The Brandeis Hoot 4/5/2019

Volume 16 Issue 10

“To acquire wisdom, one must observe” www.brandeishoot.com

Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper · Waltham, Mass.

April 5, 2019

DNC Chair speaks on 2020 presidential election

By Celia Young editor

TOM PEREZ

DNC Chair Tom Perez speaks in front of a packed Shapiro Campus Center Theater.

PHOTO BY CELIA YOUNG/THE HOOT

The Chair of the Democratic National Committee let a packed audience know that he was counting the days—528—to the 2020 Presidential Election.

“I’m counting because the world is watching,” Tom Perez said.

Perez spoke about his, and the DNC’s strategies to take back the White House in 2020—by redoubling the DNC’s efforts and refocusing on electing officials “up and down the ballot.” Though the Democratic party won big in the 2018 midterm elections, Perez wants to focus on elections across the nation in 2020, he said.

Perez described becoming a “50 state party” as one of his key strategies–along with winning.

“We understand that our mission is to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, from the school board to the oval office,” Perez

said.

He gave the example of the state supreme court election in Wisconsin–the state hosting the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Perez said that as he spoke, he had DNC members working on the election. The conservative candidate declared victory on Tuesday in the state’s supreme court race, though the election may qualify for a recount, according to a Chicago Tribune Article.

Perez also spoke about engaging voters who were persuaded

by President Donald Trump’s message that he “had your back,” Perez said.

“He said he had your back but he actually had a knife in your back,” Perez continued.

Perez also criticized Republicans who went along with Trump’s policies. “They are cowardly,” he said. “History will judge Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and all See DNC, page 3

Club advisors project passes in the Union Senate

By Rachel Saal editor

The student union has passed

Univ. announces graduation speaker

By Sabrina Chow editor

legislation mandating that all secured clubs must register an official “Club Consultant.” This amendment is serving as a “trial run,” with the intention of eventually applying to all university

clubs, according to Vice President Aaron Finkel ’19.

The Brandeis Media Coalition (BMC), made up of the Justice, BTV, WBRS and The Brandeis Hoot attended the student union’s

meeting and gave their opinions of the proposed legislation.

Isaac Zukin ‘19, the general manager of WBRS, spoke on behalf of the BMC. “We are not in opposition to this proposal, we

Inside This Issue:

See ADVISORS, page 2

TEDx speakers share experiences Application

By Sabrina Chow editor

Members of the Brandeis community gathered for the third annual TEDx Brandeis University, an independently organized TED event. This year’s theme for the event, “Past Perspectives,

Future Minds,” gave each of the five speakers: R Matthews ’19, Nakul Srinivas ’21, Ben Greene ’21, Shaquan McDowell ’18 and Abeer Pamuk MA ’20 spoke about various influential moments or events in their lives that helped shape their outlook on life.

R Matthews: “Loc’d and Coded: The Politics of Dreadlocks” Matthews’ talk focused on his dreadlocks and the coded language behind the dreadlocks. He said at the beginning of his talk that he had been growing out his

fees earn Brandeis over $630k

By Celia Young editor

See TEDx, page 6

Deborah Lipstadt MA ’72, PhD ’76, will deliver the commencement address at Brandeis’ 68th commencement ceremony, according to an email from President Ron Liebowitz. Lipstadt, Rivka Carmi, Jon Landau ’68, Cixin Liu, Barbara Mandel P’73, Perry Traquina ’78 and Susan Windham-Bannister PhD ’77 will all be receiving honorary degrees from the university during commencement.

“Our honorary degree recipients have all distinguished themselves through their lifetimes of groundbreaking achievements,” See GRADUATION, page 5

are in opposition to this proposal as it stands. I think this is a great idea for the majority of clubs on

Brandeis University recently admitted the class of 2023, but from those students who weren’t admitted, Brandeis gained roughly $556,480 in application fees.

The $80 fee, however, isn’t paid by everyone. Out of 11,343 applicants this year, almost 30 percent applied with an application fee waiver, according to Dean of Admissions Jennifer Walker. About 1,027 students have been admitted, according to the MyDeis 2023 FaceBook group.

Of the total number of students who paid the fee, admitted and not admitted, Brandeis made apTEDX BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

News: Commuter rail subsidy to start next year Ops: Union should listen to constituents Features: Student book drive builds library Sports: Softball remains undefeated Editorial: Put more faith in Brandeis students

Students gathered to hear Brandeis students speak at TEDx.

The Ollies

Page 4 Page 11 Looks to honor students, faculty and staff.

Page 8 Page 10 Features: PAGE 7 Page 9

PHOTO BY SABRINA CHOW/THE HOOT

Pindell and more At Festival of the Arts.

ARTS: PAGE 16

See FEES, page 2

NEWS

2 The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

Amendment to require club consultant for secured clubs ADVISORS, from page 1

Brandeis’ campus and I think that this is something that would go really far to improve efficiency and transparency of clubs,” said Zukin.

