the Joker, Two Face and the Riddler to plot their escape from Gotham’s infamous hospital for the criminally insane. Appropriately enough, it ended with everyone jamming to Michael Jackson’s “Bad” and breaking out some dangerous dance moves.

The next performance, aptly titled “Sweet Tooth,” followed Hansel and Gretel as they journey through the woods. They stumble across a witch’s house, which turns into a kind of candy-coated Eden replete with dancing candy spirits. Of course, this was an opportune time to break out Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy.”

The endearing “Strings of the Sea” then commenced. This act involved a lonely sailor who uncovers a mate

on a desolate shore. Unfortunately, their revelry is disrupted by the arrival of pirates who end their idyllic existence. Unlike most of the other performances, this group incorporated hypnotic and seaworthy instrumental music, which established a different tone.

With “Decadent Despair,” the following group went down a decidedly darker route, delving into a bizarre, twisted fantasy that explored the darkest recesses of the mind. Not only was it darker in tone, but it also featured some of the best paint designs of the night.

This was followed by “Aqua,” which won the award for most appropriate song choices. It relied exclusively on songs by the Scandinavian pop group Aqua, using their most famous song, “Barbie Girl,” as its frame narrative. When a little girl falls asleep, her Barbie doll comes to life and explores romantic entanglements with the “Candyman,” “Bubble Bee” and “Halloween” man.

Of course, she ends up with her Ken, appropriately portrayed by Herbie Rosen ’12.

The first act ended with “Magic

at Midsummer,” a latex-clad version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” When fairies stumble across pairs of lovers in the woods, hilarity ensues. Everyone falls in love with the wrong person, not to mention that one overly-enthusiastic lover ends up with a donkey head. The audience went wild when one of the fairies did some very impressive tricks with glow-inthe-dark yo-yos.

After a brief intermission, the show recommenced with “Global Exposure,” which united dancing flags from various countries in a show of international cooperation.

Their performance brought together a fun concept with an equally enjoyable soundtrack.

Of course, no Liquid Latex show is complete without a requisite latex fashion show. This year, models appeared dressed as various postmodern artworks.

Next, a group of four senior girls danced and lip-synced to the “Moulin Rouge!” soundtrack version of “Lady Marmalade.” This easily proved to be the most risqué performance of the night, so of course it

received plentiful cheers from maleidentifying segments of the audience.

“Techno Genesis,” the most delightfully bizarre performance of the night, followed. In this vision of the future, cybernetic entities seek to recreate humankind. Instead, they end up generating humanoid fries, a hamburger and a shake—awkward!

Recognizing their mistake, the entities devour their bastardized creations.

The show closed with “A Place Like No Place on Earth,” a recreation of Lewis Carroll’s absurdist classic “Alice in Wonderland.” Featuring great paint and even a rudimentary set, the group did an excellent job bringing Alice to life. Their performance was so good that they can even be forgiven for sampling dialogue from Tim Burton’s film adaptation, one of the greatest abominations of the 21st century.

All in all, this year’s show displayed Liquid Latex at its best. Next year’s show will have a lot to live up to but, if it displays half of the creativity on display here, it will still be awesome.

18 ARTS, ETC.

The Brandeis Hoot

April 15, 2011

Culture X marks the spot!

photos by lien phung/the hoot

celebrating diversity Clockwise from top right, members of the Brandeis Belly Dance Ensemble, African Dance Club and Korean Student Association perform at Culture X.

By Sean Fabery Editor

Culture X can always be counted on to provide Brandeis with a glimpse into the diversity that characterizes our campus. With its eclectic mix of song, dance and poetry, this year’s show, presented last Saturday in Levin Ballroom, certainly did not disappoint.

The evening began with the four members of the Culture X committee—Ann Nin Wong ’11, Divya Kanneganti ’11, Karen Hu ’12 and Akash Vadalia ’12—introducing this year’s theme, “Up, Up and Away!” This theme had been chosen in order to emphasize the quality of this year’s performances.

While this year’s performances were certainly of sterling quality, the majority of them were also

linked by their exploration of the relationship between the modern and traditional. A sizable percentage of the show’s 22 performances organized themselves thematically around this dichotomy. Many of these proved to be among the show’s highlights.

