The Brandeis Hoot - April 1, 2011

Vol. 8, No. 10

www.thebrandeishoot.com

Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper • Waltham, Mass.

April 1, 2011

Univ to re-open pool for $3 million

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

The Brandeis board of trustees voted Thursday evening to renovate the Linsey Pool in a project that will cost between $3 to $3.5 million.

The Board also approved a $6 million upgrade to the campus technology network.

The pool has been closed since 2008, at which

point the university suspended its swimming and diving teams. With the renovations, the teams will reopen for the 2012-2013 academic year and coaches will begin recruiting this summer.

The pool renovations will begin this spring, which include updates to the mechanical and electrical infrastructure, pool repairs and a renovated pool deck. The project also includes

plans to build a new entrance, renovate the lobby and create new locker rooms, Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins said.

“We are thrilled that the pool will be re-opening,” Director of Athletics Sheryl Sousa said in a university press release. “We will be able to offer varsity swimming and diving again and an array of recreational programming such as open swim hours, fitness classes, intramural and club

sport activity.”

“We recognize its importance to students, alumni and other members of our community.

The board’s action signals a positive step forward for Brandeis,” Keenyn McFarlane, vice president for enrollment, said in the press release.

The board’s decision to approve the funding See POOL, page 8

Lawrence installed as 8th pres Lawrence advocates liberal arts curriculum

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

News Analysis: A personal tone

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

University President Fred Lawrence promoted the practicality and purpose of a liberal arts education in his inaugural address on Thursday afternoon inside the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center.

“Let us commit at every opportunity to reject the false dichotomy between so-called practical or trade-directed education on the one hand and liberal arts on the other,” Lawrence said to an audience of more than 1,500 students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees and friends. “Because I believe with all my heart that a true liberal arts education is the most practical education there is.”

In a society where more people question whether a liberal arts education is useful in finding post-graduation employment, Lawrence said that the universal skills students learn at Brandeis will help them succeed not just in their 20s, but for their entire careers.

He admitted that although the future of the workforce is uncertain, jobs will always require the skills to use knowledge, analyze, solve prob-

The tone of President Fred Lawrence’s inaugural address on Thursday symbolized the personality that his earned him the approval of the Brandeis community during the last nine months.

Inauguration is a formal occasion, and Lawrence’s address was full of historical references as well as a general vision for how Brandeis will confront the challenges of a small liberal arts university trying to navigate the waters of a globalized world in the 21st century.

Yet Lawrence’s speech was also full of more informal mentions of not only his presidency but also his personality and the values and family who shaped his career, and his life.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees Malcolm Sherman explained the decision to choose Lawrence from other candidates. “… A candidate emerged who best embodied the personal, professional and leadership qualities this community sought,” Sherman said at the inauguration on Thursday. “That candidate was Frederick Martin Lawrence.”

See LAWRENCE, page 2

See ANALYSIS, page 2

president frederick lawrence For more pictures, see page 10.

photo by nafiz “fizz ” ahmed/the hoot

Changes to Latin honors announced

Presenting univ collections

By Nathan Koskella Editor

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

interdisciplinary series begins Professor David Sherman (ENG) discusses the painting ‘The Czech

Bride’ by Natalie Frank at The Rose Art Museum as part of the Close Looking series on March 30.

The awarding of Latin honors like cum laude could be based on a percentage system instead of grade point average starting wtih the class of 2016 if the faculty approves the proposal at their April 14 meeting.

The change has already passed through the University Curriculum Committee (UCC).

“For the last several months, the committee has been having a general discussion about grade inflation,” Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said. The Latin honors system is one tool the university can use to combat it.

Currently, 59 percent of Brandeis students graduate with some form of Latin honors, Jaffe said, with any student who achieves a 3.5 GPA awarded cum laude. Students who achieve a 3.7 GPA are awarded magna cum laude, with summa cum laude being reserved for students who both achieve a 3.8 GPA and win departmental honors through a senior thesis or similar major project.

The large number of students receiving these awards defeats their purpose, Jaffe said.

“Latin honors are supposed to be an acknowledgement of only outstanding students,” Jaffe said.

“The change will better reflect that.”

Under the new UCC recommendation, only the top 30 percent of each class will receive Latin awards. The top 15 percent will be eligible for magna cum laude, while the top 5 will receive summa cum laude if they meet the unchanging requirement that they also receive departmental honors.

“Last time the system was changed,” Jaffe said, “it was in 1999-2000, and that year the total number of students receiving Latin honors was also a jump from 59 percent” to much lower. Jaffe said the change was thus not revolutionary.

Similar steps are not unheard of at other schools.

The dean said the committee examined practices at other universities, and not only was their action typical at some but “30 percent was a common cutoff point.”

The change would not affect any current student or incoming class of 2015 member, per standard procedure.

Only Brandeis students of the future would face the future requirements, as is usual with all major graduation changes.

2 The Brandeis Hoot

NEWS

April 1, 2011

Faculty discuss univ business and sciences

photo by alan tran/the hoot

By Debby Brodsky Staff

Brandeis hosted a panel discussion to highlight the role of the university as a business, and the creative instinct within the sciences and the liberal arts in honor of the inauguration of President Frederick Lawrence.

The panel was designed to analyze the fundamental components of university life, and featured professionals and Brandeis faculty, who offered their opinions to the audience, and to President Lawrence. Judith Shapiro ’63 moderated each panel, and began by explaining that any college or university has to be run as a business. She then asked the panel, what sort of relationship a university should have with the business world.

Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, professor of international business, spoke first, saying “if we take our liberal arts university and apply it to all fields, we will get more customers. It is the product rather than the basic business that should be discussed.” Gomes-Casseres continued by elaborating on how important it is for Brandeis to differentiate its learning environment from others in the business, and from other universities.

Professor Jane Kamensky (HIST) spoke about the history of universities, and said “a university is where transmitters and receivers of knowledge come together, and where the creation of knowledge happens in a special way.”

She expressed her excitement to be at Brandeis,

because we are between the past of knowledge, and the future that is pushing forward. To conclude, Kamensky voiced her concerns that nonresidential university competitors will multiply, while residential universities like Brandeis, will shrink in numbers.

The final member of the business panel was Daniel Terris, vice president for global affairs.

“One of the challenges for Brandeis, because of its youth and size, is that the nature of who we are is too small to be in the research business.

We are too large to just be in the transmission of knowledge business, and we are too nonsectarian to be just Jewish.” Terris commended Brandeis on having done a good job of encouraging students to study off campus through programs such as study abroad, but also said that Brandeis has not done a good job of re-integrating the “doing” skill back into the classroom.

Terris concluded by addressing President Lawrence directly, saying, “universities are used to making their own self-enclosed worlds. Who we partner with is very important. We must participate in networks, and think of our university as integrated in the whole world.”

The second panel focused on sciences, the creative instinct and the liberal arts. Panelists included Gregory Petsky, professor of biochemistry, Robin Feuer Miller, the Edytha Macy Gross Professor of Humanities and Joseph Wardwell, assistant professor of painting. Panelists were asked, how the creative instinct informs and inspires advances in the arts, the sciences, and scholarship generally.

Miller focused on the creative impulse, calling it a natural aptitude that flourishes without technology. “The creative impulse is akin to play,” she said, “not to the scientific method.”

Petsko noted that a common misconception is that a liberal arts education is irrelevant compared to pre law and business. “Science and the arts have a lot in common in gestalt. Both are best practiced when one is trying to find something beautiful.” He spoke of how the humanities and the sciences need one another to be successful, and added “courses in liberal arts taught me as a scientist to think.”

Finally, Wardwell said, “the depth of instruction in the liberal arts community provides the perfect incubator for liberal arts students.”

Following the panelists’ discussion, Kamensky asked then what they thought Brandeis would gain or lose if it offered a grade-free freshman year. Reflecting on the “terror of error” students exhibit after being conditioned to achieve perfection since kindergarten, panelists concurred that they would be happy to try Kamensky’s grade-free scenario. “There are ways other than receiving grades to be encouraged to learn,” Wardwell said.

At the conclusion of the symposium, Shapiro summed up what President Lawrence had learned from the presentation. “President Lawrence has learned what are and are not the most appropriate ways of learning for Brandeis as a business, how to build bridges between disciplines, and how to build Brandeis as a community. All the best to you, President Lawrence.”

Lawrence inaugurated as 8th president LAWRENCE, from page 1

lems and communicate with others.

“The acquisition of these skills is precisely what a liberal arts education is about,” Lawrence said. “To learn only the skills of immediate relevance is to fill one’s hands with moonlight—and the morning will come.”

Lawrence, who officially took office as the eighth president of Brandeis on Jan. 1, described about Brandeis as unique because it is “the only non-sectarian, non-religious university of higher learning that is deeply rooted in the Jewish community.” He reminded the audience about the three “rocks” of Brandeis: non-discrimination, liberal arts and sciences and social justice.

Brandeis today has students from 116 different countries as well as students that represent 17 different religions, but Lawrence also said that economic diversity of the student body is a crucial value from the university’s founding to uphold.

“To maintain and enhance the diversity of our community, we must strengthen the resources necessary to allow us to honor the commitment that we have made to need-blind admissions,” Lawrence said. “And I tell you today that I am deeply committed to that effort.”

Citing the opening of a Phi Betta Kappa chapter in 13 years and admittance into the American Association of Universities less than 40 years after its founding, Lawrence credited the

university’s success to its merging of a research university with a small liberal arts college.

Lawrence referenced the 24 hour musical, the university’s response to the Westboro Baptist Church visit and a typical Friday evening on campus as examples of what community values mean to the Brandeis family.

In addition to challenging alums and trustees to serve as role models, Lawrence told students to “find a mentor who inspires you” and “be a mentor for others.”

He asked that faculty go beyond the specific facts or techniques of any academic subject.

“At the end of each term, ask yourself: is there a student who some day will say that I changed his life?” Lawrence said.

As part of his vision for the university, Lawrence said he plans to broaden Brandeis’ influence and connections throughout the globe, specifically in countries like India, Israel and China.

Lawrence said that his life and career have been inspired from the lessons of his family, including from his mother, who was the first in her family to attend a full time college.

“She gave me the best words of advice I ever received as a teacher, dean and now as a president,” he said. “’Remember’ she said, ‘each one of them is somebody’s kid.’”

“I dedicate myself, with every fiber of my being, to guide, support and nurture this great university,” Lawrence said. “Brandeis has always

been about community—the Brandeis family— and now more than ever we draw together as a family to chart our course in the years ahead.”

Lawrence, who thanked his predecessor Jehuda Reinharz for his leadership as president from 1994-2010, received praise from students, alumni, trustees and friends before delivering the inaugural address.

“United with President Lawrence, there’s nothing out of reach for the Brandeis of tomorrow,” said Allen Alter ’71, President of the Alumni Association.

Ralph D. Gants, Associated Justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts spoke about the history of Brandeis and the Supreme Court Justice, Louis D. Brandeis, for whom the university is named after.

“Louis Brandeis was Boston’s Benjamin Franklin in the breadth and enduring nature of his accomplishments,“ Gants said. “He gave birth to the notion that our Constitution includes a right of privacy, which became the legal foundation for the right of a woman to control her own body and the rights of each of us to love whom we choose.”

After reflecting on the history, of Brandeis, Lawrence offered a vision for the future.

“Let us right now pledge to each other to keep our aim high indeed,” Lawrence said. “Together, there is literally no limit to what we can achieve— we are limited only by our imagination—at this wonderful city on this wonderful hill.”

Inaugural analysis ANALYSIS, from page 1

While many of his seven predecessors talked at length about the role of a university in society, and compared it to local systems of government in their inaugural addresses, Lawrence stressed the themes of family and the values of mentoring others.

“My parents raised my brothers Phillip and Ted and me to believe that integrity and honesty are the highest values, but, as Albert Einstein said, ‘We are on this earth for the benefit of each other’ and that the hardest problems must be faced with courage, determination, optimism, and of course, a sense of humor,” Lawrence said.

“These are the values that I have striven to live by—as a student, as a lawyer, as a prosecutor, as a professor, and as a dean—and as a son, as a father, as a husband and as a colleague,” he said.

From the video message sent at midnight on New Year Eve’s featuring his wife Kathy and his two children, Miriam and Noah, to his deviation from a prepared speech to thank his family during his inaugural address on Thursday, Lawrence has portrayed the values of family and community as ones that have and will always guide him.

“We draw together the threads of each others’ lives, which is what makes the fabric of the Brandeis community so rich and so extraordinary,” Lawrence said.

Student Union President Daniel Acheampong ’11, to whom Lawrence referred to as “D-Pong” in his speech and joked about his win over Acheampong in a rap battle during the Brandeis Battle of the DJs in January, emphasized not only the professional, but also the friendship he has developed with Lawrence over the past several months.

“As President of the Brandeis undergraduate student body, I bring you welcome and we open our hands and say welcome home.”

While other university presidents gave speeches only a few years after the end of the Holocaust or during the national uproar and student protests against the Vietnam War, Lawrence assumed the presidency during the recovery from a global economic recession in 2008.

He spoke in an optimistic tone and did not address financial challenges facing the university. What he conveyed to the audience of 1,500 Brandeis supporters and community members was both his knowledge of the university’s founding purpose and his willingness to accept the necessary challenges to continue extending its original ideals.

Speaking about the founders of Brandeis, Lawrence said, “and they along with the visionary first President, Abram Sachar, knew that dreams are not the stuff of fairy tales. Dreams are about hard work. And the continuation of that work now falls to us, to build upon their mid 20th century dream – and to dream some dreams of our own.”

To Lawrence, an upholding of the founders’ vision requires a commitment to need-blind admissions, a case he made clear on Thursday, as he had on several other occasions since taking presidency.

As Brandeis enters a new era, Lawrence, and his senior development and administrative team say they will make student financial aid a top priority, and that in the near future, the university is mostly done constructing new buildings.

But what Lawrence’s speech and his first three months as president also reveal are the multiple and endless roles of a university president.

Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro explained the challenges any university president faces.

Schapiro cited the words of the first president of the University of California Berkeley, Clark Kerr: “You are expected my friend, among other things, to be, of course, a friend of the students, a colleague of the faculty, a good fellow with the alumni, a sound administrator of course with the trustees, a good speaker with the public, a spokesman to the press, a scholar in your own right, a [man] of opera and football … a decent human being, a good parent and spouse, an active member of a church or synagogue … and above all you must enjoy traveling in airplanes, eating meals in public and attending ceremonies.”

It was apparent at the ceremonies yesterday that Lawrence was chosen for this position because of his ability to balance these roles all the while remaining approachable.

April 1, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot

NEWS

3

Sandel moderates panel on univ diversity

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

Faculty discussed the roles of diversity and globalization at Brandeis in a symposium moderated by Harvard Professor Michael Sandel ’75 on Thursday in honor of university President Fred Lawrence’s inauguration this week.

Sandel, a member of the Brandeis Board of Trustees, teaches the popular undergraduate course “Justice” at Harvard and asked Professor Ulka Anjaria (ENG), Professor Bernadette Brooten (NEJS) and Professor Fernando Rosenberg (HISP) to define diversity in the context of a liberal arts university. In the second panel at the Faculty Club, Professor David Cunningham (SOC), Professor Theodore Johnson (HS) and Professor Kate Moran (PHIL) explained what social justice and moral values mean to Brandeis.

Brooten said that the university needs to expand its language programs and make sure students have more opportunities to fully learn about other cultures.

“People do not say the same thing in one language as they do in another,” Brooten said. “If you want to meet people on their own terms, you have to cross the language barrier. Diversity is not about being comfortable.”

At Brandeis, this should include language tables, guest speakers who talk in native languages and a new emphasis on encouraging students to spend a full year, rather than just a semester studying abroad, Brooten said.

Although many students are often concerned with fulfilling requirements for multiple majors and minors, for those interested in becoming fluent in a language and gaining in depth knowledge about a culture, a full year of study abroad is helpful, she said.

“We need to be serious and upfront about how long it takes to learn a culture and a language,” Brooten said.

Rosenberg said that the Brandeis community must find new ways to challenge definitions and meanings of diversity.

“Celebrating diversity is often a way of hiding inequality,” he said. “Welcoming more diversity on campus can lead us on the path of a more welcoming and rewarding future.”

In addition to admitting students from diverse backgrounds, Rosenberg said that academic courses can also become more diverse.

“Diversity doesn’t stop there. It should be integrated into the curriculum,” he said.

Anjaria referenced a 2009 film “Three Idiots”

and asked the audience to contemplate not only definitions of traditional success but also what people want society to become. The liberal arts university now faces external pressure from critics who wonder whether a liberal arts education can lead to jobs and economic success as well as from internal economic and financial pressure at the university.

In “Three Idiots,” Anjaria said “because they [students] couldn’t conform to that education structure, the Dean constantly referred to them as idiots.” She asked the audience to question whether success is good for society.

“Even though India is booming at the moment, who do we want to become as a culture?”

Anjaria said. “I think what we’re seeing is that the we ourselves is changing?”

Brooten, who grew up in poverty, said that financial aid is crucial to encouraging economic diversity on campus.

“I would not have been able to get an education without those need-based grants.”

The professors said that India, Latin America and the Middle East are all regions of the world that they hope the university will focus on to recruit more students.

In the second panel, Moran discussed the values of humanity and justice that Brandeis should seek to uphold.

In society today, many people arrive at conclusions of thought simply by accident, Moran said.

“Being right only accidentally can be a dangerous thing indeed,” Moran said referencing the first of Kant’s three virtues.

Kant’s second virtue she said, is about “thinking consistently,” which “at its foundation is deeply rooted to notions of fairness and justice.”

Moran said Kant’s third virtue, although impossible to fulfill, is one to strive for in a changing world.

“Kant likes to remind us that we have to perfect our ability to think from the standpoint of others.”

Although Moran admitted that the ability to empathize with everyone is difficult, she said people can consider the environments and conditions that others live in.

Johnson explored the theme of justice, explaining that “social justice is both a process and a result.”

“Social just as a result is giving each person their due,” he said.

A willingness to initiate dialogue with opposing views is also a crucial aspect in the process of social justice, Johnson said. It means “not

Knesset members to visit Brandeis

By Jon Ostrowsky Editor

Six members of the Israeli Knesset will visit Brandeis on Sunday and Monday in an effort to create new dialogue between Israeli politicians about Israel’s relationship with the American Jewish community. The Israeli politician’s visit is funded by the new Ruderman Fellows Program.