“However, the requirement to have a club consultant or club advisor for independent media organizations is a problem and is, I would even argue, an existential threat to our organizations and our ability to provide this campus with the service that we were secured to do, which is independent journalism,” he continued.

Zukin said that this proposed legislation would be problematic for media organizations for a number of reasons. He explained that the image to the external and internal community would be affected by the appearance of being connected to a faculty or staff member and it could create potential conflicts of interest.

The BMC sent Vice President Aaron Finkel an additional clause for the amendment that would require media organizations to “register a ‘Financial Consultant’ that will serve as a resource for these organizations in making club financial decisions,” but the clause was not included in the final version of the amendment.

Tal Richtman ’19, a former senator for the class of 2020 and one of the people who originally worked on the initiative three years ago, spoke at the senate meeting and described that when the initiative was initially created, he and others invited club leaders and press to talk about this initiative. He explained how they “don’t

want to harm any media independents.”

The idea for the initiative was inspired by other universities, according to Richtman, and he said that he reached out to other universities and they found that many other clubs have advisors.

In addition, he emphasized how the club members themselves have the ability to switch advisors if needed. He said that an advisor would be a great leader for clubs and allow for support. Richtman explained that the intent of the initiative is not to harm any of the media organizations.

The managing editor of the Justice, Natalia Wiater ’20 spoke on the fact that the titles “Club Consultant” and “Club Advisor” are extremely general, therefore individuals can use these advisors for tasks not relating to finance. Wiater further emphasized that the title financial consultant creates a different idea for the advisor’s role in the club.

Finkel read from the Amendment and said that an advisor would have a limited role in the club.

“Do you expect every single administrator on this campus, faculty member, student, as well as everybody off campus that we deal with to read that? Do you think that’s realistic?” asked Wiater. “I do,” answered Finkel. Finkel said that if an issue arises, then they will show them the constitution.

Wiater then attempted to say more, but Finkel asked that the public only speak further if they are answering a question.

Jacob Diaz ’20 explained that the concerns people have for this

initiative are only concerns until the amendment is passed and they see the effect that it has.

Senate Sustainability Committee Chair Kent Dinlenc ’19 motioned to vote on the amendment, but several senators said that they wanted more time to discuss the proposal. Finkel then called for an executive session, in which only senators would be allowed in the room to deliberate about the BMC’s concerns. After approximately 37 minutes of deliberation, the room was once again opened to the public.

Finkel announced to the room that senators had come to an agreement that they felt was a reasonable compromise. He said that they agreed that leaders would be able to write constraints and terms of their advisor in their club’s contract, but that the official name would still be club consultant.

Zukin asked if they could officially change the name to financial advisor in their own contract, Finkel said that he “personally did not care,” but Senator-at-Large Noah Nguyen ’21 interjected said that the name of the role could not be adjusted in the constitution. Finkel said that they could, however, list them as a financial consultant on their website.

Finkel then called for a vote, and the senators voted unanimously to ratify the amendment.

One of the senators later said that while he voted for the ratification of the amendment, he wishes that it had been handled differently.

Editor’s Note: Celia Young was involved in the BMC negotiations and did not contribute to the writing of this article.

Almost 30 percent of applicants applied to Brandeis with fee waivers FEES, from page 1

proximately $638,640.

“The application fees are an institutional revenue source that helps to support the overall University,” Walker wrote to The Brandeis Hoot in an interview.

Brandeis, like other peer institutions, offers applicants application fee waivers pursuant to a set of guidelines. According to Walker, 3,360 students applied to Brandeis with a fee waiver this year. These include students who receive public assistance, live in federally subsidized public housing and students enrolled in the federal free or reduced price lunch program, among others, according to Walker.

“Brandeis University works to support students in the college admissions process and also encourage access to a college education,” wrote Walker to The Hoot in an email. “Applicants may submit a fee waiver if the Brandeis admissions application fee is a financial burden to their family.”

During the application process, students can let the university know that they intend to submit a fee waiver on the application.

Brandeis’ guidelines for eligibility include if their family income meets the Income Eligibility guide set by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service--a guideline that determines the eligibility of a student for free and reduced price meals, or free milk, according to the United States Department of Agriculture website.

These guidelines also include if the student is a ward of the state or an orphan, and students can provide statements from various officials, such as a school counselor, religious or community leader or community based organization, to help support their financial eligibility, wrote Walker.

Not all fee waivers come from Brandeis. Students can also receive fee waivers from third parties, such as the College Board, the ACT and National Associate of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) among others, according to Walker.

Of the 11,343 applicants, not all students have been admitted and won’t be until the end of the waitlist period on May 1. But students already admitted through early and regular decision have been admitted to the Brandeis MyDeis 2023 Facebook group, and the

number is at 1,027, discounting the 15 administrators of the site.