Dhoom began the trend early in the evening by coupling modern songs with traditional Indian dance.

Their performance began with a Justin Bieber impersonator taking the stage and jamming to “Baby” before the rest of the group took over and injected the performance with a new flavor. They were clearly influenced by the kind of joyful dancing that characterizes Bollywood.

Later in the first act, members of the Korean Student Association (KSA) performed an elaborate fan dance that awed the crowd. Initially,

the students performed individually before they joined their fans together, creating quite a spectacular sight. The gracefulness of the fan dance was subsequently joined by hip-hop dancing more reflective of modern Korean youth.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the performance given by the Southeast Asian Club (SEAC), which closed this year’s show. Their elaborately-staged performance told the story of a newly-married prince escorting his bride through a jungle. The couple’s entourage follows closely behind, dancing between sticks while holding umbrellas. Though the SEAC performance required the participation of a large number of students, their dancing was well-choreographed and its dancers were attired in beautiful costumes. Like Dhoom and KSA,

they subsequently transitioned to something more contemporary, with those in traditional dress being joined on stage by students in hoodies and t-shirts.

Other groups presented purely traditional performances that also captivated the crowd.

The African Dance Club presented a festive dance from Mali, traditionally used by young people to welcome guests.

Other Brandeis students also showed their proficiency in various talents.

The saxophone quartet Sax Appeal performed Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” enlivening their performance with some killer dance moves. Half of its members dressed as zombies, while the others donned ’80s-appropriate garb.

The Brandeis Swingers also re-

vived the 1920s with their impressive swing dancing act.

Kaos Kids, meanwhile, gave perhaps the most intricate performance of the night. The hip-hop team mixed their creative stylings with a fun circus theme.

Two students decided to forego a group presentation and instead flew solo. Amanda Dryer ’13 presented the spoken word poem “Truth: A Letter to My Zadie,” written in the voice of her grandfather, a Holocaust survivor. Osaze Akerejah ’14 also rapped on stage under the pseudonym Saz. É.

Other standouts included ¡Ahora!, So Unique Step Team and LUKE. All in all, it was a night not to be missed, and I know some in the crowd were already anticipating next year’s Culture X.

Super-duper bugs: cutting down on illness

By Gabby Katz Staff

Looking at the birds, bees, flowers and trees, all outside creatures are waking up and coming out in the emerging springtime. Though we all enjoy the occasional running mustache called “east-bugs” or a nice butterfly, there is a new kind of bug also emerging this time of year that isn’t quite so kind. These “superbugs” are not really bugs at all (I just like to be punny), but they are actually a type of bacteria that has resistance to many commonly used antibiotics that are currently infecting many.

These bacteria are really known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and they are resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics, which include penicillin and cephalosporin. According to the

CDC, out of nine states (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, Tennessee, New York, Minnesota and Oklahoma) 20 million people were infected in 2008 alone. Some scientists argue that we could be on the verge of a global epidemic.

People at risk include those who have weak immune systems, diabetics, intravenous drug users, young children, elderly people, college students who live in close quarters (ruh-roh!), health care facility workers and other people who spend a considerable amount of time in confined spaces, like prison inmates and wrestlers. A 2004 study showed that, on average, people infected with the bacteria have three times the length of a normal hospital stay, spend three times more than the average cost and have five times the risk of in-hospital death.

The bacterial strain usually colo-

nizes in the nostrils, respiratory track, open wounds, intravenous catheters and urinary track. Symptoms usually begin with small, red bumps and a fever that worsen and evolve into pus-filled boils (delicious). Some variations of this strain can actually go straight to attacking vital organs and lead to toxic shock syndrome or necrotizing pneumonia, “flesh-eating bacteria,” which can be lethal. If caught early, there are some drugs available, along with specific symptom treatments that have a decent rate of treatment. Because of the fast-moving nature of the bacteria, it is very important to be aware of your risk, the signs and symptoms, as well as the preventative steps you can take to lower your risk. Most importantly, if you have any unusual symptoms as described, contact a physician immediately.