After meetings with Professor Jonathan Sarna, Professor Lenoard Saxe and Professor Ilan Troen, the Knesset members will participate in a town-hall meeting inside Levin Ballroom on Monday evening.

The first group of Ruderman fellows includes members of opposing political parties in Israel: Avi Dichter and Ronit Tirosh of the Kadima party, Tzipi Hotovely and Carmel Shama of Likud and Eitan Cabel and Danny Ben Simon of Labor.

Jay Ruderman ’88 is president of the Ruderman Family Foundation and moved to Israel in the summer of 2005 and enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He has also worked for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “[With] the views that these Knesset members [represent], they really represent the spectrum of Israeli politics,” Ruderman said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

He explained that at a time when there is often divisive rhetoric about the polices of the

Israeli government and its military, people can oppose governmental policies and still support Israel as a Jewish state.

“They may see things very differently [in different parties], but they’re Zionists in that they believe in the state of Israel,” Ruderman said.

The disagreement between parties can include division over the most effective policies and actions from the government to create peace.

Yet there is also a different line of criticism that Israel and its politicians face. There are those who belong to parties that do not support the country because “they don’t believe in Israel as a Jewish democratic state,” Ruderman said.

The fellows, after meetings in Waltham, Boston and New York will also meet with leaders from the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Ruderman first got involved with politics as an undergraduate at Brandeis, where he served as president of the Student Union and worked on former Brandeis Professor Ruth Morgenthau’s Congressional campaign in Rhode Island.

“I’ve always had an appreciation for politics and leadership and public discourse,” Ruderman said.

He said he hopes that this program will create new ways to discuss the relationship between America and Israel, and not just as one that people view in terms of foreign aid between the two countries.

michael sandel

necessarily agreeing with them but deeply appreciating them in an emotional and intelligent manner.”

Cunningham said that today’s world represents a merging of technology and relations in society.

“How can we take authoritative knowledge and engage with broader publics?” Cunningham said.

Sandel asked the panelists to evaluate the values a university should teach its students. He mentioned the dilemma that Adam Smith poses between concern over a person losing a finger versus concern over the destruction of an entire nation, such as China, after an earthquake.

He asked the audience whether Brandeis should strive for “a moral education in universal human concern.”

When students shared stories of their personal tragedies in his classroom, Johnson said others empathized with their pain.

“When those stories are shared in the classroom, it is not like losing a finger,” he said.

Evaluating the distinction between social

photo by alex patch/the hoot

justice and justice, Sandel who recently wrote a book titled “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” said social justice implies looking after people often left out and excluded in society.

“I guess that is what social justice means, which is why those on the [political] right hate it,” Sandel said.

Lawrence, who attended the symposium with his family, said that the symposia on Monday and Tuesday are especially meaningful to him as an academic. He applauded the discussion on themes of justice and values and the purpose of a university.

In his inaugural address on Thursday, he said the symposia speak to the strength of a liberal arts education.

“The wonderful symposia that my colleagues presented in my honor earlier this week so magnificently made the case: our mandate involves not only the transmission of a cultural heritage, but the evocation of intellectual curiosity and that most special thing of all, the creative impulse,” Lawrence said.

4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 1, 2011

A comprehensive examination of race at Brandeis

A host for all: Brandeis’ unique racial history

This article is the first part in a series exploring how issues of race affect Brandeis University on multiple levels. Each week The Hoot will publish an article detailing one aspect of how race influences the university, including but not limited to admissions, academics and social life. The product of two months of interviews, archival research and statistical analysis, this series can never speak to the breadth of social inequities that are present at Brandeis and the world at large; however, it is an attempt to hold up a mirror to our institution and tell the story of one important factor that intimately affects our everyday lives.

In February 1952, Ebony magazine wrote a feature article urging black students to apply to Brandeis. It was two years before the Supreme Court would vote to desegregate public schools, three years before Rosa Parks would refuse to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery Ala., eight years before the first sit-in to desegregate Woolworth’s lunch counters and 12 years before President Lyndon B. Johnson would sign the Civil Rights Act. But at Brandeis, black men were dancing with white women at formals, according to the Ebony article, “Brandeis University: New Jewishfounded school in Massachusetts preaches and practices full democracy.”

The history of race at Brandeis has been a long and complicated one, filled with debates over student union representation, racist slurs printed in publications and occupations of campus buildings. During the next three weeks, The Brandeis Hoot’s series on racial diversity will discuss how race comes into play at all levels of the university.

In order to understand where the community currently stands, however, it is important to comprehend where we have come from as an institution with a unique racial history.

‘A host at last’

PHOTOS COURTESY of robert d. farber university archives & special collections department, brandeis university

FORD HALL: (Above) Students gather outside of Joseph and Clara Ford Hall shortly after it was occupied by 65 black students on Jan. 8, 1969. (Below) One of the occupants of Ford Hall reads a list of demands to the press.

Race through the years Ebony Magazine

publishes an

African Americans to apply to Brandeis.

article encouraging

1952

1948

Brandeis University is founded without quotas and with the goal of no discrimination.

Prior to 1948, most colleges and universities had quotas restricting the number of minorities allowed through their gates, turning away qualified applicants based solely on their race, gender or religion.

The university was founded when discrimination against Jewish students at existing universities “became a galling outrage,” Brandeis’ first university president, Abram Sachar, wrote in his book “Brandeis University: A Host at Last.”

The Jewish founders of this institution sought to create a university that reflected Jewish traditions of scholarship, community service and commitment to social justice, while acting as a host to all students—not just Jews— who were turned away from existing

65 black students occupy Ford Hall for 11 days . The occupation ends peacefully.

1969

1968

Black students demand a black Studies Program and AfricanAmerican-only scholarships.

institutions of higher learning.

In 1948 the founders of the university vowed “there would never be discrimination on the basis of creed or ethnic origin” and the school would offer “a broadened opportunity to those to whom other doors were closed,” Sachar wrote, adding that Brandeis did not want to exclude other minorities as its Jewish founders had been excluded from other universities.

Brandeis’ lack of quotas was a key element in the 1952 Ebony Magazine article, which read “there are … no racial barriers at Brandeis University.”

“The founding of Brandeis is inseparable from the notion of discrimination,” explained Professor Stephen Whitfield (AMST), who is currently writing a book on the history of social activism at Brandeis.

“Brandeis was intended to defy and to defeat the forces of discrimination and bigotry that were present in higher education at the time of its foundation.”

The university’s beginnings set the tone for its early years of activism and the roles students, both black and white, played in the Civil Rights movement.

In 1960, after the first sit-in to integrate Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., the Justice printed a list of segregated store chains that students should boycott. Sachar also wrote an op-ed in the Justice in March of that year stating he was pleased by students’ involvement in desegregation.

“I find it gratifying that students should give time and energy, and expose themselves to possible abuse, in the interest of an important social issue,” Sachar wrote. “When I consider the monumental trivia that excite all too many young people, I am rather proud that large groups among our own student body take seriously the inner meaning of the university seal.”

In 1964, Brandeis started an “Upward Bound” pilot program as part of then-United States President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty. The program, which eventually was used nation-wide, brought underprivi-

Hillel and the Brandeis Black Student Organization team up for multicultural programing.

Justice

Malcolm X University In the spring of 1968, the 58 black students at Brandeis issued a list of 10 demands of outgoing university President Abram Sachar, among which were that special scholarships be given to black students and the creation of what was then called a Black Studies department to promote understanding of the black experience.

The demands marked a departure from Brandeis’ initial interpretation of its own diversity.

Gravity Magazine prints an

Lawrence

throws

offensive article, suspends

inaugural ball to

publication

celebrate diversity.

1980

the

leged students to campus during the summer and ensured that they had the skills needed to pursue secondary education after high school.

“The criterion was not race, but poverty. As it happened, a whole bunch of African Americans were poor at the time, so the majority of the students were black,” said Professor Jerry Cohen (AMST) who helped organize the program.

“The fact that white and black poor people were together in a program was revolutionary, because the biggest antagonism to blacks at the time didn’t come from middle class America—those were the liberals. It came from the white poor people who were in the program too.”

The Transitional Year Program (TYP), still in place at Brandeis today, was created as an expansion of the Upward Bound program in 1968 to act as a year-long academic program to prepare students for college who have shown determination and academic focus despite obstacles like personal conflicts or under-resourced high schools.

Cohen, who was the first director of TYP, said he had been advocating for the program’s creation for three years before it came into being.

“After the assassination of Martin Luther King [Jr.], the world changed,” he said. “It was so shocking to the country and to universities that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination there was all sorts of experimentation of how we could right [what] was seen as society’s wrongs.”

“It changed everything.”

2003

publishes racist

comments in its sports section, consequentially editors resign.

for

a

year.

2007

2011

2009

Union Judiciary votes to Racial Minority Senator position. uphold the

April 1, 2011

NEWS 5

The Brandeis Hoot

Modern perspectives

Brandeis’ commitment to its Jewish roots means it cannot fully commit to

Strongly agree

being a diverse institution.

Somewhat agree

14 %

Neutral

12 %

26 %

Survey of 270 students, or 8 percent of

Brandeis’ commitment to its Jewish roots is integral to its mission.

the undergraduate student body

By

University and the multiple building occupations at Columbia.

During the Ford Hall takeover, Abram suspended all students involved and threatened to expel them.

Members of the Waltham Police Department arrived on campus, offering to break up the takeover, but Abram refused when the police said they would have to enter the hall with their firearms.

“It would be a grave mistake to bring in the police,” he wrote in his autobiography, reflecting on the violence that ensued at Columbia the year before when police did become involved. “America’s preeminent Jewish university would not inflict official violence on blacks less than a year after the death of Martin Luther King [Jr.].”

Instead, Abram waited out the protesters, relocating classes usually held in the building and the school telephone switchboard that was housed in Ford Hall’s basement.

When the students finally emerged 11 days later, there were no academic repercussions.

“Every college campus in America had been waiting for the time when there would be a building takeover,” Cohen remembered last month.

“And unlike many of these takeovers, Brandeis’ ended peacefully and without the history of recriminations and ill feeling, which was true at most universities.”

After the takeover, the Afro and African American Studies department was founded, but under a different model than the protestors had advocated. Later, when one of the takeover’s leaders, Roy DeBerry ’70, was called up in the Vietnam War draft of his home state Mississippi.

Shortly thereafter, Abram personally instructed the university lawyers to help DeBerry file a claim for academic exemption from the draft. DeBerry stayed out of Vietnam.

‘Unbreakable’ The years following the Ford Hall takeover were less acrimonious, but not without their racial struggles.

Articles written in the Justice from the 1980‘s show streaks of tension between blacks and Jews on campus.

In one 1980 article titled “Brandeis as a hotbed of racial discrimination?” then-student Beth Ross ’83 thought the racial issues of the university were obvious, saying “of course a racial problem exists at Brandeis.” Another student quoted in the article, Marc Levy ’83 said, “the basic division that people see is black and white.”

In January 1986, the Brandeis Black Student Organization (BBSO) teamed up with Hillel to host an event on black-Jewish relations in order to create greater cultural understanding between the two groups. But by 1991, a Justice article titled “Dealing with race and multiculturalism” reported that programming between the two groups had dissipated due to what was then seen as a lack of need.

As recent as Oct. 21, 2003, the campus was again shaken with racial tension when a Justice sports writer made racist comments in an article about Dusty Baker, who was then the

Wittenberg,

27%

16 %

31 % 19 %

Strongly disagree

“Before 1968, the idea was if you eliminate the barriers of discrimination, if you eliminate the impediments to opportunity, such as quotas, then [minorities] will succeed as well as everyone else,” Whitfield explained last month. “The underlying notion was that everyone is basically the same underneath it all.”

The demands of 1968 were a departure from that ideal.

“Now they were saying people are not the same culturally and that seeking out community members of different cultures can add to academic dialogue,” Whitfield said. “The challenge for an institution like Brandeis was: Will we accept the notion that we now judge people by the color of their skin? Will we give scholarships to students because they are black, not because they are the most qualified?”

In one of his last acts as president, Sachar created the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship to be rewarded to incoming black students the next year.

The fall of 1968 saw the number of black students in a student body of 2,600 double to 120, and the financial aid rewarded to black students triple from $125,000 to $349,000.

But the new president, Morris Abram balked at the second demand of black students—the creation of a Black Studies department—because he thought it defeated the purpose of a liberal arts education.

“I told [the students] that in my judgment, the entire humanities curriculum at Brandeis should be examined so that each discipline would reflect the role and contribution of all races in the society. That, I said, would serve both blacks and whites,” Abram wrote in his autobiography. “A black studies program would merely isolate their culture, kick it upstairs, as it were.”

The idea of an African-American Studies department remained a point of contention throughout the semester and came to a head at the beginning of 1969.

Inspired by a visiting professor from San Francisco State University who goaded the students to create a protest in solidarity with black student demonstrators at his Californian university, 65 black students occupied Ford Hall on Jan. 8, 1969, evicting professors from their offices and chaining shut the Hall’s exterior doors.

“The formerly peaceful Brandeis students were precipitated into a spontaneous uprising that they had been in Ford Hall for several hours before they hastily put together a list of ‘non-negotiable’ demands,” chief among them, the creation of a Black Studies department, Pauli Murray, one of two African-American professors at the university at the time, recalled in her memoir “Song in a Weary Throat.”

The students occupied the hall for 11 days, unraveling a tarp out of the windows of the building, renaming it “Malcolm X University,” waiting for their demands to be met.

The occupation of Ford Hall was not unique to Brandeis. At colleges across the nation, students were erupting in student protests—like the Willard Straight takeover at Cornell

14 % 16 %

30 %

18 %

Somewhat disagree

20 %

Having a position on the undergraduate Student Union for racial minorities is important to me.

manager of the Chicago Cubs.

“The only thing Baker has a Ph.D. in, is something that starts with an N and rhymes with Tigger, the cheerful scamp who stole all of our hearts in the Winnie the Pooh series,” the article concluded.

By the next day, the BBSO had sent a list of demands to the Justice, asking that the writer be fired and that the sports editor and editor-in-chief of the paper resign. In addition, the club asked that the newspaper delay the publication of its next issue by four days in order to allow the BBSO to write a response to the article. The BBSO also staged a protest in the Shapiro Campus Center in order to ensure that the demands were met.

In the next week’s issue of the Justice, published on Friday instead of the usual Tuesday, the BBSO submitted a letter titled “Unbreakable” outlining the club’s outrage with the newspaper.

“For those who have never been called [the N word] or have never experienced racism, you cannot begin to imagine the pain nor determine what is or what isn’t a ‘reasonable’ solution,” the letter read. “We are truly UNBREAKABLE. If this were to happen again at Brandeis, to any community, always remember the words that rang out [at the protests] … A people united will never be defeated.”

But five years later, in 2007, Gravity, the Brandeis humor magazine, published a satirical advertisement for a “Black Jerry”—a black servant to keep one’s calendar as opposed to a blackberry.

The university administration mandated that the author and editors resign, which they did, and Gravity suspended publication for a year following the incident.

Evolving diversity Despite the events surrounding race in 2007, as recent as spring 2009 unresolved racial tension resurfaced when Gideon Klinonsky ’11 filed a suit in the Union Judiciary to abolish the positions of Racial Minority Senator (RMS) and Racial Minority Representative to the Finance Board.

Differences in individual interpretation of the senator position’s purpose became apparent as Klionsky discovered his ineligibility to run for the position. Klionsky said he viewed the position as inherently racist, since despite his identity as an Ashkenazi Jew, he was still barred from his campaign.

“During the trial, I could feel plenty of black kids ... despising me as a white guy attacking ‘their’ seat. Now, the fact that I’m not white, but Ashkenazi seems to have made no difference to them,” Klionsky wrote in an email message to The Hoot last month.

But JV Souffrant ’13, who was elected to the RMS position after the Judiciary voted to retain it, said last month that the position is important because “it represents voices on this campus who might not always be heard.”

“Students of color usually go to RMS when they want to fund a project or bring a new idea. Lots of students felt that their position was threatened,” Souffrant said. Last year,

Ogbeide &

during the constitutional review process, a proposal was written that would have changed the title of the position to the “Senator for Historically Underrepresented Races,” one which Klionsky wrote would have simply been a “rechristening.” The proposal did not pass through a student body vote, something Souffrant found disappointing because “there was an idea afterwards that the word minority was derogatory and meant that people were less than equal. “[Klionsky] wanted to give his opinion, which is correct, because at ’Deis we all have the opportunity to do so,” Souffrant said. “But it turned out that when he did, it created an uproar in racial tension that we are just now getting over. I respect his decision to stand up for his opinion, but it created tension and a lot of anger.”

Overall, the conflict was a learning experience for the university as it shed light on its need to reexamine how racial concepts have evolved within the student body and how these divergent understandings could be the foundation of consequent tension and anger felt within the community.

In a survey of the current undergraduate student body conducted by The Hoot, students provided more than 30 distinct interpretations to an open response question asking, “What does the word ‘race’ mean to you?” The most prevalent response was the fundamental belief that race is the color of one’s skin, while other answers ranged from a “genetic disposition” to a “socially constructed perception” to “I really, really don’t know.”

Brandeis university President Frederick Lawrence said in an interview last month that, “race is a piece of the bigger puzzle.

“In many ways if you want to describe the ways in which the analysis of the discussion has changed, it has gone from brittle discussion of race meaning black and white to a much broader discussion of diversity,” he said.

Following the inauguration of President Frederick Lawrence on Thursday, the university will be “celebrating the diversity of Brandeis” with an Inaugural Ball where, “Guests are encouraged to wear attire from their cultures” to the ball in order to “showcase the diversity of the Brandeis community talent as well as our heritages,” according to the event website.

This event, similar to many that take place on the Brandeis campus, aims to celebrate the multiculturalism of the Brandeis campus, which is often seen as synonymous with racial diversity despite their vastly different roles in both Brandeis’ history and social evolution.

“If people don’t understand each other, they stay away from each other, so maybe we have to find more ways of bringing people together,” Lawrence said. “I’m intrigued with this idea that maybe if I’m talking about it more and then people are talking about it more. So maybe we need to talk about it more.”

Next week: The Gate Keepers—a look at the role of race in Brandeis admissions.

Gubbala

15%

24% 18 %

Did know?