The site Lend.edu aggregated the amount of money colleges and universities make off of rejected students’ application fees.

Brandeis is ranked at number 93 for the 2016-2017 application cycle, though the site operates “under the assumption that each and every applicant to a respective school had paid the full application fee for that respective school, which is likely not the case,” reads the site. Accounting for application fee waivers would put Brandeis at a lower ranking.

The author of the Lend.edu article, Mike Brown, said that the process of aggregating all of the data was simple, in an interview with The Hoot. Lend.edu uses data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which is provided by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The amount of money that Brandeis made off of rejected applicants—$556,480—is slightly higher than the salary of a high-level administrator at Brandeis, such as the President or the Provost.

IN THE SENATE: March 31, 2018 •

Vice President Aaron Finkel ’19 began the Senate meeting by introducing his successor, Guillermo Caballero ’20.

•

Constitutional Amendment: Kent Dinlenc ’19 proposed a constitutional change for the Brandeis Sustainability Fund, clarifying Mary Fischer’s role and eliminating the amount of paperwork that they will need to do. The amendment passed unanimously.

•

Finkel asked that all senators attend their office hours, and he introduced a new policy: Every Union officer should sign a code of conduct in office when they reach their office hours.

•

The executive board reported that computer science classes will be switching from Java to Python, the treasurer secured $50,000 for next year’s Senate and there will be more dumpsters for move-out. In the past, an external facilities staff evaluated the dorms after move-out for condition reports, but DCL will now be conducting these reports using a different standard. A commuter rail subsidy will be provided for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing internships or educational pursuits in the Boston area.

• •

Senate Committee Chair Reports: Campus Operations Committee Chair Taylor Fu ’21 said that she is meeting with DCL about updating the Airplane Lounge in East Quad, there is a possibility of printers being brought into residence halls, there is now $100,000 available for Senators to potentially use for projects that they want funded and the C-Store will update labeling to clarify what is available for a meal swipe.

•

Students will now be able to search for Student Union documents online.

•

The Brandeis Sustainability Committee discussed possibly holding an event for Earth Day on April 22.

•

Isaac Zukin ’19, general manager of WBRS, began discussion of club consultant amendment and spoke on behalf of the Brandeis Media Coalition. He said that they all support the proposed amendment to require club consultants for all secured clubs but would like media organizations to be able to call the consultants “Financial Consultants” to avoid future conflicts of interest and undermining the media’s role as independent outlets.

•

Class of 2020 Senator Thomas Alger ’20 said that the BMC’s concerns were “doomsday” scenarios. Natalia Wiater ’20 from the Justice said that their newspaper has dealt with people wanting to take an article down and wanting to speak to a club advisor rather than deal with the students.

•

The Senate then entered an executive session. All non-senators were required to leave the room while the senators deliberated for approximately 37 minutes. The room was then opened to the public again and added an amendment to the proposed bill that would let leaders define the language of the club consultant’s responsibilities in their consultant contract. Sixteen senators voted in favor of ratifying the proposed amendment, and it passed.

•

The Senate passed two new amendments: An amendment specifying vice presidential powers was voted on, which passed unanimously; and an amendment that would require every senator to be on two committees was voted on, and the motion passed unanimously.

•

The condoms put out in the bathrooms of first-year residence halls will be restocked.

•

Senator Reports: Topaz Fragoso ’22 is starting a petition to bring a new food company onto campus, and librarians said they support using dining areas as study spaces.

- Rachel Saal

April 5, 2019

NEWS 3

The Brandeis Hoot

DNC Chair Tom Perez speaks about 2020 presidential election, democratic party DNC, from page 1

the other cowards who refused to stand up to the president and allowed the party of Lincoln to die.”

But instead of focusing on Trump and Republicans, Perez wanted to bring the conversation back to the democratic party’s ideas.

“We win by talking about who we stand for and what we’re fighting for,” he said.

And looking to 2020, Perez was optimistic. He described how, like other eras of leadership, the Trump administration must too come to an end. “They came to an end because people stood up,” Perez said.

“They said you know that Lady Liberty? That is who we stand for that is who we are. We can be a nation of laws we can be a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of laws, we are a nation of immigrants. And when we stand up for that and we make sure our leadership does and that’s how we succeed,” he continued.

He then spoke about the issue of inequality, drawing from his experience as Secretary of Labor during the Obama administration fighting income inequality to help the “everyday American struggling to make ends meet.”

But income inequality isn’t the only issue, said Perez.

Racial, LGBTQ+ and disability

inequalities are all issues to focus on–and are inequalities Perez misses addressing during his time in the Obama administration. “I miss helping people at scale,” he said.

Perez moved on to talk about mobilizing voters—especially millennials, as they represent the largest voting block, he said.

Healthcare and climate change are key issues, he explained, and described a strategy of grassroots engagement to organize millennials behind the DNC, while making sure they had not just a voice at the table, but “a megaphone at the table.”