So, if you don’t feel like participating in the Passover plague of

boils, how can you prevent contracting this? One way can be, if you are admitted into a hospital, make sure they have a sanitizing program that ensures all surfaces have been sanitized and that the hospital goes under routine inspections. Also, when you find yourself in the environments mentioned, it’s crucial to always wash your hands properly or rub vigorously with an alcoholbased rub. You can also restrict your antibiotic use and make certain that you really need them by asking the doctor of their necessity and alternatives. Lastly, if you know someone infected, do not come in direct contact until the doctors deem they are no longer contagious.

Although this type of bug is not going to crawl up your trousers on the Great Lawn, it is still something of which you should be aware and take precautionary measures when needed. Have a great April break

graphic from internet source

and look forward to the long summer break that’s just around the corner! As always, tune in for more health tips and send me an e-mail at gkatz10@brandeis.edu with any health-related questions you may have.

April 15, 2011

ARTS, ETC. 19

The Brandeis Hoot

Documentarian Hessman discusses ‘My Perestroika’

By Sean Fabery Editor

In your average high school history textbook, you’re likely to read all about how some combination of leadership, momentum and political reform brought down the Soviet Union, or what Ronald Reagan termed the “evil empire.” Rarely do you get any mention of how the Soviet collapse affected ordinary Russians at the time, much less how they continue to impact Russian society today.

Filmmaker Robin Hessman attempts to add this human dimension to the post-Cold War narrative through her new documentary, “My Perestroika.” Hessman visited Brandeis on Monday for a screening of the documentary, which was followed by a discussion between her and members of the Brandeis faculty.

“My Perestroika” focuses on five people living in Moscow, all of whom came of age just as the Soviet Union underwent perestroika, the famous political and economic restructuring of the Soviet system under Mikhail Gorbachev.

For decades, Soviet authorities had vigorously imposed one-party rule but, with increasing economic stagnation, Gorbachev felt the need for change.

Perestroika thus provided for limited privatization and allowed for greater dissent. These reforms set in place a chain of events that led to the death of the Soviet Union rather than its reform.

Hessman’s documentary ultimately does not place its emphasis on perestroika, or at least not on this simplistic account of it. Instead, her focus is squarely on the “my” of the title: She wants to explore the effects of the macro on the micro.

To accomplish this, she zooms her camera in on Borya, Lyuba, Andrei, Ruslan and Olga, four of whom attended the same elementary school.

It is in school that all their stories begin; much time is devoted to each discussing their own recollections of their Soviet childhoods—significant since they were of the last gen-

eration to grow up behind the Iron Curtain.

As Borya explains, “it was childhood, so it was a good time—despite the whole USSR.” And their childhoods indeed appear happy, at least based on the home video footage Hessman weaves in. References to the Soviet Pioneer troupes—a kind of communist version of the Boy Scouts—abound.

This shared trajectory continues until perestroika, when suddenly the Soviet system they all knew and not quite loved vanishes. Jobs and pensions are no longer guaranteed; instead, they jump headfirst into the capitalist ’90s, a chaotic time for Russia. Each of them fares differently: Andrei opens a high-end men’s clothing store, while Ruslan finds it hard to adjust. Olga laments that there is “no real middle class in Russia.”

When asked to consider the present state of affairs, their outlooks aren’t much different. At one point, Olga reminisces with her hairdresser about the days when elections didn’t seem so prearranged. Virtually everyone else in the documentary seems to share this sentiment.

Rather than present all this as a kind of rote history of Russia, Hessman successfully ties the personal and the political together onscreen.

Yes, her documentary features the requisite clips of Gorbachev and Putin, but it prefers focusing on the five subjects at hand.

Hessman presents clips from the funeral of longtime Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, but she’s really interested in the home videos, one of which shows children leading a mock funeral procession for Brezhnev as a kind of game.

To Hessman, these people are more than mere talking heads; in fact, they’re the entire movie.

Following the screening, Hessman discussed why she made the film, first delving into outside perceptions of the Soviet Union.

“I felt that people [outside the Soviet Union] had one of two narratives: either of an evil empire … or a socialist utopia,” she said.

She thought both views were

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

exploring the soviet past Filmmaker Robin Hessman (second from right) discusses her documentary “My Perestroika” with, from left,

ESL program coordinator Feruza Aripova, Professor Irina Dubinina and Professor Sabine von Mering.

gross oversimplifications and unrepresentative of how Russians viewed their past.