• Corretta Scott King attended the inauguration of second university President Morris Abram.

• In 1968 the president of the university recieved a call from the FBI warning him that because “Jews were very committed to black causes and might be expected to be tender in dealing with a black takeover.”

• One leader of the Ford Hall occupation was an AfricanAmerican Jew who took notes of the rebellion in Hebrew.

• The Transitional Year Program was created in part in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. • Black power activist Angela Davis ’65 was elected to be president of the Brandeis Alumni Association in 1977 but could not accept because she was on the run from the FBI.

Features

6 The Brandeis Hoot

April 1, 2011

Alum’s life passion to combat deforestation His journey to Indonesia and beyond

By Destiny D. Aquino Editor

“I could walk right over [to the counter] and come back with 30 different things that include palm oil as an ingredient,” Steve Patriarco ’08 said as we sat in Einsteins on Wednesday evening. Palm oil is the cheapest oil to produce and is used to make most soaps, candies and sodas. It is also one of the leading causes of deforestation in Indonesia and the foreseeable extinction of the orangutan.

Ninety-two percent of all deforestation in Indonesia is illegal and, if this continues, the orangutan will be extinct within 10 years. While this was all news to me and probably to many of our readers Patriarco has been, in his words, “eating, sleeping and breathing this” issue for the past seven years of his life.

Orangutans share 97 percent of humans’ DNA and are what is called an umbrella species.

If a forest can be rehabilitated to suit their needs, then 10,000 other species can also survive in

two men were working on: Sintang Lestari.

Patriarco was immediately sold on the project; it was everything he had been longing to do. First it would focus on reforesting a badly degraded rain forest ecosystem in Indonesian Borneo. Then they would work with local Dayak communities to build a sustainable economy through innovations in forestry and agriculture, and lastly the project would build a permanent sanctuary on the land for scores of displaced orangutans.

“This project was everything I was looking for. It exemplified the innovative, multi-disciplinary approach that was needed to balance the environment with people’s needs in Indonesia, for the benefit of wildlife and people alike,” Patriarco wrote.

Smits had already proved this was possible on a smaller, but still extremely significant scale in his Samboja Lestari project. In this project Smits was able to prove that through facilitating legal ownership of the land by the natives and not the state, as well as building cooperatives with

Steve, while working at Drumland Farm three summers ago.

that forest.

“They’re brilliant; if you can look into their eyes for one minute—you know they need saving,” he said.

Although he began his Brandeis career with the hopes of being a wildlife veterinarian, this all changed when, as an environmental studies minor, he was introduced to the loss of bio-diverse habitats around the globe. He soon realized that veterinary medicine might not be the most efficient way to help the world’s most extraordinary animals.

“Wanting to be absolutely certain of my graduate path, I took a year off between my sophomore and junior years to work full-time in domestic and wildlife hospitals. What I witnessed was a steady stream of wildlife affected by issues beyond the control of even the most brilliant veterinarians with whom I worked. I returned to Brandeis in 2006, committed to learning all I could about the causes, effects and alternatives to deforestation,” Patriarco wrote in an e-mail.

Since graduation, Patriarco has devoted all of his time, both in and out of his day job of working for a division of U.S. Homeland Security that deals with natural and man-made disasters, to his passion for saving wildlife and their habitats.

In his day job he has become an expert in Geographic Information Systems technology that is now being used to monitor illegal deforestation and report violations to the local authorities.

In the past two years he has run more than three dozen public awareness campaigns notifying close to 300 companies being contacted about the issues regarding palm oil, paper and timber in their supply chains. He has also raised funds and awareness for orangutan rescue and rehabilitation.

In September, he met with his career role model and longtime inspiration Dr. Willie Smits, conservationist, forester and orangutan expert, and Richard Zimmerman, the executive director of Orangutan Outreach, to discuss Patriarco’s move to Indonesia and the work he could do while living there. He became extremely interested and invested in a project the

photos courtesy of steve patriarco

the natives that respected the cultural norms of the region—it was possible to both rebuild the natural habitat and give economic stability to the area.

Through a series of complex procedures, Smits and his team were able to give the people of Samboja Lestari a network of jobs, crops and sustainable sugar palms used to make ethanol while also creating a safe and lasting forest for the orangutans. As if that weren’t accomplish-

ment enough for his team, the work in Samboja Lestari was able to reverse some effects of climate change.

In February Patriarco, who was for his move to Indonesia by tutoring at night and working as a physical trainer on the weekends, was notified that the project he was so committed to working on had gained major support in the form of $10 million from various organizations: Microsoft Partners in Learning, TakingITGlobal, Virgo Productions and National Geographic Entertainment.

Project Sintang Lestari was becoming Project Borneo 3D. Virgo Productions and National Geographic would be filming a 3D movie starring 10 “Action Heroes” and Smits’ team for five months starting in June.

“Given that I was already set on working in this location with my own hard-earned funds, I naturally thought it’d be foolish not to apply! Candidates were asked to upload a 90 to 120 second answering [of] what deforestation meant to them, why they want to save the orangutans, what they have done for the environment, and why they should be in a 3D movie,” Patriarco wrote.

Anyone can vote on the applicants videos on Project Borneo 3D’s website, but Patriarco feels that the majority of his fellow applicants are “eco-minded people with their heart’s in the right places,” while in comparison this has been, is and will continue to be his life’s singular focus and goal.

Patriarco isn’t the only one sure of his potential. The International Fulbright Program also has confidence in Patriarco’s goals and abilities.

On Tuesday Patriarco was awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Indonesia and work with the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program.

“I ended up applying to a Fulbright research grant because I know that living, working and studying the situation on the ground in Indonesia is absolutely essential to my future success in helping to craft solutions that better balance the environment, the local communities, and the need for economic growth in the Indonesia and Malaysia. It is all too easy for environmental NGOs or other groups to over-simplify the problem and its solutions (e.g., “just stop the deforestation”). It’s a whole other thing to live and breathe the economic difficulties that the locals are experiencing. I applied for a Fulbright so I can better understand these difficulties in the hopes of providing practical, sustainable alternatives to them,” he wrote.

Only one day after receiving his award, Patriarco was more than modest and instead wanted to focus on Project Borneo 3D saying, “ I need this to complete my Fulbright to its best. I’m ill

equipped to handle all of these problems right now … This is a necessary precursor … so that I can learn and make the most impact,” he said.

Patriarco believes that eventually he will need to return to school to receive a JD/PhD in environmental law and policy and tropical natural resource management. He realizes, however, that being in school for 10 years, when the orangutans may not have that long, is simply not an option for him.

Steve and alex While a student at Brandeis, Steve was the primary caretaker of Alex, an exceptionally intelligent parrot.

“Going [to Indonesia] is going to teach me what I need to do to fix things there, and I’m willing to charter into uninhabited territory to do it,” he said as he laughed about the challenges and adventures on his horizon with the Fulbright grant and hopefully his participation as an action hero in Project Borneo 3D. In his applicant profile on the Project Borneo 3D website Patriarco wrote, “Sintang Lestari is a project I have long been excited about and pursuing ways to take part in (e.g., fundraising through working extra jobs this past year) prior to the announcement of Project Borneo 3D. The prospect of being able to do this project and now share the message with the world through film too, is just a whole lot of frosting on what was already an unbelievably amazing ‘cake,’ so to speak! I hope and pray this exciting opportunity will become a reality for me so that I can make tangible impacts for the people, wildlife and economy of the Sintang district.”

Voting for the 10 action heroes ends on April 10. Patriarco is currently in the sixth place for most-watched videos out of 179 videos. While popularity is not the only consideration for producers when choosing the heroes, Patriarco is sure that the extra votes don’t hurt.

Steve and micki A screenshot from Steve’s Project Borneo 3D showing him and his stuffed monkey that he bought with his own money when he was five

April 1, 2011

FEATURES 7

The Brandeis Hoot

This Week The man, the myth, the legend in History BRONSTEIN WEEK 2011 Brandeis

2005

2006

The highly anticipated Crown Center for Middle East Studies opens on April 5.

The university changes the first year USEM requirement, restructuring the UWS program.

Massachusetts

1722

Benjamin Franklin introduces his alterego “Silence Dogood” in the Boston paper The Courant.

1861

The Sixth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia is formally organized by Boston civilian men.

“An obscene personality cult surrounded Bronstein” —Jon Landau ’68, Bronstein’s student and Bruce Springsteen’s former manager

A group of marketing students work with the Social Department of Student Events to give Brandeisians the spirit week they desire and deserve while answering the question ...

WHO IS BRONSTEIN?

By Leah Finkelman Editor

In 1987, on the 20th anniversary of the first Bronstein Week, Peter Gould ’67 wrote a letter to the student body to remind them of the meaning behind the spirit week.

In January 1967, on the eve of a beloved Art History professor’s retirement, English professor Dr. Allen Grossman spoke to Gould, telling him that something should be done to recognize the contributions of Leo Bronstein.

“Many of us were devoted to Leo for various reasons,” Gould wrote, describing his professor as a humble pacifist who may have often been under the influence of drugs.

After speaking with Grossman, Gould enlisted the help of his friend and classmate Clif Trolin ’67 to organize a medieval pageant in Bronstein’s honor. “Wine and other recreational drugs” were provided, Gould said.

A 1967 Mustang decorated with a unicorn head and streamers drove to Cambridge to pick up the professor, who Gould said “couldn’t fathom that [the celebration] was in his honor.”

That night, Gould said, Bronstein didn’t fully seem to appreciate the award he received, Professor of the Year, but he did appreciate and understand hugs from students and teachers “who had never thanked him before.”

Students goof around during Bronstein 1981

United States

1917

Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany, entering the United States into World War One.

1989

Mob boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering, and sentenced to life in prison.

1805

2005

During a business class, Esty Ostro ’12 had to choose something that had a marketing and brand definition problem. As the director of Student Events’ social department, she knew about Bronstein Week’s history, and she knew that most of the student body didn’t know why it had been created. Her group for the project, which included Briana Bensenouci ’12, Aditi Tandon ’12 and Abby Boswell ’12 set out to show the student body what it was all about.

“It’s a spirit week, not just a random week of events,” Ostro said. “We know how much Brandeis needs something spirited. We thought that if people started to understand why Bronstein Week was created in the first place, they would appreciate the week more.”

“No one knows who Bronstein is. We wanted to get them thinking and make them curious on their own,” Bensenouci said. “Bronstein Week has become just a spirit week, but it began as much more than that.”

That thought process was what prompted the group to create a video asking students who they thought Bronstein was, and why he had his own week. Answers in the video, mostly comical, ranged from “Have you seen the 1968 yearbook from Brandeis? He’s the naked guy on page 37,” to “Isn’t he that freshman who jumped into Massell Pond?” to “The guy who got arrested for trying to make out with a cop at Pachanga.”

Along with the video, the group’s market-

photo from internet

ing project includes posters and smaller flyers around campus advertising the week and individual events.

“When we came into the project, a lot of the Bronstein Week planning decisions had been made by Student Events,” Bensenouci said.

Ostro added that the group hopes that the work they’ve put in will benefit Student Events and Bronstein Week in the long term.

This Bronstein Week, Student Events is kicking it old school, with events like a ’70s drive-in movie and a ’90s rave. All events were planned by the social department, which also plans Louie Louie in the fall.

World

Hans Christian Andersen is born in Denmark, later writing many popular children’s stories and fairy tales.

Pope John Paul II dies at his home in the Vatican. Two million people later packed Vatican City for his funeral.

photo courtesy of Student Events

8 THIS WEEK

The Brandeis Hoot

Brandeis Briefs

April 1, 2011

This week in pictures

Award for music prof Martin Boykan, emeritus professor of Music was told recently that he will be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May. This prestigious organization composed of 250 architects, composers, artists, and writers was founded in 1898 and carries within its ranks such talented individuals as Walter Piston, Aaron Copland, and Paul Hindemith.

While this is certainly a tremendous honor taken at face value, the distinctly impressive nature of becoming a part of the organization stems from the extremely difficult selection process. The organization, rather than growing, remains at 250 perpetually, and a new member can only enter the ranks once a former member has passed away. This year there were two vacancies in the music department, for which many candidates were considered.

Coming up on the ripe age of 80, Boykan has lived a rich life of music. Having grown up in New York City and moved to Boston when he was 16, he received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1951 and his masters degree in music from Yale in 1953. He came to Brandeis in 1957 where he worked on the Brandeis Chamber Ensemble. He is also known as one of the founding members of Juilliard String Quartet.

His career has been filled with a wide variety of musical projects including compositions for trios, duos, string quartets, and mixed ensemble chamber music.

Some other honors of his include a Rockefeller grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship and the Walter Hinrichsen Publication Award from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters.

—Josh Kelly, Staff

Univ to replace pool, wireless internet

Relay for Life

By Ingrid Schulte, Editor a walk for cancer Joel Falcon and Todd Kirkland (left) and Ellen Abramowitz (right) enjoy activities on March 26.

POOL, from page 1

comes after students, including swimmers, and alumni advocated to both former university President Jehuda Reinharz and current President Fred Lawrence that a pool was a major priority for the Brandeis community.

The decision to also renovate the campus wireless network comes after increased usage created constant problems, with more than 30,000 wireless devices connecting to Brandeis Internet each year, John Turner, Director for Networks and Systems said.

Turner said that demand for wireless networks may double at Brandeis during the next six years.

The upgrade will take about 18 months to complete with work starting this summer in residence halls and later moving on to academic buildings.

“This upgrade will provide vastly improved wireless coverage in the dorms and academic areas on campus,” Turner said in the press release. “Students and faculty will have freedom to work and study where they want. It will also ensure that we have the capacity and coverage to handle the explosion of mobile devices.”

K-Nite

By Nate Rosenbloom, Staff drumming on k-nite Students perform at the Brandeis Korean Student Association’s annual culture show, K-Nite, on March 26.

EDITORIALS

April 1, 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 10 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, 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.

SUBMISSION POLICIES The Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the community. Preference is given to current or former community members, and The Hoot reserves the right to edit or reject submissions. The deadline for submitting letters is Wednesday at noon.

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

The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

connect On the Web http://thebrandeishoot.com http://twitter.com/thebrandeishoot http://facebook.com/thebrandeishoot General Inquiries Phone: (781) 330.0051 E-mail: eic@thebrandeishoot.com

The Brandeis Hoot 9

Maintain your first-year enthusiasm

F

red Lawrence has both exceeded and fulfilled the expectations from many in the Brandeis community over the past three months. He has managed to stay connected with both students on campus and friends of Brandeis across the country. The inaugural ceremonies yesterday reflected that spirit, of a president who understands what Brandeis is today and where it needs to go tomorrow.

Many past presidents have displayed similar enthusiasm in their early stages yet have lost sight of the fact that fundraising and public appearances are not all that their job entails.

Just as first-years often enter Brandeis, filled with excitement about the future, so do presidents. Some of those firstyears learn how to transform their energy into a concrete vision for how they best can impact their campus commu-

nity and the causes they choose to focus on. While other first-years eventually face burnout due to overextending themselves or lacking a strategic approach to their goals.

Succeeding for both Presidents and freshman requires a clear plan that includes prioritizing their values over the demands of those around them.

In Lawrence’s inaugural address on Thursday, he noted his personal goal’s as president. Lawrence said it meant promoting the purpose of a liberal arts education at Brandeis within a globalized world.

The International Business School has recently strengthened its identity with Dean Bruce Magid joining Governor Deval Patrick on a state trade mission to Britain and the U.K. As IBS hosts a Global Trade Summit next week, it will demonstrate the connections that facul-

ty can draw from academic lessons into the demands of companies and governments facing the challenges of international trade.

While Lawrence has clearly chosen his cause, we hope that this next year will continue to strengthen his vision through a visible plan for the community.

We hope that Lawrence will fulfill his vision to extend Brandeis outreach and student recruitment throughout the world, and especially in countries with existing ties, including India, Israel and China. The effort to globalize Brandeis is one way that we can continue upholding our founders’ commitment to diversity.

We believe that President Lawrence has the ability to continue to hold onto his freshman like enthusiasm throughout his tenure as president while continuing to grow as a president with the university.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor can be sent to letters@thebrandeishoot.com I am writing to express my disappointment in the treatment of the issue of our classmates retuning home from their Japan study abroad trips early. Your article was, on the surface, informative. It included quotes from the director of study abroad, as well as the president of the university. It seemed like everyone who had something to say was represented. Except for the students themselves, that is.

How is it possible that a student newspaper failed so utterly in finding out the viewpoints of their peers? How was it that my fellow students and good friends in Japan were not interviewed?

Asked their opinions? Asked if there was anything else they would like to comment on, if there was perhaps another story to be reported?

Because, as it turns out, there was another story.

Even a simple scan of the most content-light source of all—Facebook—could tell a story far more interesting, impactful, and important than the citation from the president’s blog. First came the cancellations of the program due to legal constraints, followed by the false promise of a waiver to stay in the country that was rescinded as quickly as it was offered. Then, final, irrevo-

cable letters of deportment were sent not to the students themselves (who, by the way, are in their 20s, not in kindergarten) but to their parents, with no recourse for discussion?

Forget about facts, what about feelings? What about Gabrielle Geller, who said she was “honestly and devastatingly heartbroken” on facebook? What about Rachel Soule, who is having to deal with her program’s strange quasi-cancellation—72 hours until her flight and still no word—and getting her education back on track after an empty semester? Or the frustration Ben Swartz felt when I skyped him to discover he would be flyng back to the US in three days? I found no fault at all in Mr. Van Der Meid’s comments—they’re doing the best they can with a bad situation—but please don’t tell me that the Study Abroad office’s official statements are the be-all and end-all of the issue. Also, let’s not hide behind a shield of journalistic stoicism either. Not adding a single student quote is either blatant negligence in reporting or a sign of misplaced purpose on the part of The Hoot.

I refuse to believe that sufficient, timely effort was taken to contact students. I will also

not accept that my personal connection to those effected yielded me special information. If any newspaper is to be legitimate, it is up to them to legitimately follow through on their stories, and I assure you that any of my friends would have been glad to discuss the true nature of their experience if contacted in a responsible and timely manner. One guy on facebook found all this out, and any one piece of this puzzle should have alerted the reporting staff that perhaps the study abroad office wasn’t the right place to be sending emails.