He went on to speak directly to the millennials in the room.

He spoke about a question from an audience member earlier that day, asking if there was room for Muslim Americans at the table in Trump’s America.

“That question embodies why I love your generation,” Perez said.

“Because it’s not simply about how is my life going to be better but my brother and sisters who are Muslim, my brothers and sisters who are LGBTQ, my brothers and sisters with disabilities, my brothers and sisters without hope.

How do we make sure that they’re a part of the American fabric?”

He said that building relationships between people of different

backgrounds is key, and described his plans to recruit and organize 1200 organizers in seven key states to build those relationships.

Organizing is key, he said. “A good organizer is a force mobilizer.”

He spoke about increasing voter turnout, especially with young people, who he said mostly stayed home during the 2016 election.

Perez left the packed Shapiro Campus Center theater with the message of putting hope on the ballot.

“When hope is on the ballot we do well,” he said, and encouraged audience members to never make a decision, or a vote, out of fear.

PHOTOS BY CELIA YOUNG/THE HOOT

Fox Business Network reporter speaks

By Celia Young editor

Fox Business Network reporter John Stossel spoke about his experience in consumer reporting and how it led him to advocate for libertarian views in the news.

Stossel began his talk by explaining how, as a young consumer reporter at ABC, he saw government regulation fail and began to believe that free markets protect people better than the government can, he said.

“Adam Smith was right. The invisible hand is just better,” he said, referring to the economist who theorized that the free market is self-regulating.

Stossel was brought to campus by both the Brandeis and Berklee College of Music chapters of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). YAL received $13,500 from the Allocations Board for Stossel’s speaking fee of $50,000. The rest of the money was supplemented by the Young America’s Foundation, according to YAL President Brandon Musto. A-Board also funded an additional emergency request of $1,115 to cover custodial fees, tech equipment and public safety officers, who were present at the event.

Stossel began by describing his career in journalism and how he had won 19 Emmy Awards—accolades that didn’t continue after he was viewed as a conservative reporter, he said. “I was now

viewed as a conservative, and where I live, not unlike here, that’s like being a child molester. It’s just the worst thing,” he said. But Stossel described himself as “a lousy conservative.”

Stossel also drew attention to a speech made before his presentation by Director of Student Activities Dennis Hicks, who spoke about public safety before the event. “We are fortunate to live in a country that supports free speech,” Hicks read from a prepared statement.

“For those who wish to be vocal in their opposition to the speaker, there’s an area for protest outside of the building,” he continued.

“Please note that any threat to public safety will be dealt with by the university police immediately.”

Stossel, speaking after Hick’s statement, responded, “It’s really sad that your university representative has to make that speech.

I’ve never heard that before. You don’t have to be that respectful,” he said, gaining laughs from the audience.

Stossel’s talk, “Freedom and its enemies,” then moved to focus on government regulation. Stossel said that while most conceive of the market as a zero-sum-game, where there are automatic winners and losers, in reality the market is win-win.

He used the anecdote of opening a small business in America, Hong Kong and India to say that regulation is too high for small

businesses. Stossel said that, in the United States, it took him weeks to open a lemonade stand, while in Hong Kong, he was able to open a small business in a day.

Stossel attributed Hong Kong’s prosperity to how easy it was to open a business in the country.

A student from Hong Kong spoke during the question and answer period, and, citing government programs like public housing, asked Stossel what he thought of Hong Kong’s government involvement in the market.

After asking for the question to be repeated, saying he has “trouble hearing accents,” Stossel responded that most don’t receive public housing and that the free market is better at allocating resources.

Stossel went on to criticize President Donald Trump, who he described as “no fan of the Constitution or of private property.” He gave the example of Vera Coking, who refused to sell her New Jersey house to Trump. Trump wanted the property to expand his casino and threatened the use of eminent domain by the government to get it, according to a Washington Post article.

“He [Trump] loves eminent domain,” Stossel said. “That’s the law that lets you grab somebody else’s property for a so-called public project.” Stossel spoke about confronting Trump in an interview which he played for audience members, calling the politicians working with Trump “cronies.”

Over 10 students had questions

for Stossel, and many questioned his viewpoints. Two students asked about whether the government could address a lack of health care and climate change better than the market. Stossel was skeptical of government intervention in healthcare, saying that charity can address the lack of drugs for rare diseases.

On climate change, Stossel questioned whether or not climate change will be a crisis.

“Maybe we can adjust to higher waters,” he said. “It’s not necessarily a crisis.” He went on to say, “Above all, there’s nothing we can do about it now that would make

any difference.”

Another student, Leon Rothenstein ’19, asked whether or not Stossel thought that the Fox Network’s Alliance with Trump undermines their integrity as journalists. Stossel responded that some commentators on Fox News, like Sean Hannity, are not journalists but advocates.