“Within every individual I know, there are conflicting emotions,” Hessman said.

She noted that many Russians had embraced greater political freedom, but—as exemplified by Olga in her film—they mourned the stability provided by the Soviet Union.

She focused her film on a group of former classmates because she believed this would give a more accurate representation of how events had unfolded and continue to unfold in Russia.

“What we read in the headlines might be in the background for people,” she said, noting that the extreme political changes in the Soviet Union had played out as her subjects tried to live their everyday lives.

Her use of frequent home video clips was meant in part to empha-

size this, as the fusion of new and archival footage created a “constant dialogue between the past and present.”

She specifically focused on residents of Moscow because she considered the city a “symbol of change.”

“Everything in Moscow is so intense … everything is more easily felt there. It’s where the tanks were on the streets [during the 1991 coup attempt],” Hessman said.

Hessman was joined by Professor Irina Dubinina (GRALL) and ESL program coordinator Feruza Aripova, both of whom grew up in the Soviet Union. Their discussion was moderated by Professor Sabine von Mering (GRALL).

“Perestroika filled me with so many conflicting emotions,” Dubinina said.

“As a straight-A student, I was a conformist. I had a happy childhood. I couldn’t think of anything I

HTG’s ‘Forum’ provides music and laughs FORUM, from page 16

This portrayal was odd and thoughtless.

Despite this comedic hiccup, most of the show was hysterically funny, especially the parts with Hysterium (Herbie Rosen ’12). Rosen was, simply put, amazing. His character, aptly named due to his near-constant state of barely contained hysteria, got the most laughs out of all of the characters.

Every time his character would get upset, Rosen would stomp around the stage, squealing out his frustration and frantically trying to stave off tears. And Rosen in drag was priceless; he wore a long, white dress and a disheveled blond wig in the second act that perfectly accompanied his falsetto voice and frightened cry of: “Why are old men so attracted to me?”

Like Rosen, Frederick, who played the main character, was very funny.

During the song “Free,” he asks the audience, “Can you see me?” and chooses that moment to do a split that shows the audience his boxers.

While Frederick was funny, he played Pseudolus a bit too similarly to how

photo by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

forum Herbie Rosen and David Frederick played Hysterium and Pseudolus respectively.

Rosen played Hysterium. Hysterium is meant to be the constantly panicking and unsure slave while Pseudolus is the conniving and intelligent slave, who can scheme his way out of any predicament. Frederick was missing the confidence that is an inherent

part of Pseudolus’ character; he was too panicky during the show, whining when things didn’t seem to be working out. This took a lot of enjoyment out of the show because, while one Hysterium is funny, two is just too much.

This is perhaps why Levi Squier ’14 succeeded so much as Hero, the young lover. While he was very funny and had great comedic timing, he was definitely a unique character. He brought a certain naivety and juvenile silliness to Hero. Although Squier does not have the strongest singing voice, his voice fit the character and he was able to carry his songs.

Two of the best singers in the show were Abigail Clarke ’12 and Jackie Theoharis ’14, who played Domina and Philia respectively. They both had lovely voices that could be heard clearly and they both proved to be comedians. Every time Domina interrupted her husband Senex (Christopher Knight ’14) with that bossy tone of voice, the audience tittered. Theoharis played the dumb blond brilliantly as she forgot her lover’s name and admitted that she sometimes confuses the numbers three and five.

It was a shame that they were both in so few songs, especially Clarke. It was a mistake on HTG’s part to choose a play with so few female singing parts when they had such a talented female cast.

While most Brandeis productions are truly phenomenal, this one felt like a high school production—good but not great.

was missing terribly.”

Aripova echoed these thoughts.

“I was happy to be a little Pioneer,” Aripova said.

She noted that the Soviet authorities had rapidly advanced the cause of women’s rights in her native Uzbekistan and that she was disappointed by recent reversals in gender equality there.

“Things have not changed. They have gotten so much worse … so many women have gone back to the traditional gender roles,” she said.

“It’s foreign to me.”

Both acknowledged that reactions to the Soviet Union’s dissolution varied depending on one’s location.

Having lived in Lithuania for several years, Aripova compared her own experience with the general Lithuanian reaction to independence.