As someone who studied abroad himself, it is not only upsetting to see the viewpoints of Brandeisians not physically on campus so woefully unrepresented, but also to be wantonly cast aside in a matter which directly relates to them. When the archives of the Hoot are online and Brandeisians of the future want to see what Brandeis’ small part was in the giant history of this tragedy, I fear they will be sadly disappointed in what they find. I know that I, in the present, sure am.

Many thanks for your consideration.

— Jesse Appell ’12

Attention club leaders Want to publicize an event? We have solutions for you: Special spring 2011 offer:

Prices for students, faculty, and Brandeis organizations

3.5” x 1.75” ad: $15/week 4” x 5” ad: $25/week Send an e-mail to ads@thebrandeishoot.com with questions.

Also available: Classified ads at http://thebrandeishoot.com Special offer: First post is free

10 FEATURES

The Brandeis Hoot

April 1, 2011

Scenes from inauguration A WELCOME SONG Members of the univerisity choir sing “The Promise of Living” by Aaron Copeland.

INAUGURATION (ABOVE) Lisa Lynch and Adam Jaffe, deans of the Heller School and Arts and Sciences respectively, lead a procession into the Gosman Athletic and Convocation Center. (BELOW) Chair of the board of trustees welcomes Lawrence to the Brandeis community.

PRAYER (ABOVE) Imam Talal Eid and members of the Brandeis Chaplancy give a benediction at the inauguration. (BELOW) Members of the university orchestra acompany the university choir in a performance of “The Promise of Living,” by Aaron Copeland.

photos by nafiz “fiz ” ahmed/the hoot

SPEECHES (RIGHT) Professor Tim Hicky (COSCI) welcomes Lawrence on behalf of the faculty. (ABOVE) Gosman Athletic and Convocation Center was filled with more than 1,500 people for the inauguration of Lawrence.

Excerpts from the speech Mr. Chairman, members of the board of trustees, Justice Gants, members of the family of our namesake, Justice Louis Brandeis, delegates from universities and learned societies around the world and your representative, my dear friend President Morty Schapiro, Presidents Reinharz and Thier, faculty, staff, students, alumni, supporters, parents, and all members of the Brandeis family across the globe who are watching and listening over the Internet.

I stand before you today grateful for the opportunity you have given me to serve as the eighth president of Brandeis University. I am humbled by your faith and buoyed by your support.

I make this solemn pledge to you today: I dedicate myself, with every fiber of my being, to guide, support and nurture this great university.

It is altogether appropriate that I make this pledge not privately or in a small setting but in this grand convocation because this is not a pledge that I can fulfill alone. Brandeis has always been about community—the Brandeis family—and now more than ever we draw together as a family to chart our course in the years ahead.

I must take a moment to thank Jehuda Reinharz for his leadership and grace in passing the baton to me. Jehuda—you have carried Brandeis over the threshold into the 21st century. We are grateful for your selfless dedication and service. You should continue to go from strength to strength.

We inherit the work of dreamers—new Americans who at the time of our founding in 1948 imagined a grand university to be named for a towering figure of law and of justice.

An unlikely group of dreamers—of the eight founders, only three had college degrees. Of the other five pioneering trustees, only one had been born within the United States. None of the remaining four had even graduated from high school And they, along with the visionary first president, Abram Sachar, knew that dreams are not fairy tales. Dreams are about hard work.

And the continuation of that work now falls to us, to build upon their mid-20th century dream—and to dream some dreams of our own.

I remember the day that I was named president, last summer. I had a speech prepared for the reception that day, but when I stood at the podium, I simply began with “all the threads.” Brandeis, in a way that I had only begun to appreciate that July afternoon, draws together all the threads of my life.

And I feel that even more today. Because now I look out at this remarkable sea of over a thousand members of the Brandeis family, and I have been blessed to get to know so many of you already.

Colleagues now—colleagues all.

We draw together the threads of each others’ lives, which is what makes the fabric of the Brandeis community so rich and extraordinary. *** My mother was the first in her family to go to a full time college.

She went on to become a master teacher—who held the highest standards for her students and for my brothers and me.

My mother gave me the best words of advice I ever received as a teacher, dean and now as a president—“remember, each one of them is somebody’s kid.”

My father was an engineer who as a young man worked on the Manhattan Project. As a chemical engineer, he challenged himself to read widely in history, economics and politics. He instinctively understood the value of a liberal arts education.

My parents raised my brothers Phillip and Ted and me to believe that integrity and honesty are the highest values, but, as Albert Ein-

April 1, 2011

The Brandeis Hoot

FEATURES

11

MAZEL TOV New university President

Frederick Lawrence is congratulated by his wife Kathy Lawrence (FAR RIGHT), former President Jehuda Reinharz (CENTER) and Lawrence’s son Noah (BELOW).

stein said, “we are on this earth for the benefit of each other,” that the hardest problems must be faced with courage, determination, optimism, and of course, a sense of humor.

These are the values that I have striven to live by—as a student, lawyer, prosecutor, professor, and dean—and as a son, a husband and father and as a friend and colleague.

These are the values that will guide me as president of Brandeis.

The very hill on which Brandeis rests was a rock promontory first surveyed by John Winthrop in 1632. Legend has it that on this spot, Winthrop delivered his famous “city upon a hill” speech for the second time. Winthrop’s sermon tied the puritan experiment to biblical covenantal language, declaiming that the puritans must succeed “for all the eyes of the world would be upon them like a city on a hill.”

It seems, sometimes, as if all the eyes of the world are upon us here at Brandeis. There are important reasons why the world still looks to Brandeis as an inspiring model, as a city on a hill.

In part, the world looks at us because of our uniqueness. Every university in the country claims to be unique—but I say that our claim to uniqueness is itself unique. We are in fact, the only nonsectarian, non-religious institution of higher learning that is deeply rooted in the jewish community. These are roots that do not narrow us, but rather broaden us, and it is from our jewish roots that we draw our core values of scholarship, learning and social justice.

Now together, let’s take as our symbol the very rock on which we literally stand today and on which Brandeis is built—for it is both fact and symbol.

The rock on which Brandeis stands is the dedication to nondiscrimination The rock on which Brandeis stands is commitment to the liberal arts and sciences The rock on which Brandeis stands is community and social justice.

In other words, as my kids would say, we rock.

First, our commitment to diversity and inclusion.

In 1948, our founders were committed to an institution that in recruiting its faculty and admitting its students would reject all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin or gender.

Though this may seem less than revolutionary in 2011, let’s remember that 1948 was nearly twenty years before federal law formally prohibited discrimination in education.

In this way our founders were visionary and their commitment to non-discrimination was breathtaking.

In other words, the American Dream, magnificent in its articulation but flawed in its implementation at the time of our nation’s founding, found a compelling realization in Waltham in 1948. A straight line leads from 1776, to 1948 to us, here, today.

The genius of the founders of 1948 was to peer into the future, past the narrowness and constraints presented by the times they lived in, and to create something new under the sun. They understood that the commitment to non-discrimination produces a faculty and student body of extraordinary distinction and ability, not limited by background or heritage and thus limited only by their imagination.

The principle of non-discrimination is now a principle of diversity, inclusion and global reach. Our campus today has students from 116 different countries. We have a deep and abiding connection with the Jewish community as well as student groups representing seventeen different world religions.

We have students who are third-generation Brandeisians, and we have students who are the first in their family ever to go to college.

To maintain and enhance the diversity of our community, we must strenghthen the resources necessary to allow us to honor the commitment that we have made to need-blind admissions. I am strongly committed to that effort.

Our second bedrock principle is our founders’ magnificent commitment to the creation of a liberal arts university. They built a research university on the base of a small liberal arts college—the liberal arts university was literally born at Brandeis.

How did the founders know? How did they have the genius to envision it?

Harvard didn’t have it; Yale didn’t have it; my own Williams didn’t have it.

This university’s founders had the wisdom to aspire to be both the kind of soaring and broad-based research university that American higher education inherited from Europe and also a small liberal arts college, drawn from the model that has been described as the only uniquely American form of higher education.

With this vision, our university took off at an unmatched pace.

Phi Beta Kappa was conferred in 1961, only 13 years after the founding. No college or university before or since has received a chapter more quickly since the birth of Phi Beta Kappa in 1776.

In 1985, fewer than 40 years after our founding, we were admitted into the American Association of Universities, a distinguished association of the leading public and private research universities in North America, then only 50 in number and today still only 63.

Our growth has never stopped. Our student body has grown; our campus has spread; and the reach and impact of our teaching and scholarship is international. Our faculty, students and alumni are recognized internationally in their fields.

As I stand before you I am mindful of the words of Dr. Sachar, surveying all of the universities represented at his inauguration in 1948. He said that the “first president of such a new institution must pray for strength and wisdom and courage as he is admitted to such a family.”

It is not only the first president who should pray for strength and wisdom. Prayer is good—and strength and wisdom and courage are never in adequate supply. But I am also mindful of what else President Sachar said that evening: “there is so much good will for the success of Brandeis University, so much loyal cooperation, that there are few fears and few misgivings as we go forward.”

But we can’t just rely on where we’ve been, or even rest where we are.

Let us, at every opportunity, reject the false dichotomy between so-called practical or trade-directed education on the one hand and liberal arts on the other. I believe with all my heart that a true liberal arts education is the most practical education there is.

A practical education provides the skills to succeed in the work force and society generally not only the day after graduation, but also 10, and 20 and 30 years later.

We cannot know, we can in fact hardly imagine, the workplace of decades hence. But I can assure you that the following skills will be required then: the ability to turn information into knowledge, the ability to analyze closely, the ability to solve problems, and the ability to communicate. The acquisition of these skills is precisely what a liberal arts education is about. To learn only skills of immediate relevance is to fill one’s hand with moonlight—and the morning will come.

I challenge all of us to translate our proud tradition of liberal arts education here at Brandeis into a commitment to trumpet the case for the life-long, interdisciplinary learning that a broad liberal arts experience can provide.

The wonderful symposia that my colleagues presented in my honor this week so magnificently made the case: our mandate involves not only the transmission of a cultural heritage, but the evocation of intellectual curiosity and the creative impulse.

That brings me to the third bedrock principle of Brandeis: our core commitment to social justice and the very nature of our community.

In other words, you.

Over the past months, I have had the privilege to spend time both on campus and around the country, meeting thousands of members of the Brandeis family, and I have begun to get a sense of what Brandeis is: *** Brandeis is Deborah Bial, a distinguished alum who founded the national posse program which identifies groups of promising underprivileged inner city high school students and connects them with this country’s most selective colleges including Brandeis. Hundreds of students’ lives have been forever changed because Brandeis

changed Deborah’s life.

Brandeis is our current Student Union President, Daniel Acheampong. Born in Ghana, raised in New York City, Daniel arrived here as a posse scholar and leaves here, I am quite confident, as a future world leader—Daniel told me that Brandeis changed his life.

Brandeis is Peter Chow, a brilliant alum from the early 1980s, born in China to a family who migrated to rural Mississippi, who could only have come here because of a scholarship. He came to study science and medicine but a distinguished business career was born when he had Barney Schwalberg for economics. Professor Schwalberg, peter told me, was the first white man who ever called him “Mr. Chow”—Brandeis changed his life.

Brandeis is Ann Varghese, who earned her master’s degree in international health policy at the Heller School. Shortly after graduation she traveled to Haiti to assist in international efforts to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. When the massive earthquake struck in January 2010, Ann and three coworkers were buried alive beneath five stories of concrete rubble. After more than 55 hours trapped underground, she was pulled out—alive—by French firefighters. Undaunted, she returned to complete her work in Haiti. Ann’s story inspires me and challenges all of us to take what we learn here and, as the bible says, go forth and repair the world.

And Brandeis is the scores of faculty members who have demonstrated a commitment to and love for this institution, and who have pledged to me the support that we will need as we continue to sail together into uncharted waters—I tell you without hesitation that you have changed my life.

Most importantly, Brandeis is an ideal that challenges each of us.

Here is my challenge to you: If you are a student—find a mentor who inspires you. Be a mentor who inspires others. Take a course outside of your comfort zone. Study hard. Have fun. Care for each other. Savor your time at Brandeis and stay connected. You are a student here for four years—you are an alum for the rest of your life.

If you are an alum, we are relying on you. Our future is very much in your hands. Find a way to connect or re-connect with your school. Mentor our students—hire our graduates. You have rights as a member of this family and you have responsibilities as well.

Remember who you were when you were here—connect with that person, and with us.

If you are a trustee, you who know better than anyone that the essence of dreams is hard work, dream with me and work with me, as we build a greater university and inspire a new generation.

If you are a faculty member, hold fast to that intellectual curiosity that first brought you to the academy. Take risks. Inspire your colleagues to take risks. At the end of each term, ask yourself: is there a student who will say that I changed his or her life?

Here is my personal challenge: In the coming months, I will lay out a strategic vision with concrete plans to secure Brandeis’s place as an elite global liberal arts university. *** In closing let me say that I have spent a great deal of time lately thinking about our namesake, Justice Louis Brandeis.

Justice Brandeis was brilliant and courageous.

Justice Brandeis reminds us all—students and faculty alike—that we come here not merely to understand the world but to help repair it; we enter to learn, we leave to serve.

And those of us entrusted with guiding this great institution must ourselves be guided by Justice Brandeis’s spirit.

I promise you: we will listen. We will be open to new ideas. We will encourage open debate. We will lead by example. We will be unafraid to confront the challenges that lie ahead.

Henry David Thoreau, who I like to think of as being very Brandeisian, said, that because we inevitably only hit what we aim for, “[we] had best aim high.” let us pledge to each other to keep our aim high indeed. Together, there is literally no limit to what we can achieve at this wonderful city on this wonderful hill.

Thank you very much.

12 The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, etc.

April 1, 2011

Entertaining ‘Aquarion’ a more than adequate anime

By Gordy Stillman Editor

A few weeks ago, I was introduced by the Brandeis Anime and Cosplay Association (BACA) to a new series I’d heard about but had never gotten around to watching.

That series happened to be “Genesis of Aquarion,” more commonly known as “Aquarion” for short.

At its most basic level, “Aquarion” is a mecha genre anime (mecha being a genre of anime involving giant robots) about a war between humanity and an advanced mysterious race of eternally youthful wingedcreatures called “Shadow Angels;” they harvest humans like livestock in order to provide nutrition for their “Tree of Life.”

The show provides viewers with a complicated plot that has a broad appeal and makes it much more than a simple show about fighting machines. It’s aided in this by a rich back story that adds a romantic subplot.

Twelve thousand years before the beginning of the series, the Shadow Angels were in the process of subjugating the human race. Things became a bit complicated when Apollonius, the Shadow Angel chosen to pollinate the Tree of Life, fell in love with Celiane, a human warrior, and subsequently chose to defect to the human side.

Upon switching sides, Apollonius gave the humans the one weapon effective against the Shadow Angels:

the “mechanical angel” Aquarion.

As punishment, Apollonius had his wings removed. With Apollonius’ help, the humans fought the Shadow Angels to a stalemate. With the death of Apollonius, the Shadow Angels entered a period of hibernation, choosing to wait 12,000 years for Apollonius to reincarnate and finish the war.

Twelve thousand years later, humanity finds itself in the 11th year of its fight against the latest Shadow Angel invasion. In the midst of this struggle, humanity has rediscovered Aquarion. An elite group of pilots known as the “Elements,” who are capable of controlling Aquarion, search the world for the long-prophesied return of Apollonius. While searching, they stumble across a feral orphan named Apollo; he manages to summon Aquarion and pilot it with natural skill after his friends are captured by Shadow Angels.

In addition to Apollonius, another important character proves to be Silvia de Alisia, a former princess and the reincarnation of Celiane.

Silvia serves as the primary female protagonist. Initially, she believes her brother, Sirius, is destined to be the new “Solar Wing”—the title once held by Apollonius. She considers Apollo, on the other hand, to be nothing more than a beast, but she eventually develops a strong affinity for him and subsequently realizes she’s in love with him.

Other characters help create a strong ensemble that adds flavor

photo from internet source

adventurous anime The anime “Aquarion” revolves around an epic struggle between

humans and creatures known as Shadow Angels. A feral orphan named Apollo, pictured above, leads the humans.

to the episodes. One of these is Silvia’s brother Sirius, a swordsman obsessed with aesthetics; he hates Apollo since the orphan made it apparent that Sirius was not Apollonius reincarnated. Other characters include former soccer star Pierre, enigmatic leader Gen Fudou, and new recruits Tsugumi and Jun.

On the other side of the war, Toma, the “Holy Angel,” leads the Shadow Angels. Toma adds a level of depth to the conflict that makes the enemy Shadow Angels a side with which one can sympathize.

Aside from the characters, the show features a fascinating core concept. In order to merge the three

“vectors” of Aquarion, three pilots must successfully merge their minds and souls. I do, however, have one warning about the show that relates to this. While the concept is interesting, the enactment literally sounds like something a little more explicit; for someone not warned in advance, it can be a little jarring.

That being said, the merge concept also adds a degree of comedic relief to a few episodes. Curious rookies will ask about merges and are then repeatedly given answers that sound like sexual euphemisms.

Ultimately, this “mature” element gets set aside as the story allows the mecha genre to shine through.

The animation style employed by the show serves as a homage to the mecha anime of the 1970s and ’80s.

While based on the look of older shows, this effect is executed using modern techniques like computerbased animation and CGI, which contribute 3D effects like depth.

Luckily, the use of these 3D effects is rather limited, which still allows the show to feel like a traditional animated series—just with the occasional addition of advanced imagery.

With great animation, interesting concepts and decent characters, “Aquarion” tries to appeal to everyone while providing an entertaining show. It’s not necessarily a show that would serve as the greatest of introductions to anime but, for the occasional anime fan, “Aquarion” can be great.

Horny goat weed?:Addressing the vitamin craze

By Gabby Katz Staff

It was not until recently that GNC became the new adult candy store, but that’s just one occurrence in what’s really a larger trend. Increasingly, advertisements for strange pills and liquids that claim to have the essential vitamins and minerals we all need for youth, bigger breasts, strength and the like plague our television screens and the pages of our magazines.

Enough with the fortified Odwalla’s, Muscle Milk and Flintstone Vitamins (sorry Bam Bam), it’s time to go back to the basics and examine the most crucial vitamins our bodies need and evaluate the necessity of the supplements now available.

Starting with my fantastic class notes from Dr. Elaine Lai’s Diet and Health class, vitamins are organic micronutrients needed for normal function, growth and maintenance of the body and do not yield any energy.