Rothenstein asked if this advocacy hurt people trying to get news. Stossel responded that yes, it could hurt, but before there was only the left-leaning networks and having right-wing advocacy was better than nothing.

PHOTO BY CELIA YOUNG/THE HOOT

4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

Survey circulates about environmental impact of student newspapers

By Thalia Plata staff

A member of the Student Union, Class of 2019 Senator Kent Dinlenc ’19 sent out a survey in a Facebook post regarding the interest in and sustainability of having two student newspapers on campus on Wednesday afternoon. A couple of hours later, Dinlenc posted a different version of the post, removing any mention of the Senate Sustainability committee, also known as SenSus. Dinlenc prefaced the survey by stating that “Out of 830 college campuses in the United States that have student-run newspapers, only 29 of them (including Brandeis) have more than one.”

The survey asks what on-campus newspaper the respondent reads, and gives the option of the Justice, The Hoot, both or neither.

It also asks what medium they prefer, and their level of interest in keeping both newspapers.

Dinlenc, who said he will be leaving the survey open another week, also included a question asking the respondent if they have ever contributed to either newspaper. In an email interview with The Brandeis Hoot, Dinlenc states, “I incorporated the question about writing for either paper because I plan on removing all votes from students who are [writing for either paper] (including my own) to eliminate bias.”

In an email to The Hoot, Din-

lenc said he spoke to SenSus about the survey and that the committee did not voice concerns about it. “Any concerns brought up have only been criticisms of the possible intention of merging the papers, not with the survey itself. When I asked the committee if the survey was good with everyone, the only voiced concerns were with the merger issue itself.”

Less than six hours after his initial Facebook post, however, Dinlenc removed reference to SenSus and instead said “I’m gauging interest…” rather than the original post’s wording, “the Senate Sustainability Committee is gauging interest in minimizing the environmental impact of university papers on campus.”

In an email interview with The Hoot, Dinlenc added that “It shouldn’t be taboo to defer to constituents on their opinion of a matter. I’m trying to avoid another Pianogate by actually providing data to back any move that may proceed if desired by the student body.”

In an interview with The Hoot, Sabrina Chow ’21, a committee member on the Sustainability Committee, claims that Dinlenc did not get approval to release the survey on behalf of the committee. Chow is also the opinions editor and treasurer of The Hoot.

The bylaws of the Student Union state that all decisions made by SenSus need to go through the non-Senate co-chair as well as the rest of the committee. Both Din-

lenc and Chow agreed that she would fulfil the role of non-Senate co-chair after the original cochair stopped coming to SenSus meetings, according to screenshots of a Facebook messenger conversation provided by Chow.

Chow is the only non-Senator member of the Sustainability committee, making her the only student able to be a co-chair.

But according to Dinlenc, Chow is not the non-Senate Chair.

Dinlenc confirmed the screenshot but added, “I changed my mind due to the unethical nature of Sabrina’s position. That was months ago.” When asked if he informed Chow, he said, “I did not formally tell her because I thought it wasn’t necessary to inform a news editor to follow her own code of journalistic ethics.”

Chow is not the news editor, but the opinions editor of The Hoot.

In a statement to The Hoot, Dinlenc wrote: “It [the non-senate chair] is still Cam Bechmann from when I appointed him last year. However, he has not attended a meeting since September. Sabrina is the only non-Senate member of the committee, but it would be extremely unethical to appoint a news editor of a campus paper as a co-chair of a SU committee.

That’s a major conflict of interest, so the committee was forced to operate without a co-chair.”

Chow is not a news editor of The Hoot, but the opinions editor.

Dinlenc also referred to Article VI Section 2 (a) of the Con-

stitution’s bylaws, which states, “The President of the Union Senate shall, subject to confirmation by the majority of present and voting Senators, appoint all Senate and Non-Senate Chairs of standing committees.”

“Finkel never confirmed Sabrina, she was never co-chair to begin with,” Dinlenc wrote. “Cam Bechmann was appointed with Benedikt’s permission at the time he was VP last semester.” Aaron Finkel ’19 could not be reached for comment before publication.

Although a writer for the Justice, Dinlenc says he has no bias.

“I’m just as critical with the Justice as I am with The Hoot. I’m not a Justice editor. I’ve never voted to elect any editor… I see myself as a seasoned contributor to the arts section and occasionally the forum section,” wrote Dinlenc.

In an interview with The Hoot, Jacob Diaz ’20, Senator for Off Campus Students and member of SenSus, was surprised that Dinlenc did not consider Chow the non-Senate Chair. According to Diaz, Chow has been referred to as the co-chair in multiple meetings and has been operating in the role.

The Hoot reached out to all other SenSus committee members regarding Chow’s role, but only Class of 2020 Senator Trevor Filseth ’20 responded: “Sabrina isn’t co-chair.

I reached out directly to Kent about this and he confirmed it.”

Dinlec said that SenSus met to discuss this issue on March 25 and sporadically in previous meetings.