“They’ve been happier being European,” she said. “[Living there] helped me see that other narrative.”

20 The Brandeis Hoot

hoot scoops

April 15, 2011

Pleasing judges and defying judgments

Elysha Greenberg ’11 has learned that competing to be Miss America pays off

‘No butts about it’: As Miss Manchester, Greenberg has given a presentation that she designed to hundreds of New Hampshire schoolchildren about the harms of smoking and tobacco use.

By Leah Finkelman Editor

Next year, Elysha Greenberg ’11 will be attending graduate school to get her Masters in Mental Health Counseling. She might also be touring her home state of New Hampshire, educating school children about the hazards of smoking and promoting the Miss America Organization, wearing the crown she could win in this month’s Miss New Hampshire competition.

When people find out she participates in Miss America, their first reaction is the usual notion of a pageant with stereotypically beautiful girls talking about world peace. To Greenberg, however, it’s much more than that.

“They instantly think of unintelligent people walking around in heels and a bathing suit, but it’s not like that.” For starters, she and other participants and organizers are very adamant that it’s a scholarship program, not a beauty pageant. “I know I sound like the woman from ‘Miss Congeniality,’” she says, but contestants are scored based on poise, eloquence and other character qualities—not on how they look in a bikini.

When Greenberg began competing, she knew nothing about Miss America. She discovered the organization, which is the world’s largest provider of scholarships for young women, while looking for scholarship money. She decided to compete, asking herself, “I have a prom dress, a swimsuit and a flute, so why not?”

After four years of competing, Greenberg has received more than $17,000 in scholarships after being crowned Miss Londonderry, Miss Auburn, Miss Deerfield Fair and Miss Manchester, her current title.

This year, she hopes to be one of 12 local winners to go on to compete for Miss New Hampshire.

According to the Miss America website, the contest was designed to “provide personal and professional opportunities for young women to promote their voices in culture, politics and the community.”

In addition to presenting a two-minute talent, Miss America competitors must present a platform of a relevant issue, be part of an evening gown competition and a lifestyle/fitness competition, in which contestants wear swimsuits, and go through a 10-minute interview with a panel of judges and an on-stage interview of one or two questions.

Since 1989, contestants have been required to choose, issue and create a platform about issues ranging from eating disorder awareness to fighting cancer to promoting literacy. According to the Miss America website, after being crowned, Miss America and state winners “use their stature to address community service organizations, business and civic leaders, the media and others about their platform issues.”

Greenberg’s platform, “No Butts About It: Tobacco Use and Abuse Prevention and Awareness,” focuses on educating about the dangers of tobacco use. Since she began competing, she has spoken to hundreds of New Hampshire school children, mostly middle school-aged kids, giving a presentation that she designed. During spring break, she will speak to another thousand students.

The swimsuit component, Greenberg said, is “the ultimate test of confidence.”

“It’s about more than just making sure you look good in a swimsuit. They want

to see if you’re fit and able to take care of yourself.”

Greenberg has gotten much more out of Miss America than she ever thought she would. In addition to boosting her confidence, she has improved her interview skills, which prepared her for applying to graduate schools.

“Once you’ve been in a room with a panel of judges questioning you, one person is nothing,” she said.

When she is questioned about current events, both on-stage and behind the scenes, she has to be able to give an opinion eloquently and concisely without offending anyone. The questions, she said, can be about literally anything, from abortion to the economy.

The week-long preparation for the Miss New Hampshire pageant is full of dance and production rehearsals leading up to the weekend competition, and backstage the girls “just have a blast,” Greenberg said.

Her favorite memories of competing are cracking jokes with the girls, making each other laugh and just hanging out.

This year, judges have added a new component to the Miss New Hampshire contest. On the last night of competition, 10 contestants are chosen by judges to move to the finals. This year, an online campaign will add two finalists. If either of the top two online are already in the top 10, the next contestant with the most votes will move up.

In order to ensure herself a place in the top 10, Greenberg has created a Facebook page encouraging her friends to vote on the Miss New Hampshire Facebook page and website. If she is crowned Miss New Hampshire, she will receive a $15,000 scholarship and compete in the Miss America pageant.

Greenberg plays the flute and answers a question during photos courtesy of elysha greenberg competition.