There are two main types of vitamins: fat soluble and water soluble. Their type affects the way they are metabolized and how they travel in the body.

Instead of describing vitamins simply by their denotation, it’s easier to describe them based on the category in which they lie, as similar categories have overlapping functions. I also promise to address recent research done on horny goat weed because yes, that’s apparently a real supplement with the kind of effects you could derive from the name …

Vitamin A (standing for Awesome, but not really) plays an important role in bone growth, vision, reproduction, cell division and differentiation, and immune system regulation, not to mention that they help lymphocytes.

Although rarely advertised, this vitamin comes in two forms called preformed vitamin A and provitamin A, both of which are crucial for distinct effects in the body.

Preformed vitamin A is found in animal products like liver, milk or fortified cereal; the body absorbs it in the form of retinol, which is crucial to the maintenance and overall health of the retina in the eye, as well as night vision. Provitamin A is found in yellow, orange and dark green fruits and vegetables, in which its referred to as cartotenoids. According to the National Institute of Health, less than 10 percent of the 563 cartotenoids can be converted into retinol; however, other ones like lycopene, found in tomatoes, can have anti-oxidant effects crucial for combating cancer-causing free radicals.

The recommended Daily Value (DV) of vitamin A is about 5,000 International Units (IU). Don’t recognize IUs? It’s a measurement created to help us understand the nutrient contents of food. To put things in perspective, one cup of skim milk has about 500 IU, while three ounces of chicken liver have about 12,325 IU of preformed vitamin A. Meanwhile, one cup of raw spinach has about 2,813 IU, and one raw carrot has about 8,666 IU of proformed vitamin A. Comparing the nutrient value of these foods with the recommended daily value, it seems quite easy to consume the necessary amounts of vitamin A without the aid of supplements. People at risk of vitamin A deficiency that could benefit from supplemental vitamins are people who have digestive absorption problems like Celiac’s or Crohn’s disease; vegans and other people who don’t ingest animal sources may also be at risk. The general rule of thumb for the American population as a whole is that we get most of our recommended daily value of vitamins from our foods; we have actually increased access and production of these foods compared with other countries.

Vitamin D, which is fat soluble, is crucial to the maintenance of strong bones, as it helps the body absorb cal-

photo from internet source

cium from foods and supplements.

Very few foods have naturally occurring vitamin D. Fatty fishes and mushrooms provide small amounts, but the majority of our intake comes from fortified milk and breakfast cereals. I think of vitamin D as standing for Delightful, because it’s the sunshine vitamin: when the skin is directly exposed to the sun, vitamin D3 synthesis occurs; this is the type primarily responsible for the health effects of vitamin D. Because of these sources, it’s likely that we meet our daily quota.

However, some people our age who might be at risk are those with fat absorption problems, people with dark skin, obese people and those who need to keep themselves covered from sunlight at all times. Deficiencies can lead to a softening of the bones that makes them susceptible to fracture. These people should seek a supplement of about 200 IU a day, which is equivalent to 50µg per day.

Vitamin E (for Excellence!) is

found primarily in corn oil, soybeans, margarines and dressings. It serves as a good antioxidant that can help fight forms of cancer and can also serve as a support for the immune system.

There’s no real limit on vitamin E ingestion, so the more, the merrier!

Vitamin K (Kool!) is cool because it helps with blood clot formation. It’s also a coenzyme to other metabolic pathways as well. It’s a sneaky vitamin because it’s produced by bacteria in the large intestine without you ever knowing! This special ability makes vitamin K deficiency especially rare.

However, people with inflammatory bowel disease or have undergone abdominal surgeries recently may be at risk and should seek supplemental aid.

These are just a few of the important yet lesser known vitamins we need daily.

Vitamin B is also extremely crucial to the maintenance of brain function and the nervous system, as well as to the formation of blood. It’s commonly

consumed in whole grains, beans and even in the yeast in beer! Ah, redemption … Finally, vitamin C coordinates cofactor enzymatic reactions in your immune system and acts as an antioxidant. It too is abundant in our diets, as it’s found in commonly-eaten foods like citrus fruits, camel milk and lamb tongue (now available at the new C-Store!).

As you can see, many of our essential vitamin needs are actually met by our daily diets. Those billion supplemental pills advertised on TV won’t necessarily be effective in changing our overall health. So, before you drink your third emergenC of the day, give your body a break and practice other healthy methods like sleeping and exercising.

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 (and a special shout out to Professor Lai for all the vitamin information!).

April 1, 2011

ARTS, ETC. 13

The Brandeis Hoot

BET journeys to ‘The Lonesome West’

By Sean Fabery Editor

Brandeis Ensemble Theater brought the quintessential family from hell to life in last week’s production of “The Lonesome West,” directed by Tony Rios ’11.

The Irish-set play begins with siblings Coleman (Jen Schiller ’14) and Valene (Harry Webb ’12) burying their father, recently killed in a shotgun “accident.” Coleman and Valene’s relationship quickly deteriorates, with Valene claiming their father’s entire estate for himself, thus reducing Coleman to an unwelcome guest.

The two increasingly come to blows, with only the parish priest, Father Welch (Nati Peleg ’13), interested in reconciling the siblings.

BET beautifully prepared this small-scale production, which features only four actors on stage. Audience members were actually seated on stage, bringing them closer to the tense familial dynamics playing out before their eyes. The characters themselves were confined to a small, sparsely decorated living room, with a few worn chairs and a cross appropriately setting the scene.

Any play with such a small cast of characters requires a deeply-committed cast that can truly make the show come to life. The BET production benefitted from just such a cast, all of whom brought their best Irish accents to the play.

Schiller brought a potent, kinetic anger to Coleman that could be felt in the audience. Coleman is terrifying, with each of her actions defined by a kind of violent intelligence that borders on psychosis. Not only did she “accidentally” shoot her father in the head, but she appears unafraid to use brute force on the flimsiest of pretenses. Schiller embodied these traits totally, giving the character an air akin to a cornered animal. Coleman was cast as a man in the original play, but Schiller’s incarnation holds her own in fights with her brother.

Webb similarly fleshed out dim-

witted Valene, who shares Coleman’s violent streak. The key difference between Coleman and Valene, however, is that Webb has imbued his character with a sense of goofiness that humanizes him somewhat and made him less threatening. Valene is as much a figure of comic scorn as he is terrifying. At one point, Valene buys a stove and paints a possessive V on it; when Coleman teases him about it— claiming that it’s a “V for virginity,” one almost feels bad for him thanks to Webb’s ridiculous expressiveness— almost.

Peleg, meanwhile, sketched a sympathetic portrait of a priest with his portrayal of Father Welsh, the much put-upon parish priest. With the death of the Connor patriarch, Welsh launches into what the Connors call “another feckin’ crisis of faith” as he tries to understand the siblings’ aggressiveness. Peleg grants Welsh an appropriate soulfulness; serving as the straight man to the Connors’ quasi-comic ludicrousness, he never failed in drawing the audience’s attention. He helps make us care that the Connors are tearing themselves apart, that they are destined for “a sad and lonesome existence,” which is remarkable considering how loathsome they both are.

Finally, Grace Fosler ’14 brought a careless youthfulness to Girleen, the only friend that either of the Connors seem to have. Imbuing her character with a breezy sexuality, she stood out against the rage that permeated the rest of the stage. Girleen proved especially fascinating since she represented a kind of ability to change that other characters sorely lacked.

Initially indifferent to the Connors’ arguing, she gradually comes to agree with Welsh. In a scene set after this change of art, Fosler proved especially impressive in her incredibly anguished reaction to a dramatic event late in the play.

Together, these actors injected playwright Martin McDonagh’s tale of familial strife with an engaging liveliness.

photos by nate rosenbloom/the hoot

irish days “The Lonesome West” chronicles the feud between two siblings over their father’s inheritance. At right, family friend Girleen

(Grace Fosler) tries to allay the concerns of Father Welsh (Nati Peleg) about the family’s future, while at left Valene (Harry Webb) threatens to shoot his sister Coleman ( Jen Schiller) during one of many heated arguments.

The staged fights between Coleman and Valene were well-coordinated, but the truly compelling thing about them was that their origins were pretty mundane and relatable. Anyone with siblings can tell you that they get a perverse enjoyment out of annoying one another. The problem with the Connor siblings is that they take this to an outrageous degree; even when they try to play nice and apologize to each other for a litany of injustices, it’s more of a competition than anything else. Even contrition is dangerous.

One of the fascinating things about McDonagh’s play is that it’s the conclusion of a trilogy of plays, all of which are set in the same west Irish town, Leenane. Characters from the other two plays are mentioned extensively, which creates a topsy-turvy feeling of community even though only four actors appear in the play.

Most of these references relate to something tragic or criminal, creating the sense that violence always exists on the periphery. When Father Welsh declares Leenane “the murder

capital of feckin’ Europe,” no one’s surprised.

Of course, no McDonagh production would be complete without his trademark use of colorful language— if you’ve seen his film “In Bruges,” you know what I’m taking about. “The Lonesome West” does not disappoint in this regard, with virtually every sentence promising a “feck” or two.

All in all, “The Lonesome West” proved to be a beautifully staged production that melded a standout cast with first-rate direction and script.

FPT director discusses bringing ‘Spring’ to campus

By Kayla Dos Santos

asking myself if I was so attached to a certain way of staging because I saw it in the musical, or because that was actually how I wanted it. I wanted to create a different experience.

Editor

Free Play Theater hopes to push boundaries this weekend with their production of Frank Wedekind’s controversial play “Spring Awakening,” which is about teenagers’ sexual awakenings in a repressive small town.

The 19th century German play, translated into English, has been banned numerous times in the history of its performance for its strong themes of sexuality and its broaching of controversial and sensitive topics such as suicide and abortion.

Recently, the play has been adapted into a rock opera by Duncan Sheik that has made it more relevant for modern audiences. Free Play Theater rediscovers Wedekind’s more nuanced original.

Hillary Crum ’13, the director of “Spring Awakening,” sat down with The Hoot to discuss the play, sex and the desire to blow her audience’s minds.

KDS: How is the musical different from the play?

HC: The play has a non-consensual sex scene … there’s more gray area. Frank Wedekind’s script is a lot nicer to the kids. The musical shows them as sex-crazed teenagers, while in the original the characters have a lot more dimensions … There are specific nuances of the characters, little stylistic differences, specific reasoning for saying something.

KDS: The play has been banned numerous times for its focus on sexuality. What do you think makes it a controversial subject?

Kayla Dos Santos: Why did you decide to do the German play “Spring Awakening”?

Hillary Crum: Free Play is about challenging the audience and leaving them with their jaws on the floor. “Spring Awakening” certainly does that. I love the musical, and I enjoyed the play a lot more than I

photo from internet source

expected. I read it in Scott Edmiston’s “Desires and Awakenings: the Search for Identity in Modern Drama” course.

KDS: How has Duncan Sheik’s

rock adaptation affected putting on the play “Spring Awakening”?

HC: It was more an obstacle for me than for anyone else. I was so attached to the musical, I had to keep

HC: Sexuality had a lot of potential. There is a heterosexual sex-scene on stage, as well as two boys kissing—which was so much sweeter. I think college students have heard it all, but sex was a taboo subject when the play was originally written. The scene with the two boys kissing was difficult at the beginning, but the two actors handled it very professionally.

KDS: What was your favorite part about directing “Spring Awaken-

ing”?

HC: My favorite part was watching my cast members take a piece of writing and make it into a performance. It’s a challenge because Wedekind’s play has such beautiful, dense language.

KDS: What was one of the biggest obstacles you faced?

HC: I had a really hard time casting it. There’s never enough boys, I had to go through UTC [Undergraduate Theatre Collective] casting. While the actors are not necessarily my top choice, all filled their parts amazingly well. The actor who plays Melchior, Yoni Bronstein [’13], came in every day with something new to say about Melchior.

He’s still finding things and it’s two days before the show.

KDS: What do you hope audiences take away from “Spring Awakening”?

HC: I want to blow their minds.

One of my high school directors told me that there has to be passion in directing, and that’s what I have for this play. I want to leave them reeling … and thinking about this for weeks.

Performances of “Spring Awakening” will be given in the Schwartz auditorium on April 1 at 8 p.m. and April 2 at 2 and 8 p.m.

14 The Brandeis Hoot

SPORTS

April 1, 2011

Gordy’s MLB rankings: The season starts now

By Gordy Stillman Editor

Baseball season finally began last night signaling the start of the sixmonth race to the World Series.

While spring training has had some very interesting moments, including a Brandeis alumnus reaching starting pitcher on the Astros, the records are reset, as are this year’s statistics. The records below are the final spring training records. While spring training has no impact on the regular season, it will be interesting to see whether some teams continue to dominate, rise to the challenge or fall from the top.

1. Philadelphia Phillies (21-14): Aside from their position as a leader in the Grapefruit League, the Phillies have one of the best collections of pitchers in Baseball. Whether great pitching can carry them remains to be seen.

2. Boston Red Sox (14-19): Another favorite for the World Series this year, the Red Sox have one of the best batting lineups in baseball. It’s funny how one of the top two teams is known for its pitchers while the other is known for its batters. If both make it to the top, it will be interesting to see which side wins.

3. Atlanta Braves (17-13): The Braves’ biggest problem is that they share a division with the Phillies. The Braves will have to be careful to still aim for a division title despite the challenge.

4. Texas Rangers (13-16): Despite losing Cliff Lee, the Rangers are set to maintain their leadership in the AL West due to their strong batting lineup.

5. Minnesota Twins (20-12): The

Twins are finally healthy with the return of Joe Nathan, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Expect Jim Thome to reach the elite 600-homerun club this year as they fight it out in the competitive American League (AL) Central.

Additionally, the Twins have added Kosher hot dogs to their stadium this year and while that may have no impact on the game, it certainly will not hurt.

6. San Francisco Giants (23-12): The Giants may be the defending champions, but their weakened batting lineup may bring down a team with an amazing group of pitchers.

7. New York Yankees (13-15): The Yankees, while expected to do well by normal standards, are considerably weak this year. Aside from players aging and not playing as well as expected last year, the Yankees had to use their time in Florida to determine not one, but three of their pitchers for the season.

8. Detroit Tigers (20-14): The Tigers promise to be a threat in the AL Central this year as one of the leaders of the Grapefruit League, along with their rivals the Twins, while mutual enemy the White Sox have squandered this last month.

9. Cincinnati Reds (17-14): The Reds have both young and talented batters to put runs on the board, but their pitching staff is still a cause for concern.

10. Chicago White Sox (11-20): The White Sox are never a team to underestimate. They may not have had a great spring training record, but they have been consistent contenders for the AL Central for a while and cannot be counted out so early.

11. Colorado Rockies (20-10): The Rockies had a great spring training,

but with the highly competitive National League (NL) West, that alone won’t be enough to overcome division rivals like the Giants.

12. Milwaukee Brewers (19-11): The Brewers are among the teams that keep the NL Central almost as competitive as its AL counterpart.

With the Reds and the Cardinals, this three-way battle may prove to be interesting.

13. St. Louis Cardinals (14-16): One of the biggest strengths the Cardinals can hope for is that Albert Pujols manages an amazing year and decides to return next year. The Cardinals were unable to agree to a contract extension before training and Pujols will not return to the negotiation table until the season ends in October.

14. Toronto Blue Jays (16-14): The Blue Jays would probably be a great team, if they didn’t have to face the Yankees and Red Sox so often.

15. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (18-13): The Angels had a less than stellar performance last year. In their 50th season, the Angels will have extra reason to make a run for the title.

16. Los Angeles Dodgers (14-21): The Dodgers new manager needs to show that he can hold his own in a division that includes the defending World Champions. After following a four-time World Series-winning manager, Don Mattingly will have to show that he can coach as exceptionally as he once played.

17. Tampa Bay Rays (15-14): It’s still too early to tell whether last year was a fluke or a sign of things to come. Having lost many players in the off-season, one may suspect the former, but with a great pitching rotation, they may remain a force to be

reckoned with.

18. New York Mets (17-15): I’m hoping that if any New York team does well that it be the Mets. At the same time, they have an established history of being a team that disappoints its fans.

19. Kansas City Royals (20-10): The Royals are widely considered to have one of the better farm systems (network of minor-league affiliates) in the country. With a spring record second only to the Giants, they may help create some difficulty for their division rivals.

20. Baltimore Orioles (15-15): The Orioles tend to be fine as far as batters go, but their pitcher skills are their Achilles Heel in the cut-throat AL East.

21. Cleveland Indians (15-14): The Indians may be in a competitive division, but they haven’t been part of that competition for years now. Their batters are fine, but like the Orioles, their pitching sucks.

22. Washington Nationals (15-14): The Nationals are an average team in an above-average division. Competing against the Phillies and the Braves, the Nats have almost no shot at the division title, and against the entire NL, they have almost no shot at a post-season berth.

23. Oakland Athletics (12-21): Oakland has great pitchers, but getting runs on the board is an important part of the game and is also their greatest weakness.

24. Seattle Mariners (16-13): Another AL West team, the Mariners will have an even slimmer chance of making the post-season­—having not only the Rangers and Angels, but also the Athletics in the way.

25. Florida Marlins (15-15): The

Marlins have plenty of great players.

Unfortunately, history has shown that even with great players, the Marlins rarely do better than mediocre.

26. Houston Astros (11-24): The Astros’ pitching rotation includes the one Brandeis alumnus to make any professional sports team. Either that’s great news for Brandeis or terrible news for Astros fans.

27. Chicago Cubs (14-19): The Cubs are a team that is hard to cheer for. As one of the oldest teams in baseball (one of two remaining founders of the NL), they haven’t won a World Series since 1908 and haven’t won a pennant since World War II. 28. San Diego Padres (13-17): The Padres have retained what some consider the best bullpen in baseball to assist a great pitching staff. Unfortunately with the loss of Adrian Gonzalez and the acquisition of only a few new batters, their offense appears unready to be a threat to anyone this year.

29. Arizona Diamondbacks (1225): It’s been said before and I’ll repeat it to drive the point home, the Diamondbacks aren’t a threat in the NL West this year and should focus on building as a threat for 2012.