“He addressed it at one SenSus meeting, which happened to be the only meeting I wasn’t at,” said Chow. Chow claims that Dinlenc has shown interest in pursuing a merger between the two student newspapers. Being part of the editorial board, Chow said that The Hoot editors would not be interested; instead the two newspapers discussed decreasing printing, but nothing has been decided.

Chow, who is also treasurer for The Hoot, said merging the two newspapers would not decrease Student Union spending.

“We spent under 10k last semester, while the Justice spends 20k each semester,” said Chow.

Chow also claims that Dinlenc changed the meeting time for the committee at the last minute. Diaz corroborated this claim in an interview with The Hoot. As a result, only Dinlenc and Mary Fischer, the Sustainability Manager on campus, were present in discussing the issue, according to Chow.

The Hoot reached out to all members of the SenSus Committee. Four of the six members confirmed that they were not at the meeting. The Hoot confirmed that Dinlenc was at the meeting but was unable to confirm whether Madeline Scherff ’22, the sixth member of SenSus, was at the meeting.

Editor’s note: Sabrina Chow is The Hoot’s opinions editor and treasurer. She did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article.

Commuter rail subsidy to begin next semester

By Ryan Spencer editor

Students may request reimbursement from the university for educational trips to and from Boston starting next semester thanks to a new program funded by the Student Union and Campus Operations.

The program—which will apply to full time undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at Brandeis—will cover the cost of trips occurring outside the normal hours of the Brandeis

Boston Shuttle for various academic or educational purposes.

The program broadly defines what trips will qualify and includes travel to get to internships, visit libraries for specific research purposes, explore exhibits or historical sites associated with classes, visit museums and attend artistic events such as plays and concerts.

It will not reimburse students traveling for purposes such as attending a party, going on a date, visiting friends and family or getting to the airport or South Station for further travel.

The subsidy project came to fruition after attempts were made

in past years to establish a shuttle which would carry students to Riverside Station. The so-called Riverside shuttle, however, “never really went well” and “wasn’t really worth the money,” according to Student Union President Hannah Brown ’19, who worked with administrators to establish the new commuter rail subsidy program.

“There is less of an opportunity for waste” with the commuter rail subsidy program than with the Riverside shuttle, Brown said.

“It’s reimbursed when it’s used, so it’s better than having an empty shuttle running around all day.”

The program will run a tri-

al period through the entirety of the next academic year with a $20,000 budget. If it begins to reach its budget before the end of the year, the Union and administrators will meet to discuss options, according to Student Union section of the Brandeis website.

Reimbursements will be administered through the Hiatt Career Center. Students seeking reimbursement will fill out a request on the Hiatt website and attach the train ticket and the ticket to any event which was the purpose of the trip. Reimbursements will be processed approximately three times a semester and those

who submitted qualifying requests will receive a check mailed to their mailing address of record.

Only the round trip cost of the commuter rail will be subsidized and any additional costs will be the student’s responsibility.

The Hiatt staff will reserve the right to ask for more detail and may seek the corroboration of faculty or staff if a student seeks reimbursement for academic purposes that cannot be independently verified by Hiatt.

The effectiveness and costs of the program will be evaluated at the end of the academic year.

Author discusses ‘red state paradox’

By Emma Lichtenstein editor

A professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley discussed her research process and novel about understanding Southern politics on Thursday.

Arlie Russell Hochschild, professor emerita of University of California, Berkeley spoke about “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.”

Going into the research, Hochschild wanted to “permit [herself] a great deal of… curiosity for people [she] knew [she] would have differences with.”

Hochschild spoke about the “red state paradox,” which she described as states that could benefit the most from a strong, liberal

government, but are the most conservative and the most likely to vote for Republican candidates.

Hochschild traveled to the “super south:” Louisiana. Louisiana is known for having high pollution, poor education and low employment. Despite this, Hochschild found almost all of the white citizens did not vote Democratically in the 2012 presidential election. Her research goal was to explain this phenomenon.

Jumping right into the heart of the action she tried to really understand and befriend the Louisianans. She attended meetings for Republican women, went to church services, played Rook (a popular card game) and went fishing.

In her research, she asked about the red state paradox, only to find that most were aware of this phe-

nomenon, and most brushed it off.

They claimed that liberals had it wrong, the government wouldn’t help people like them, she said.

Louisiana runs on the oil industry, so a liberal, environmentally friendly government would bring the state to even more ruin. And the government is in the north, so they believe that the north is then prioritized.

Hochschild states that most of the reasoning from Louisiana citizens comes from a “deep story,” creating beliefs based on an emotionally provocative situation. She explains, “you are waiting in a line… at the top of the hill is the American dream… the line has not moved for many years and you are very tired. You are looking at all those in front of you, not at all those behind you… you notice that there are line cutters.”

These line cutters are people of color, women, immigrants, anyone helped by affirmative action, environmentalists, etc.