30. Pittsburgh Pirates (12-21): The Pirates have had losing seasons for as long as I can remember (18 seasons to be specific). The Pirates need to settle down and focus, at the very least, one or two seasons on building. The trick will be to avoid trading all their great players to other teams. Take a lesson from the Minnesota Timberwolves (NBA): Building doesn’t occur overnight and trading top players doesn’t help.

Brian’s basketball rankings: It’s not easy being green

By Brian Tabakin Staff

1. Bulls (53-20): The Bulls haven’t looked quite as sharp this week with a double-digit loss to the 76ers and close games against the Bucks and Grizzlies. Nevertheless, they still hold a two-game lead on the Celtics for the top seed in the East and have a tiebreaker advantage over the Lakers if they happen to meet in the Finals.

2. Lakers (53-20): The Lakers are 15-1 since the All-Star Break with the sole loss coming against the Heat in Miami. The Lakers now sit just three and a half games behind the Spurs for the one seed in the West and with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker all injured for the Spurs, the Lakers have a decent shot at overtaking the Spurs.

3. Spurs (57-17): The Spurs are currently on a season-worst four-game losing streak and their stranglehold on the top seed in the West is loosening. With Duncan, Ginobili and Parker all injured at the moment, the Spurs desperately need to get them healthy if they have any chance of making a deep playoff run.

4. Thunder (49-24): The Thunder are currently 13-2 in the month of March. With the addition of Kendrick Perkins at Center, the Thunder now have the ability to play James Harden at his more natural role as a Power Forward. With Perkins now starting at Center, the Thunder have a real shot at dethroning the Lakers.

5. Heat (51-23): I was going to put the Heat at No. 3 but then they went and lost to the lowly Cavaliers. I usually don’t like to put too much into +/statistics but in this game, Chris Bosh was a -24 while Ryan Hollins was a +33. Throughout the season, the Heat have shown that when one of their Big Three has a bad night, they will

probably lose and this will come to hurt them dramatically in the playoffs with their lack of depth.

6. Mavericks (52-21): The Mavericks now trail the Lakers by one game for the second seed in the West with a decisive game coming up on Thursday with huge implications for the second seed. If the Mavericks can’t beat the Lakers, they really have no chance in the playoffs.

7. Celtics (51-22): The Celtics have now lost seven of their last 12 games.

Only two weeks ago the Celtics had a two and a half game lead on the Bulls for the one seed in the East, but now the Celtics trail the Bulls by two games. Last year the Celtics showed they can flip the switch come playoff time, but the Celtics don’t want to tempt the basketball gods.

8. Nuggets (44-29): The Nuggets are now 12-4 since trading Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks. They have systematically been demolishing opponents since the trade and now (gasp) are playing some pretty good defense. While the Nuggets are pretty much locked into the fifth seed, they will be very dangerous in the playoffs.

9. Magic (47-27): Since the All-Star Break, the Magic are playing the best basketball in the East second only to the Bulls. With the veteran experience the Magic have, I would bet money that they would manage an upset against the Bulls if they meet in the playoffs.

10. Grizzlies (41-33): To all those saying the balance of power in the NBA has shifted from the West to the East, I give you this statistic. The Grizzlies are 10-6 against the top four seeds in the West and just completed a road trip against the Bulls, Celtics and Spurs at 2-1. Yet they are barely hanging on to the eighth seed in the West.

11. Trailblazers (43-31): This was a

big week for the Trailblazers as they beat the Western Conference-leading Spurs twice in the same week. This team is playing with confidence right now, and truly believes they can hang with the best.

12. Rockets (39-35): Once again, an example of how strong the Western Conference is: the Rockets have the league’s third-best record since the All-Star Break at 12-4. Yet they are still out of the playoffs requiring a near perfect stretch-run and a Hornets fold after losing David West for the season.

13. 76ers (38-36): The 76ers now have the sixth seed in the East on lockdown as the Knicks stumble into the playoffs. Only problem, if the playoff seeding holds as it currently is, the 76ers would face the Heat in the first round. Why is that bad news?

Lebron James and Dwayne Wade torched the 76ers for a combined 71 points in their last meeting.

14. Hornets (42-32): The Hornets started off the season with a good deal of hope for this year. However, with the season-ending injury to David West, the Hornets are now looking like first-round fodder if they are even able to hold onto their playoff spot.

15. Hawks (42-32): The Hawks have a losing record since the All-Star Break. The only reason the Hawks aren’t in danger of losing the fifth spot to the 76ers is some sloppy play by the 76ers in close games. Once again, Hawk fans will be subjected to being first-round fodder to the Orlando Magic.

16. Suns (36-37): Steve Nash has quietly surpassed Rajon Rondo for highest APG (assists per game), but even the valiant efforts of Nash will not be enough to get this team into the playoffs. The Suns should put Nash on lockdown for the rest of the

season so he doesn’t get injured.

17. Pacers (33-42): Tyler Hansbrough has had a breakout month when his team needed it the most as they are stuck in a dogfight with the Bucks and Bobcats for the final playoff spot in the East.

18. Bobcats (31-42): A week ago the Bobcats were dead in the water with no chance at making the playoffs.

Now after back-to-back wins against both the Celtics and Knicks, the Bobcats sit just a game back of the Pacers for the final playoff spot in the East.

19. Bucks (29-44): The Bucks were in the thick of things for the final playoff spot in the East just a week ago. Now with back-to-back losses, the Bucks are quickly fading out of contention for a playoff spot in a season filled with lofty expectations.

20. Warriors (32-43): The Warriors’ inability to win on the road killed whatever chance they had at making the playoffs. The Warriors’ road woes

graphic from internet source

are probably centered on this statistic: Monta Ellis averages 27.8 ppg at home but only 20.8 ppg on the road.

The largest discrepancy in the NBA. 21. Knicks (36-38): The Knicks find themselves at only two games under .500 overall and currently have an under .500 record since acquiring Carmelo Anthony. The most the Knicks can hope for this year is to push a first-round series to five or six games. The ultimate test of this trade will come next year after Anthony and Amare Stoudemire have the time to mesh their games.

22. Clippers (29-45): The Clippers are now officially, mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. However, the future for this team is bright if their owner, Donald Sterling, can finally get out of the team’s way.

23. Kings (21-52): With the Kings having been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs for weeks, See NBA, page 19

April 1, 2011

SPORTS 15

The Brandeis Hoot

UAA standings and over-all records

Judges split week with two wins and two losses

By Gordy Stillman Editor

Baseball Team

UAA

All

Emory

5– 1

18 – 10

Case Western

4–2

15 – 10

Washington

3–3

14 – 11

Brandeis

2–4

11– 10

Rochester

1 –5

5–7

Chicago

0–0

6–5

Box Scores Salve Regina

Win

12 – 6

Framingham State

Loss

18 – 3

Framingham State

Loss

4–0

Suffolk

Win

6–4

Softball Team

UAA

All

Emory

8– 0

26 – 1 – 1

Washington

6–2

16 – 5 – 1

Rochester

3–5

9– 7

Brandeis

3–5

10 – 12

Chicago

0–0

7–5

Case Western

0–8

6 – 16

Just more than a week ago, the Brandeis baseball team tied its season-high 12 runs in a 12-6 victory against Salve Regina University. The Judges also tied their season-high 14 hits.

Right-handed pitcher John McGrath ’11 led the Judges to victory despite a couple of early, unearned runs by the Seahawks’ Jason Sluberski and an RBI by Nicholas Baresse.

The Judges bit back with five runs in five hits not only to steal the lead, but widen the gap. The Judges followed it up in the third inning scoring another four runs on four hits despite a pitching change on the side of the Seahawks.

Second baseman Sean O’Hare ’12 made a big impact with a double in the second inning followed by a two-RBI single in the third. Shortstop Dom Schwartz ’14 assisted with RBI singles in both innings. These two players also did well on defense, executing a great double play in the third inning, with Schwartz passing to O’Hare with just enough time for O’Hare to shoot the ball over to first base.

While the Judges scored three more runs, the nine early in the game helped McGrath earn his third straight win (3-0) of the season after playing at least seven innings before letting a relief pitcher take over. This game tied season-high hits and runs with a game played against Drew University during the team’s Florida trip.

Unlike that game, however, this time the Judges matched their season best on their own field.

Along with O’Hare and Schwartz, left fielder Nick Cortese ’13 had a three-hit game. O’Hare ended the game with three RBIs, two doubles, two stolen bases and a 3-5 record at the plate. Cortese, like O’Hare, went 3-5, while scoring two runs and batting in another two as RBIs. Schwartz ended with three hits, three runs and two RBIs; all three were career-bests.

After a great victory, the weekend was not favorable for the Judges. On March 27, the Judges dropped both games in a double-header as they hosted Framingham State by being out-scored 22-3 in the two games.

In the first game the Judges lost ground quickly as Framingham’s Christopher Blydell had a home run on the first at bat. Framingham loaded the bases with no outs and managed four runs before the Judges

Box Scores @ WPI

Loss

10 – 2

@WPI

Win

5–1

Salem State

Win

8–7

Salem State

Win

14 – 1

@ Wellesley

Win

8–6

@ Wellesley

Loss

2–1

Men’s tennis Team

UAA

All

Emory

0–0

16 – 2

Chicago

0–0

11 – 3

Washington

0–0

8–3

Brandeis

0–0

7–4

Carnegie Mellon

0–0

10 – 6

Rochester

0–0

8–5

Case Western

0 –0

6–6

NYU

0–0

3–4

Women’s tennis Team

UAA

All

Emory

0–0

14 – 2

Chicago

0–0

11 – 2

John McGrath ’11

Rochester

0–0

5–1

Washington

0–0

8–2

Carnegie Mellon

0–0

10 – 3

Brandeis

0–0

9–3

See NBA, page 18

Case Western

0 –0

6–5

NYU

0–0

0–6

they are now relishing the role of spoilers with back-to-back-to-back wins against the Bucks, Pacers and 76ers.

24. Jazz (36-39): The Jazz have dropped like a rock since Jerry Sloan quit and the trade of Deron Williams.

The Jazz have no shot at the playoffs and their future does not look much brighter.

25. Pistons (26-47): The Pistons are mired in the beginning of a rebuilding process. The process will be long and painful and as such the Pistons will likely not make the playoffs for many years to come.

Box Scores @ NYU

Win

8–1

Bates

Win

7–2

photo by ingrid schulte/the hoot

closed out the top of the inning.

The Judges initially stayed in the game, scoring three runs in the bottom of the first. O’Hare was walked to first followed by third baseman Jon Chu ’12 hitting a single and advancing O’Hare to scoring position.

Catcher Chris Ferro ’13 followed suit with a single of his own, but made it to second base with an error by Framingham. Designated hitter Pat Nicholson ’11 brought Ferro home with another error before Framingham closed the inning at 4-3.

Framingham’s Rams took the game away in the second with another four runs. While keeping the Judges to five hits and no runs, during the rest of the game the Rams added insult to injury with six runs in the fifth and four more in the sixth inning.

Dylan Britton ’13 picked up his second loss of the season after the eight runs he allowed while the Ram’s Ryan Stoller picked up his first win of the season.

Hopes for a successful second game were slashed as the Rams’ pitcher Thommy Lindberg pitched a complete game, allowing only one hit and keeping the Judges scoreless for the whole game. Brandeis’ Tony Deshler ’11 got the only hit of the game, but lost out as Framingham’s infielders managed a double play to neutralize Deshler as a threat.

Cortese also became a threat after walking in the fifth inning, but was eliminated as Lindberg managed seven consecutive outs to finish the game with no threats in the later two innings.

Brandeis bounced back into winning form on Wednesday when they faced off against Suffolk University.

Ferro led the way with a double and three RBIs in the 6-4 victory after nine innings.

Suffolk got on the board early with runs in the first and third innings to take a 2-0 lead before Brandeis staged a comeback, starting in the fourth starting with a single from Cortese.

With help from Nicholsons and Ferro, Cortese made it around the bases.

O’Hare finished the inning with a sacrifice hit to bring Nicholson and Ferro home and bring the lead to 3-2.

The Judges tore the lead open in the bottom of the fifth with another three runs. Britton, playing left field, reached on an error and made it to second with a sacrifice bunt by Schwartz. Followed by a collective effort not only to get him home, but also send Cortese and Nicholson around the bases again.

With a 6-3 lead, the Judges held onto a decent lead until a late-eighth inning run brought the game to within two. Luckily the Judges maintained their cool under pressure and ended the game without needing a bottom half to the ninth inning. McGrath earned another win while Tim Belanger of Suffolk suffered the loss.

The Judges ended their week with an 11-10 record and play next on Saturday as they host WPI in a double header.

The Bulls continue to win 26. Cavaliers (15-58): The Cavaliers effectively won their Game 7 of the NBA finals Tuesday night with a 12-point victory against the streaking Miami Heat and Lebron James. In a season filled with misery, this game is one bright spot that the Cavaliers and their fans can look to.

27. Nets (23-50): The Nets acquired Deron Williams in a risky move to rebuild the franchise. If the Nets can use Williams to lure Dwight Howard to the team in 2012, the Nets will have an opportunity to supplant the Knicks as New York’s team.

28. Timberwolves (17-57): About the only good thing that has hap-

pened during Minnesota’s current seven-game losing streak is that they battled back from 25 points down against the Celtics and only lost by three points.

29. Raptors (20-53): After a stunning overtime victory against the Thunder, the Raptors are currently on a four-game losing streak. Are you surprised? I’m not.

30. Wizards (18-55): Pop out the champagne! The Wizards avoided tying the road futility mark after an overtime victory against the Jazz.

Editors’ note: The records are as of the end of gameplay March 29.

Softball wins 3 of 4

By Edwin Gonzalez Special to the Hoot

The Brandeis softball team has had a successful weekend after having two double-headers. The Judges managed a successful run, winning three out of their four games this weekend against Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Salem State.

March 25 saw the Judges lose 10-2.

The first game started with the Judges trying to make an early attempt at a lead. Brittany Grimm ’12 and Marianne Specker ’12 managed walks and found themselves in scoring position in the first inning. Starting pitcher for WPI, Erin Flaherty, struck out the subsequent two batters to escape with no damage.

The fourth inning saw WPI take the game away with Juliana Fekete hitting a double with two runs followed by Erin Beaulieu singling another run making the score 8-0.

The Judges attempted to turn around their bad luck in the top of the fifth inning when Maxie Hirschler ’12 doubled on the first pitch of her at-bat. Carly Schmand ’11 doubled as well to score Hirschler and Grimm.

At this point the Judges were showing life, making the score 8-2.

Even with a successful fifth inning, the Judges could not come together and lost 10-2. WPI pitcher Erin Flaherty managed to strike out four Judges and picked up a win bringing her record to 5-2. Melissa Nolan ’14 picked up the loss for the Judges with two and a third innings of work and five runs (four earned). Caroline Miller ’12 came in for relief work and allowed five runs on eight hits.

In part two of the doubleheader, the Judges returned for payback.

Energized, the Judges jumped to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning.

Schmand managed to reach on an error and scored on a double hit by Hirschler. Speckler’s patience at the plate allowed her to get on base with a walk, while a ground-out would allow Speckler and Hirschler to round the bases to homeplate.

Casey Ducinski ’13 won the game for the Judges bringing her record to 3-2 due to her seven innings of work with six strikes-outs and only allowing one run on four hits. Taking the loss for the Engineers was Christa Coscia, while she pitched three innings and surrendered five runs on five hits.

The strong weekend continued for the Judges when they faced off against Salem State. The Judges swept Salem State outscoring them 22-8.

The Judges first victory against Salem State ended in nail-biter fashion. After eight innings of play the score was 8-7. The second game was much more one-sided with the Judges winning 14-1 in five innings of play.

The second game against Salem State may not have finished in dramatic fashion, but a blowout victory is certainly not a bad thing. The Judges’ offense exploded scoring 14 runs against the Vikings. In the bottom of the second inning Hirschler managed to bring a run home. She led the explosive inning with seven runs by the Judges. Nolan banged two three-run home runs, one to right field and the other to left field. Not only did Nolan support the Judges offensively, the rookie pitcher also dominated on the mound, only allowing one run on one hit in the fourth inning. With this win, Nolan improves to 4-5 on the season with a complete game. Nolan padded her stats by striking out seven but also walking four batters.

The Judges now face an away stretch, facing Wellesley, Lasell and Suffolk before returning home on April 8 to host Babson.

ImpressiOns Sick of the health center

16 The Brandeis Hoot

[The nurse] took my vitals, reassured me they were in order and attempted to send me on my merry way.

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

By Ariel Madway Staff

Winter is usually the season associated with sickness, a time when subzero weather leads to runny noses and aching heads. Yet, this year, just

as the days were beginning to get longer and the green grass was beginning to appear from beneath the layers of white snow, another slew of illness hit. As if trying to keep up with the climbing temperature outdoors, my own temperature was climbing steadily as well. As a result of this,

instead of frolicking on the grass with the rest of Brandeis, celebrating the world’s first day of warmth, I sat shivering in my Snuggie with a steaming mug of tea. The situation was unfortunate, but not unbearable.

A few days passed, but although the temperature outside rapidly

dropped back down (apparently spring wasn’t actually here to stay), mine teeter-tottered above the norm.

As the week wore on I felt progressively worse: My whole body ached, I was chronically exhausted and my throat became increasingly sore. I knew that a few of my fellow Village residents had recently been diagnosed with strep throat (and a few with mono), so, I did what any Brandeis student in my predicament would do: I went to the Health Center to find out what was wrong.

My first visit to the Health Center was on a rainy Wednesday morning. I told the woman at the front desk why I was there and very politely asked if I could have my temperature read and a throat culture taken. She handed me some paperwork to complete and asked me to “please wait for the next available nurse”—which I did. After a few minutes of waiting, a nurse appeared. Apparently that morning I did not actually have a fever, but that didn’t change how I felt. This was news to the nurse, who firmly believed that no fever meant no illness.

She took my vitals, reassured me they were in order and attempted to send me on my merry way. After 15 minutes of irritated banter, I finally convinced her to at least take a throat culture (it seemed a blood test for mono was out of the question). She See HEALTH, page 19

April 1, 2011

Optimistic about open dialogue

By Liza Berhendt

Special to the Hoot

Three weeks ago, Brandeis Hillel’s exclusion of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) caused a stir in the American Jewish community. It highlighted the controversial ambiguity between religion, community and politics by raising the question: Does Judaism necessarily mean Zionism? The exclusion of a Jewish group from Hillel based on our political beliefs, namely, opposition to illegal Israeli settlements, effectively imposes an ideological litmus test for participation in campus Jewish life.