They believed that Obama was not their president; he was the president of the Northerners, the line cutters, said Hochschild.

These people felt marginalized, she continued. Southerners are often harshly and quickly judged

by Northerners; they feel put down because of where they live, because of what they believe. They felt “marginalized and estranged.”

They are “entitled to be Americans, but pushed back [in line].”

When Donald Trump announced he was running, Louisiana rallied around him, Hochschild said. Here was a man who believed the same things they all secretly did, and he was not afraid to publicly announce it. Hoch-

schild theorizes that Trump almost cleared them of their shame.

Their beliefs were attacked, but Trump was fighting back. When the press would respond negatively to Trump’s comments, he would respond with something even nastier. Trump allowed these people to live vicariously through him, she noted.

At the end of the project, Hochschild thought about a “blue state paradox.” The Democratic party, the party meant to appeal to the working class, had no appeal to the actual working class citizens in many parts of the country. Perhaps it’s because conservatives are not truly poor, but are “the elite of the losers,” she theorized—not poor enough to be in poverty, but still not upper class.

April 5, 2019

NEWS 5

The Brandeis Hoot

Commencement speaker announced GRADUATION, from page 1

said Liebowitz in the email.

“Their accomplishments stretch across the academy, the arts and sciences, and the business world, providing sources of inspiration for all our degree recipients.”

Lipstadt was the 100th individual to receive a PhD from Brandeis and is one of the most well-known historians of the Holocaust, according to the email.

She will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Brandeis, according to a BrandeisNOW article.

Lipstadt is currently the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and is the author of “History on Trial,” which was published in 2005.

“She chronicled the London courtroom battle that erupted when English author David Irving filed a libel suit against her in the United Kingdom for having called him a Holocaust denier,” according to the BrandeisNOW article. Her book was adapted into the critically acclaimed 2016 feature film “Denial,” starring Rachel Weisz.

Her most recent book, “Antisemitism: Here and Now,” published in early 2019, “continues to warn the world about the ever-present danger of antisemitic hatred and violence,” according to the BrandeisNOW article.

Lipstadt was the founder and first director of the Institute for

Jewish Studies at Emory. She was a historical consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and helped to design the part of the museum that focused on the American response to the Holocaust. She was also given the Albert D. Chernin Award, the highest honor given out by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Carmi, who will receive a Doctor of Science honorary degree, was the first woman to serve as president of an Israeli university at Ben-Gurion University (BGU) in Negev from 2006-2018, according to the Brandeis website.

She graduated from Hadassah Medical School of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a pediatrician, neonatologist and medical geneticist.

Carmi was previously the Kreitman Foundation Chair in Pediatric Genetics at BGU, according to the Brandeis website, and has published more than 150 works on medical genetics, as well as helped to identify 12 genes and describe three syndromes, one of which is named after herself.

Carmi also served as director of the Genetics Institute at Soroka University Medical Center, an affiliated teaching hospital with BGU and the chair of Israel’s Association of University Heads, where she advocated for the “advancement of women in medicine and academia,” according to the Brandeis website. She was also made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, an honor

Architect speaks on symbolism

By Rachel Saal editor

Balancing between function and beauty can often be difficult when designing higher education facilities, according to an architect who spoke at Brandeis on Tuesday evening as a part of the Richard Saivetz ’69 Annual Memorial Architectural Lecture Series. Hom said that the architect’s clients are not just the students of today, but also the students of the future.

“The culture of the facility and what symbolism is there is more important than personal expression because this is what the school is all about. How you incorporate new technology and new design is all apart of the responsibility,” said Kevin Hom, world-renowned architect and friend of the late Richard Saivetz, ’69, after whom the event was named.

Hom said that from architecture such as the chapels, he gets the sense that Brandeis is an institution that is interested in exploring and challenging itself in terms of what the next building is going to be doing.

Hom said that many architects care more about the beauty that comes from function, while others are more concerned with the effect that the beauty creates.

“Very few places call for symbolism more than universities.

They exemplify all the things that we hold dear and that are important to us, especially in democracy.

The pursuit of knowledge, equal access, the ability to succeed and excel, the embracement of traditions, fairplay are all the things that the American university rep-

resents to the world,” said Hom. “There’s always the hope that someone, in someway, will do something that we will remember.”

Hom spoke about many different universities around the world that serve as examples of different architectural styles and modes of symbolism. He said that Cambridge University is the example of the quintessential suburban campus.

“Learning from your predecessors, learning what cultures value, and the symbols that remain important for that culture is part of the responsibility of an architect,” said Hom. Hom serves as the Dean of Technology & Design at the City University of New York. He and Saivetz met while studying at Columbia University. They remained friends for years after, and Hom is still friends with Saivetz’s wife, Brandeis Trustee Carol Richman Saivetz ’69, P ’97, P ’01, who created the Richard Saivetz ’69 Annual Memorial Architectural Lecture Series following his death in April 2000. Richard Saivetz served as a university trustee and president of the alumni association in the 1990s.