Although Hillel remains fixed to a narrow political agenda, I am optimistic about open dialogue within the Brandeis community. During the past week, JVP has collected the signatures of more than 1,000 Brandeis students opposing Hillel’s exclusionary decision and demanding a truly pluralistic Jewish community.

Hillel’s constituency trusts itself to think critically in an open marketplace of ideas, and acknowledges the necessity of uncensored discussion about Israel in order to achieve peace. Together, we have challenged the status quo of uncritical support for Israeli policy.

JVP’s petition for inclusion has sparked difficult and necessary conversations about the role of Palestinian solidarity in the Jewish community. The students we met during the signaturegathering process were overwhelmingly in favor of JVP’s inclusion, even when their feelings about JVP’s political positions ranged from discomfort to curiosity to excitement. We had hundreds of respectful conversations about boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) as a strategy for ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine, which broadened perspectives on both sides of the issue. Although we didn’t always agree, we usually reached the mutual conclusion that this topic demands conversation, especially within Jewish institutions.

Brandeis Hillel claims that JVP’s support for a settlement boycott was at odds See JVP, page 19

If you sprinkle when you tinkle ...

By Alexandra Zelle Rettman Staff

You know when you go to the movies and there is the famed intro of, “Please, don’t spoil the movie by adding your own soundtrack?” Well there should be another one that goes something like, “Please, don’t spoil the bathroom by leaving remnants of your excreta.”

What you do in the comfort of your own private bathroom is your business. The bathrooms at Brandeis University are public, however, and it has been brought to my attention in various forms that some basic rules for using the bathroom must be amended.

Unfortunately, just as there is still the schmuck whose cell phone rings in the middle of the movie, I have no doubt that there will still be some schmuck who cannot seem to follow some simple rules for making the bathroom a pleasant experience for all.

That being said, here are a few simple rules:

There is no reason that there should be any remnants of your excreta left on the seat or on the floor. Women: Please stay seated for the duration of your visit.

Men: Stand closer, it is shorter than you think.

When you have finished your visit, please make sure all utensils make it into their proper location. There need not be any sections of toilet paper or seat covers clinging to the seat of the toilet. If you need to reach down and help it into the bowl, do not hesitate, there is soap and water ready for you when you exit.

This is for women only: Your feminine products must, I repeat MUST, be meticulously put into the convenient garbage provided for you. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that if you flush it down the toilet, the toilet might clog, which will inconvenience everyone. The second is that just like the toilet paper and seat covers, there is no reason why it can’t be done. The third is that people will have to see what you do not take care of. And the fourth, and probably the most important, is that if you do not put

your used items INTO THE BAG PROVIDED then someone will have to clean it up for you, and that should not be the case.

Flush the toilet.

If you see that for some reason you have not followed any of the above rules, clean it up.

Please wash your hands with soap and water. Germs can and will spread if given the opportunity.

Upon using the convenient paper towels, place them into the garbage can. If the garbage can is overflowing, condense its contents by pushing down, chances are that there is a lot of unused empty space in there, and it shouldn’t go to waste at the expense of someone else having to either dodge a sea of paper towels on their way in or out of the stall, or clean up after you.

If you make a stinker, please, don’t hesitate to open the window.

You don’t have to be ashamed about what you’ve done; everyone does it. It is a nice gesture to help evacuate the smell for the comfort of future users (which might include you).

Thanks, and pleasant pooping!

graphic by ariel wittenberg/the hoot

April 1, 2011

IMPRESSIONS 17

The Brandeis Hoot

Still Writing

Book of Matthew

Government shutdown 101

By Bret Matthew Editor

graphic by steven wong/the hoot

The world isn’t silent

By Gordy Stillman Editor

In the last couple of weeks, numerous friends of mine have been flooding my Facebook news feed with statuses relating to Israel.

Some posts are coherent, such as my cousin’s post: “In the last three days over 70 missiles were fired into Israel.

A bomb was strapped to a phone booth at a Jerusalem bus station, killing one and seriously injuring 31 others. Last week a Palestinian terrorist walked into the house of the Fogel family and murdered Rabbi Fogel, his wife and three of his six children with a kitchen knife. None of this has been given media coverage.”

Others, unfortunately, are not.

One example of a status that was bothersome was nearly identical to the above status except it replaced all of the Israeli cities with U.S. cities, using the comparison to complain that events in Israel do not receive sufficient coverage in the U.S. media.

I support the former status because it directs attention to grave events in Israel. The latter makes a criticism that shouldn’t come as a

The Chosen Rosen

By Ricky Rosen Columnist

Like most Brandeisians, I spend much of my waking existence withering away in the library. I usually arrive at 9 or 10 p.m. (after many hours of skillful procrastination) and I burrow myself on the second or third floor, in a land with no cell phone service, no talking and really no distractions outside of the ones I expose myself to on my laptop. It takes me an hour or two to stop wasting time with Fantasy Baseball or browsing through random Wikipedia pages, and eventually I hit a groove. My reading assignments are completed at the speed of sound, as the words fly off the pages into my welcoming mind. Or, if I’m working on a paper, I reach a point where I start typing so quickly that I lose track of what I’m saying, and I slip into the back seat and let my fingers do the driving. The problem is that by the time all this happens, it’s already midnight, and I only have two

surprise. News has always focused on domestic affairs with some information on the high-profile international news. Israel is, to an extent, just like any other country.

Why should media coverage differ?

I care more about the affairs of Israel than I do about most countries in the world, but we have to remember that, as Jews, we constitute less than .05 percent of the world’s population.

While we (Jews) already have a disproportionate amount of Nobel Prizes and prominence on the world stage, we should not expect the rest of the world always to devote such attention to such a small group of people.

Furthermore, considering Israel has been in a state of conflict almost continuously since its creation, while it may be deplorable, the fact is that conflict in the Middle East is neither interesting nor alarming; it’s merely business as usual.

When something unusual occurs, such as the recent upheavals, people pay attention to the Middle East and Israel because there is a change from the status quo. It’s like Iran or North Korea: unless something changes, there isn’t really anything to report on.

What bothers me is that it appears to be the case that many of us are more concerned with troubles

across the Atlantic when there are plenty of problems and concerns to deal with domestically.

Any person should, even if they are a critic of their government, be concerned with the matters of their own country first and foremost before being concerned with others, because ultimately the condition of the country one lives in will have a greater impact on one’s life than a symbolically important one.

It is certainly fine to be concerned with the troubles of one’s friends and neighbors, and Israel has long been a friend to the United States and certainly holds a special value in many peoples’ hearts, but one should not put the affairs of a friend over those happening to people a few miles or a few streets away.

Remember: These events, especially the murder of the Fogel family, are not going unreported.

The murder of the Fogel family, as well as the Jerusalem bombing, did manage prominent placement in the news.

Sure I may not have heard about what happened last Wednesday until I received e-mails from the Brandeis Orthodox Organization and the Brandeis University Conservative Organization, but that was simply because I worked very hard that day to avoid CNN.com while taking notes in my classes.

If Congress doesn’t agree on a budget for the current fiscal year by April 8, the federal government will be forced to shut down. The odds of this happening vary from day to day, depending on the mercurial negotiations currently being held on Capitol Hill. But with the Democratic and Republican proposals still differing by several billion dollars, it’s certainly a real possibility.

It’s been 15 years since fiscal disagreements between President Clinton and House Republicans led to the two most recent government shutdowns—from Nov. 14 through Nov. 19, 1995 and from Dec. 16, 1995 through Jan. 6, 1996. Most Brandeis students probably don’t remember anything about them—I certainly don’t. To us, the idea of a government shutdown doesn’t sound all that threatening. Like many Americans, we generally live our lives without thinking about the role our government plays in them. Unfortunately, all accounts of the last shutdowns show that we cannot afford our own ignorance.

Planning to apply for a federal student loan? Better do it soon, because the government won’t be able to process the paperwork in a shutdown.

Studying abroad next summer? Hurry up and get your passport. During the last shutdowns, approximately 200,000 passport applications were not processed.

Of course, these are minor complaints. But take a step back and look at the bigger picture—it gets bleaker.

If the economic recovery seemed tenuous before, it will only get worse if the government closes its doors.

Between the last two shutdowns, the government furloughed more than one million federal employees from nearly all departments. Congress later voted to pay these employees back for the time they were sent home, but nothing guarantees that this Congress—especially the Tea Party Republicans—would support a similar measure this time around.

Either way, with a huge swath of its manpower sitting at home, the government will be forced to severely cut back its daily functions. While programs like Social Security, Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration are

guaranteed by law to continue, this only helps people who are already enrolled. New applicants may have their paperwork delayed; in fact, during the November 1995 shutdown, the Clinton Administration estimated that the unfunded government could not process the claims of 112,000 new Social Security recipients or issue 212,000 new or replacement Social Security cards. The applications of 400,000 newly eligible Medicare recipients were also delayed.

National parks, museums and monuments also closed during the last shutdowns, and would likely do so again.

This may seem like the least of our worries, but consider this: When these locations closed 15 years ago, they lost a combined nine million visitors and several hundred million dollars in tourist revenue. (The 368 National Park Service sites lost $14.2 million tourist dollars each day they were closed.)

“Sounds bad,” you say, “but how will all this affect me?” In most cases, it won’t—at least, not directly. But there is a tremendous amount of economic activity and potential tax revenue at stake here, and both are in short supply these days. Every cut damages the chances of struggling businesses and strained local governments to operate and to hire prospective young workers like us.

Oh, and if you’re lucky enough to have a job already, don’t count on your tax refund. Congress’s unfortunate timing means that if the government does shut down, it will do so right as most Americans are filing their taxes and waiting for their money back. Since the IRS will likely be grossly understaffed, taxpayers should expect delays.

Speaking of the IRS, the Clinton Administration estimated that during the November 1995 shutdown, closed IRS enforcement divisions lost about $400 million in revenue. There’s little doubt that today’s deficit-obsessed Republicans will push for even more spending cuts to make up for similar losses, which, I might add, is how this whole mess began in the first place.

Here’s one crisis that will be too big to ignore. All told, it would be better for all of us if it ends as soon as it begins. This will only happen if our representatives in Washington know that we are getting fed up.

Lengthening library hours more hours until the library closes.

Eventually, I am awoken from my intense focus-induced coma by three sharp bells: it’s 1:30 a.m. I still have four pages left to write. I start to panic, and before I know it, six more piercing bells shatter my ear with the hastiness of their call; it’s 1:45. A few minutes pass and a library employee walks by and utters the words that I can’t bring myself to accept: “The library will be closing in 10 minutes.”

I, like many students at Brandeis, stay up exceptionally late during the week to finish my work. Although most students here do not stay up until 5 or 6 a.m. like I do, most of us have to pull a late night every once in a while. Whether it be to write a research paper, cram for an exam or just plain fool around online (browsing through “Glee” songs on YouTube, for example), we all have to stay up late every once in a while. And really the only place that is suitable to these dreary, study-centric nights is the li-

brary.

Yes, students can do their work in the lounge in their building, but some students live off-campus and don’t have any place to do work when the library is closed. Additionally, oftentimes, the lounge is already occupied, usually by a group of girls poking fun at the latest parody of Rebecca Black’s song, “Friday.” This would make it awfully difficult to concentrate on anything (besides how much you want it to be Friday). And students should not have to go lounge-hunting across campus at 4 a.m., just because they had nowhere to do work.

Yes, they could do work in their dorm room, but their roommate is probably asleep. And we wouldn’t want to wake him with our lightening-fast typing or our equally-fast page-flipping (these sounds are more than enough to wake my roommate).

Most of you are reading this and screaming at the page: “There is a place where we can go to do our work

late at night: the SCC!” While it is terrific that the Shapiro Campus Center is open all night (you can get in with your Brandeis ID), it definitely does not compare to the still tranquility of a library. On the whole, the SCC does not have places like this, but there is the SCC Study Room. If you choose to go into the study room, you’ll find that quiet place that you’re searching for. But why should you have to confine yourself to one small room, jampacked full of students, scrambling to find a place to sit, when you can go to the library and study anywhere you want?

Plus, the library has many resources that the SCC does not have. The library has a vast array of literature that, although it does not seem like it, students do use. And how can you finish a research assignment due the next morning that requires several non-Internet sources if you don’t have any books? And as we all know, the library has a lot more than books: there

are numerous computer rooms, for those of us who do not have a laptop, compared to just one of these rooms in the SCC Study Room. The library also has a Help Desk if you’re having technology problems or if you need help finding a book.

Most of all, the library is absolutely huge. You can study virtually anywhere you choose (even the bathroom). There’s the super-social (and noisy) Green Room—avoid studying here if you plan on doing any actual work. There’s the first-floor computer area, often used for quick assignments or to print something. There’s the cave on the second-floor against the walls, which features optimal desk space and complete quiet (this is my preferred location). And then there’s the infamous dungeon on the third floor—I wouldn’t bring any food on this floor. Just the sound of potato See LIBRARY, page 19

18 IMRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 1, 2011

The Self Shelf

An American obligation to democracy

photo by ariel wittenberg/the hoot

By Alex Self Editor

As Colonel Moammar Gadhafi’s forces renew the offensive against the rebels, President Obama and the defense department are determined to keep the war from spinning out of control. The absolute worst case scenario seems to be the idea of troops on the ground although others claim

that continued U.S. presence in the region increases America’s commitment to the region by the day. Yet the question of America’s commitment to this cause is not my topic. What I wish to explore is the question of America’s obligation to promote its values. The events of the past few weeks and indeed the past few decades seem to beg the question of what role America ought play in the world. I will try to answer this question by focusing on whether America was justified, at the

outset, in intervening in Libya.

The first area to explore is whether there is a constitutional obligation of any sort to provide humanitarian support for the rest of the world. Obviously, there is not. This is why the isolationists claim that the United States has no obligation to the rest of the world whatsoever and should draw down its military in order to focus on domestic policy. Yet military power is almost a prerequisite facet of any powerful state in the modern

age. Military muscle helps protect American interests across the globe and certainly lends the country more soft power to pursue economic and political interests. For example, it is the large size of the United States navy that allows it to protect American shipping from pirates off the coast of Somalia. We cannot, however, derive an obligation from American economic or political interests to justify intervening in Libya. Gadhafi, while an autocratic and brutal ruler, was also an American ally. Like the deposed Hosni Mubarak, he was a dictator but he was the United States’ dictator. I will deal with the inherent hypocrisy of that statement later in the article.

Thus, there was no compelling interest pragmatically to intervene.

The second possible argument for an intervention might be that of international perception. Helping rebels fight a brutal dictator (which we had previously backed) might show the rest of the world that the United States actually believes in liberty and democracy in all cases rather than just when it’s convenient. Also, it might show the increasingly democratic Middle East that we are serious about liberty and aren’t merely seeking to dominate the region. By making sure we had the support of the Arab League before entering into the fray, I would argue we accomplished that objective. A rebuttal of this argument is fairly obvious. Many critics now claim that the United States has gotten involved in another Middle Eastern imbroglio wherein large amounts of resources, both military and fiscal, will have to go to Libya to support the rebels and the new regime. This, they argue, will lead to a perception of the United States as a military overlord in the area once more. It is not clear at this point what will happen in the Libyan conflict, so I cannot speak as to the validity of these claims. At best, therefore, the argument of perceptional benefits is a neutral battleground.

The third claim, and the one I believe clears this issue up the most, is the argument of keeping in line with American ideals. There is a benefit, I would argue, to standing up actively for commonly acknowledged national and global ideals. The defense of human life against a brutal tyrant is one of them. Of course, Libya is not as cut

and dry as all that. The question of whether the rebels will commit atrocities and what to do if that happens is going to be increasingly important as the situation develops. Yet at the outset, there was a situation in which a government army was about to massacre its own people without mercy.

There was no compromise—no deal offered to the rebels. Gadhafi did not even make the pretense of pretending that he cared about the people—it was simply a matter of brutally suppressing them. At that juncture, for America to stand by and watch as thousands of rebels and civilian bystanders were massacred by a tyrant would be to swallow its ideals. For it is not as if the United States did not have the power to prevent this. The navy was in position to help the rebels, who openly called for aid from the rest of the world, at relatively little cost. From this position, I would argue America had an obligation to defend the rebels against the impending massacre. The situation is akin to a lifeguard passing someone drowning in a pond. If that lifeguard simply walked by that person, there are few people who wouldn’t find him somewhat morally culpable for the tragic consequences. America therefore had an obligation to help prevent Benghazi from becoming the new Srebrenica. America had an obligation to prevent people crying out for liberty from being extinguished by a tyrant.

That is the argument that tips the balance in favor of intervention.

For, if America turned a blind eye to atrocities committed against a rebel movement by a tyrant when it had the power to prevent them, it would be no better than a doctor who ignores a dying man. At some point, the moral line has to be drawn. We had the power to intervene and I believe we made the right decision to do so. It may have no direct pragmatic benefit nor be obligated by law but it shores up American ideals and helps spread them to those in need. If the entire situation unravels, I will still believe that the intervention was justified.

For a relatively small cost, we saved what could be a fledgling democratic movement.

Regardless of what happens afterward, for at least one shining moment, the United States scored a victory for democracy.

Altered Conscious

Democrats lack credibility to criticize Iraq war

By Rick Alterbaum Columnist

President Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 as the only electable candidate who initially opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Unfortunately for him, there were originally better reasons and more support for toppling Saddam Hussein than there were for going after Colonel Muammar Qadaffi. As a result, Obama has, to a certain extent, undermined his own credibility as an anti-war leader.

This is not to say that Obama should have abstained from doing anything in Libya, and there are good humanitarian reasons for endorsing Operation Odyssey Dawn. Conversely, I am not going to justify the Iraq War; in retrospect, there were no weapons of mass destruction, Iran leveraged the instability that ensued to expand its influence in the region

and the costs of the conflict have generally outweighed its benefits thus far.

A comparison between the two, however, puts Obama’s policy into perspective and the fact is that Saddam was far worse than Qadaffi. On the human rights front, for instance, it is true that both tyrants oppressed their people; torture and murder of political dissidents, deportations, arbitrary detentions and denial of basic freedoms were commonplace under both regimes. Saddam launched two unnecessary wars with Iran and Kuwait, however, and brutally suppressed his country’s Kurdish and Shiite populations, contributing to the deaths of millions of people. Even if Qadaffi had invaded Benghazi, he presumably would not have surpassed the Iraqi Baathist’s reign of terror.

Saddam was also a far greater threat to the United States than Qaddafi was before Obama’s intervention. He consistently had evaded or undermined International Atomic Energy

Agency weapons inspections, had used chemical and biological weapons, had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush, threatened Saudi Arabia and Israel, had the capacity to destabilize regional oil flows, and had supported groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In contrast, Qadaffi renounced his nuclear weapons program in 2003 for fear that his country would be invaded following the intervention in Iraq. He also ceased funding terrorism abroad—in fact, he became an ally in the “war against terror”—and compensated the victims of the Lockerbie bombing in return for an end to sanctions against Libya and reintegration into the international community. Consequently, Qadaffi posed little to no national security threat to the United States or its European allies.

In addition, the Iraqi war was initially more legitimate than the Libyan invasion. For one thing, President George Bush garnered bipartisan

Congressional approval of his actions; 77 U.S. Senators and 296 U.S. Representatives voted in favor of his policy.

In contrast, Obama completely bypassed Congress in making a decision on Libya.

Furthermore, Bush gained more assistance on the international front as well. A grand total of 39 countries provided military and material aid to the U.S. effort in Iraq and the United Nations Security Council passed 17 resolutions, most notably 1,441, condemning Saddam’s policies. Conversely, 15 countries in total make up the coalition against Libya and are acting based on far fewer resolutions, such as 1,973.

Finally, critics of Bush will argue that there was a lack of planning involved in the Iraq conflict, and they were right; the United States was illprepared for the period of sectarian and ethnic conflict and insurgency following Saddam’s fall.

At the same time though, even after

Obama’s speech on Monday, there are still many aspects of Libya operation that remain unclear. I still have to ask, for instance, who are the rebels? Are we just helping Islamists take over the country? How will the United States reconcile its stance on Libya with the situations in other countries, like Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Will the United States really be bearing the brunt of this conflict, even though NATO has taken charge of it? Is a land invasion nation-building combination truly a non-option?

Will this intervention be perceived

by Arabs as a Western imperialist plot, despite Qatar and the UAE’s assistance? The logistical status of this intervention is ambiguous at best.

Nonetheless, I do hope that Operation Odyssey Dawn goes well. By implementing it, however, Obama, as well as his supporters, must realize that in the future they will lack the credibility to criticize the Iraq war and George Bush.

April 1, 2011

IMPRESSIONS 19

The Brandeis Hoot

Health center no panacea HEALTH, from page 16

told me the results would come in two days and until then I should just take the recommended dose of painkillers and stay hydrated.

Friday afternoon hit without any follow-up from the center, but also without any improvement in my health. If anything I felt worse. When I called to inquire about my results, I was told they were negative but if I didn’t feel better by Monday I could come back and see a doctor. She reminded me to keep up the painkillers and water. So I popped three more Advil and laid back in bed—where I remained for the majority of the weekend—getting progressively worse as time wore on. By Sunday, I couldn’t stay awake for more than a few hours at a time.

Talking induced extreme pain and swallowing was out of the question.

Obviously the prescribed Advil and water treatment wasn’t doing the trick. Worried, I called the Health Center once again only to be informed that the doctor was not in Sunday but I could make an appointment for the next day. According to my calendar I already had an appointment for the next day, but apparently I was the only party who had bothered to pencil it in.

This time the Health Center’s thermometer registered my fever and the doctor was quick to take the necessary tests. She told me to increase my intake of painkillers, rotating between Advil and Tylenol so as not to overdose on either, and that we would meet again on Wednesday once the results came in.

Thus, an entire week after my first attempt at seeking medical attention, I re-entered the Health Center discouraged and sick as ever. The blood test, I

came to learn, was negative. But this time, the doctor finally acknowledged that whatever the tests said, I was obviously sick and should receive immediate attention. A few persuasive phonecalls later and I had an appointment with a local throat specialist. “You’re lucky”, the nurse who had secured me an appointment told me as she hung up the phone, “it usually takes about three weeks to see this doctor.” An hour later the Brandeis Police pulled up in front of the medical center to provide me with transportation to the off-campus office. Funny how all of a sudden I was sick enough to warrant such special attention …

In the end, it turned out my illness was an un-diagnosable problem with my right tonsil, a problem which could have easily been detected even without the throat doctor’s special tools and high-tech probes. In fact, her very first reaction just upon glancing at my swollen tonsil was, “Wow, this does not look good at all.” Shocked that I had not already been given any antibiotics, she prescribed me a typical 10-day dose of Amoxicillin, effective immediately upon arriving back to campus. The effect was nearly instantaneous. Two pills, and a few hours later I crawled into bed, feeling almost human for the first time in more than 10 days.

Had I received the medical attention I clearly needed the very first time I visited the Health Center, an entire week spent in excruciating pain could have easily been prevented.

Had I received the medical attention I clearly needed from the start, an entire week spent in bed could have been put to productive use. An upstanding university like Brandeis should be able to provide the necessary attention to its students when they are in need.

Friday afternoon hit without any followup from the center, but also without any improvement in my health.

Embrace dialouge JVP, from page 16

with their “pro-Israel” mission. This should come as a shock to the majority of American Jews—according to a recent J Street poll, 60 percent of American Jews are opposed to the expansion of settlements. A boycott of the settlements is a nonviolent yet direct strategy for opposing the human rights abuses that the settlements represent.

JVP seeks a just and stable peace in Israel/Palestine, and thus expresses support for a “democratic Israel based on Jewish values.” Brandeis Hillel Director Larry Sternberg, however, claims that this is not enough: To be sufficiently proIsrael for Hillel, one must affirm Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state.”

Brandeis students should be concerned by the lack of precision with which Hillel throws these terms around.

What does a Jewish and democratic state really mean, and why does Hillel want to shut off conversation about its meaning? Surely, so long as Israel maintains its military occupation of Palestinians but denies them voting rights, it cannot pretend to be either.

The American Jewish community stands to lose a great deal if this pattern of ideologically-motivated exclusion continues. Not only does it threaten the long-term unity of Jewish culture, but it seeks to quash the important tradition of Jewish political activism. Our history of oppression does not mean that we must continue to view ourselves as victims; let us unite in an effort to confront the injustices being perpetuated in our name.

JVP’s petition, endorsed by one out of every three undergraduates, was a call for the entire Brandeis community to embrace dialogue and give a voice to political opinions outside of the mainstream.

Let us continue the fight by welcoming marginalized peoples and opinions. Let us challenge ourselves to attend events that promote differing conceptions of justice and to engage in conversations that make us uncomfortable. Together, we can provide a model of critical selfreflection for the broader Jewish community.

Sexcapades

A sticky situation

By Sophie Riese Columnist

When it comes to the complexities of relationships, I try to maintain a sort of “don’t judge” mentality, because you never know exactly what the circumstances in any relationship are if you’re not a part of it. Things get complicated, however, when one of the people is in a previously-defined relationship and these complications can happen a lot in college.

What exactly is the morality of hooking up with someone who is in a relationship? How about engaged?

Or married? Maybe going through a divorce? If your answer isn’t consistent for all of these situations, you’re probably just like most of us; the lines are sort of blurry.

I have always accepted this ambiguity, but recently I have been compelled to wonder: How blurry can the lines really be? As someone who has both cheated and been cheated on, I can tell you that it’s not pretty from either side. It’s been a long time since I cheated on anyone—since before college actually—but that doesn’t mean that I remember the side effects any less. From the other side, I’ve been cheated on so many times that it’s actually a huge fear,

and—unfortunately—a certainty of mine, that it’ll happen again.

Where the line blurs for me is when you hook up with someone, and only later find out he or she is in a relationship. To me, it’s sort of like, yes, you helped them cheat, but at the same time, you’re removed from the blame because if you didn’t know, there’s really nothing you could have done.

I apply similar reasoning to soonto-be-divorced people. I’ve only been in the situation once, but it seems to me that a guy who is going through a divorce is technically single. Except for the legal processes required to end a marriage, the couple is broken up, thereby making it “not cheating.” But I know that not everyone agrees with that sort of reasoning, and I have friends who found my brief fling almost appalling.

As college students, what obligation do we have to respect the relationships around us? I’ve hooked up with one or two guys at Brandeis who lied to me about their relationship status in order to get me into their rooms. I’ve also been the girl, however, who told a guy she couldn’t be exclusive because I just couldn’t promise not to hook up with someone else. The truth is that most of

the relationships people have here won’t exist past graduation and so, if we take that information, ultimately, perhaps, it shouldn’t matter if we’re faithful and monogamous.

The problem, however, is knowing which relationships will make it past graduation, possibly forever.

Because some will make it that far, but we can’t know that right now, it is a risky proposition to mess with any relationships at all.

Really it all comes down to how you want others to perceive you, I think. Because in all honesty, people don’t think very highly of those who lie and cheat, especially if they’re personally connected to those who have been lied to or cheated on in some way.

Also, most people have some story of being hurt or of a close friend being hurt, and they don’t like to think they know the types of people who would cheat or hook up with a married guy.

Maybe the best rule is the one we all learned as children: Do unto others as you would have others do to you. If you think you wouldn’t respond well to having your husband hook up with a college kid when you’re 30, maybe you shouldn’t be hooking up with that hot married guy right now.

graphic by leah lefkowitz/the hoot

Longer library hours needed LIBRARY, from page 17

chip being crunched would incite a riot down there.

There are also a lot of secret spots in the library. I discovered these during the Library Scavenger Hunt at the end of last semester. But you’ll just have to go wandering around there yourself to find your own secret spots.

While there are no underground tunnels at the library (or at least none that I know of), the library is one of the university’s best facilities. This is mainly due to the unlimited number of study locations there.

Don’t believe me? For the rest of the semester, I challenge you to try to study in a different spot each time you go.

I guarantee that the semester will end before you run out of spots.

Compare this to the Shapiro Campus Center.

The study room is the only quiet place you can go to get work done late at night. You certainly can’t study for an Organic Chemistry Test out in the middle of the Atrium, where there’s usually countless distractions and just too much space—I don’t know about you guys, but I need to be in an enclosed area to be able to concentrate! Don’t get me wrong— the SCC is great; it just isn’t my first choice for a last-minute study location. And it certainly doesn’t compare to the library.

So I propose that students that want to study at the library can study at the library. The SCC is open all night— why can’t the library stay open all night too? There is certainly a need for it—whenever I leave the library at 2 a.m., I see five or six people leaving at the same time, and a handful of people still in the computer section.

And when I head over to the SCC Study Room, the room is often full on both floors. And so I think if the li-

brary were to stay open later, students wouldn’t feel forced to migrate over to the SCC Study Room late at night.

Consider how much academics would improve: Students would feel like they were being given the resources they need to succeed.

What I do not understand is the library closing so early on the weekends. Yes, it’s completely understandable that on a Friday night, not many people are going to want to finish their report on Keynesian economics. But there is no need to close it at 6 p.m.; 10 p.m. or midnight would be more reasonable, but closing the library eight hours earlier than the normal time is unnecessary.

What if someone wants to stay in for a night and write that economics paper.

After all, this is Brandeis—our idea of fun is playing American History Trivial Pursuit. It’s really not that farfetched to assume that a chunk of students would want to do some work either Friday or Saturday night. By closing the library before the sun even sets, these students are being deprived of that opportunity.

I think the best idea that the administration ever had was 24-hour library hours during Finals Week. Students are encouraged to come into the library whenever they please, stay as long as they want, and then head back to shower, eat, go to the bathroom and sleep (if they need to do any of those things). Students never have to check their watches or wonder what time the library closes, because it doesn’t.

A lot of other colleges are recognizing the need for 24-hour libraries— NYU, University of Michigan and University of Arizona to name a few.

And many other colleges also have 2 a.m. library closing times, such as Marist and the SUNY schools. I’m not saying that Brandeis is lagging behind compared to other schools. But I am saying that Brandeis is not taking a step forward.

While there are no underground tunnels at the library (or at least none that I know of), the library is one of the university’s best facilities.

20 The Brandeis Hoot

Hoot scoops

April 1, 2011

A commitment to

Rwanda

Noam Shouster ’11 describes her experience spending summers working in Rwanda

By Alana Blum Staff

Noam Shouster’s typical summer day began early in the morning. Armed with a bag of a dozen soccer balls in one hand, and arts and crafts and perhaps even a drum in the other hand, she started preparing for the arrival of 45 energetic 12 to 13 year olds. Yet this place was anything but typical. Shouster ’11 was in Rwanda, directing Youth 2 Youth, a summer camp for HIV-positive Rwandan children.

Shouster’s involvement in Youth 2 Youth takes root in her upbringing. She was brought up in a small community in Israel called Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (English: Oasis of Peace). According to Shouster, this community is one of the only places in Israel where Israelis and Palestinians live together by choice.

In school, the students learn both Arabic and Hebrew. In an effort to be an active part of the peace process, the community members strive together for coexistence.

Over the years, Shouster has been involved in a variety of youth programs. One program, called Circle of Families, fostered her desire to help children. Circle of Families is a summer camp for Israeli and Palestinian children who are directly affected by the Middle East conflict.

Shouster’s experience working with these children made her realize that she wanted to continue this type of work.

Every year, the Sylvia and Joseph Slifka Israeli Coexistence Scholarship awards two Israelis (one Arab and one Jewish) full scholarships to Brandeis. Because of Shouster’s commitment to coexistence between Israel and Palestine, she received the scholarship and came to Brandeis in 2007.

While at Brandeis, Shouster realized she wanted to try something new. “There was always something missing from me. People are always talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I’m always asked to talk about it … I needed to go somewhere else to find out where other areas have been doing other things so I could get hands-on experience,” she said.

In the summer of 2009, Shouster’s wish was granted. As a Sorenson Ethics Center fellow with the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center (IGSC), she was able to travel to Rwan-

da and help create a theater festival. While in Rwanda, Shouster was introduced to a women’s health organization called WE-ACTx (Women’s Equity in Access to Care and Treatment).

As Shouster familiarized herself with the organization, she immediately felt a connection to their mission. WE-ACTx started in 2003, when doctors discovered that women infected with HIV during the Rwandan genocide were left without care and treatment. WE-ACTx provides Rwandan women with the medicine they need, as well as support groups and youth programs.

One of the American doctors who helped found the organization was familiar with Shouster’s home community. She instantly took a liking to Shouster and requested that Shouster come back the following summer to work with the youth in WE-ACTx program.

Shouster was happy to oblige.

“I fell in love with these women. I was doing yoga with them, I was working with them … and it was really amazing,” Shouster said. The prospect of coming back and leading the summer youth program was something the socially conscious student could not pass up. She applied for the Louis D. Brandeis Social Justice WOW Fellowship and was awarded a grant.

Approximately six weeks before Youth 2 Youth began, Shouster arrived in Rwanda for the second time. She began working with nine youth leaders, who would help run the camp.

The youth leaders were all HIV positive, and were currently being treated by WE-ACTx. They were chosen as role models for the younger children.

As the summer camp began, Shouster felt an immediate respect for the 45 children in her care.

“These kids are amazing and they are so powerful. The situation is difficult because not a lot of kids have the space to play—to just be kids. There are always these difficulties because in Rwanda, HIV is sometimes thought of as a legacy of the genocide. During the genocide women were being targeted and raped on purpose … and so many of the kids experience hardships because of their status … There’s a lot of stigma,” Shouster said.

The primary goal of the summer camp was to set the stigma aside. The children were in

a safe space where they could play and act as children. Through music and theater activities, WE-ACTx taught the children about empowerment and leadership. Musicians from Musicians without Borders and a Latin high school in Chicago also came to work with the children.

In an effort to make the camp a memorable experience, the staff incorporated field trips into the program. Many of these children had never set foot outside of Kigali. Now they had the opportunity to see the safari and museums.

For Shouster, this was an unforgettable experience in a variety of ways.

“Here I am booking restaurants and buses and talking to artists in Rwanda—a country that was not so long ago a foreign country to me. Here I am running this program. It’s very exciting for me to think that I’m doing this,” she said.

On one occasion, the camp brought the children to a national history museum. Shouster was left speechless as she described what it was like to see these children walking through the history of their country.

At the end of the session, a final performance was put on by the children. The majority of the time was spent preparing for the big performance. The children were cast as singers, dancers and actors. Shouster described the production as a collaborative process, where they all took part in writing and producing the theater pieces.

“The kids are hilarious—making fun of us and themselves, singing and dancing. [The theater pieces] are about self-esteem, about traveling the world, about job opportunities.

It’s about their dreams, about being healthy. It’s about breaking stigma and realizing that HIV doesn’t mean death … and the fact that there is this final project that they get to produce and that they get to be on stage and proud and loud and funny is so rewarding,” Shouster said.

One of the most rewarding aspects of the camp was being able to see the children

making an effort to stay healthy. One young woman’s strive to better herself made a lasting impression on Shouster. The girl hadn’t been coming to the clinic regularly for treatment, and as a result she was not chosen to be a youth leader. Yet she would come to the camp regularly to see the children, and she began to regret her lack of attendance.

“She made a promise to me that she would be a youth leader with me the next summer and I guess she’s keeping it up because I’m getting a report from the coordinator that she’s been coming regularly to the support groups and she keeps on talking about how amazing it will be for her to teach dance. It’s a humbling experience when you are present with people who influence you and you influence them. Here is an example of a young woman who has now been taking care of herself for a whole year because she wants to achieve something,” Shouster said.

Shouster will have the opportunity to continue witnessing this young woman’s transformation. She was this year’s recipient of the Davis Projects for Peace, which is awarded to only one Brandeis student per year. Shouster will now be able to return to Rwanda this summer and help expand the youth program.

“I have a huge commitment to Rwanda.

Commitment is the key word here … It’s not just a one-time internship. This will be my third time going there, and I intend to stay there and build up on the work,” Shouster said.

Being able to witness the children grow happier, stronger and healthier is a dream come true for Shouster. She feels privileged to be able to see them again.

While she is heavily committed to her work in Rwanda, Shouster acknowledges that she remains loyal to her hometown: “I also have another commitment: to eventually go back to Israel and Palestine and take the tools that I’m gaining from this work and make things better in my home also. This is my overall commitment.”

Lending a hand Children and volunteers at a WE-ACTx youth program in Rwanda photo courtesy of noam shouster graphics from internet source