“Richards phrase was draw don’t think,” said Hom. “If he was here he would be teasing the hell out of me for speaking at an event in his name.”

Richman Saivetz was in attendance of the event, and she said that it was the first time that she heard Hom give a lecture and that she thought that he did a great job.

bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II. Landau was a history major at Brandeis and wrote music reviews for the Justice as well as national publications like Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone while he was an undergraduate. He will receive a Doctor of Music honorary degree.

After graduating from Brandeis, he was named editor of Rolling Stone’s album review section.

He also helped rock and roll star Bruce Springsteen’s rise to fame by developing a creative and business partnership with Springsteen and becoming his manager, according to the Brandeis website.

Landau has been Springsteen’s manager for 40 years and is the chair of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee. He also created the Jonathan Landau ’68 Endowed Scholarship in 1997 to help fine arts majors at Brandeis.

Liu, who will receive a Doctor of Arts honorary degree, is a science fiction writer who has written seven novels and numerous short stories. He was also a nine-time recipient of the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious literary science-fiction award, according to the Brandeis website.

“The Three-Body Problem” (2007), Liu’s most famous work, talks about an alien civilization that attempts to invade Earth to save itself from extinction. The book begins in the 1970s during the Cultural Revolution in China.

Critics of Liu’s works say that it measures “the limits of human

understanding,” according to the Brandeis website. “Though we are compelled to attempt to scale the highest peaks, Liu writes, ‘we are all always at the foot,’ because the universe’s mysteries will remain far beyond our comprehension.”

Mandel was elected to the Board of Trustees in 2005 and a vice chair of the board, co-chair of the Institutional Advancement Committee and a member of the Nominating and Governance, and Coordination committees.

She will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree.

Mandel was also the president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the national vice president of the National Women’s Division of United Jewish Appeal. Mandel received the Hannah G. Solomon Award from the National Council of Jewish Women and has been inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame.

Mandel and her husband, Morton Mandel, donated a gift to Brandeis that helped to build the Mandel Center for the Humanities. The Mandel Center auditorium is dedicated in her honor.

Traquina, who will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree, is a retired chairman and CEO of Wellington Management Company. The company is an investment management firm, which manages more than $900 billion in client assets, according to the Brandeis website. He is also a corporate director on the board

of eBay, Morgan Stanley and Allstate.

He has served on the Board of Trustees since 2002 and is currently the chair of the Investment Committee and a member of the Resources Committee. Traquina studied economics and American studies while at Brandeis, graduating summa cum laude, and was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Windham-Bannister is an internationally recognized expert in “innovation, market access and market optimization strategies,” according to the Brandeis website, and will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree. She is a managing partner of Biomedical Innovation Advisors, a company she founded with Harvey Lodish. She also serves as president and CEO of Biomedical Growth Strategies.

She was also the president and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center for seven years, which is a “state-funded investment organization charged with administering a $1 billion life science-focused innovation fund created by Gov. Deval Patrick,” according to the Brandeis website. Windham-Bannister is also the first African American to lead a large scale life sciences innovation fund.

Windham-Bannister was named one of the 10 Most Influential Women in Biotech by The Boston Globe and one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Boston

by Boston Magazine.

Measles in Boston, Brandeis has high vaccine compliance

By Ryan Spencer editor

A person was diagnosed with measles in the greater Boston area on Sunday, March 31, 2019 and, while infectious, traveled to several places—including locations in Waltham—where others may have been exposed, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH).

Measles is spread more easily than almost any other disease, according to the Massachusetts website.

Vaccination is the best way to protect against measles, which was declared eliminated from the United States due to a highly effective vaccination program, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The measles vaccine is usually given in a MMR shot which protects against measles, mumps and rubella. The MMR vaccine— which the CDC suggests children first receive when they are between 2 and 15 months old and again around the time they enter kindergarten—is 93 percent effective with one dose and 97 percent effective with two doses.

People who are not immune and who visited any of the locations on the dates and times listed by the Massachusetts DPH may be at risk of developing measles and should contact their healthcare provider, according to the DPH. Symptoms develop between 10 to 14 days after exposure and may resemble a cold with fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes. A rash, usually on the head first, occurs two to four

days after the initial symptoms develop, according to the DPH. Exposures to the individual with measles may have occurred in Waltham at the Starbucks on Market Place Drive on Wednesday, March 27, between 8:40 and 10:45 a.m.; at the Staples at 800 Lexington St. between 8:50 and 11:10 a.m. on Thursday March 28; and at the Dunkin’ at the Wal-Lex Shopping Center at 876A Lexington St. between 9:10 and 11:15 a.m. on Thursday, March 28.

Exposure may also have occurred Tuesday, March 26 at KKatie’s Burger Bar in Plymouth, MA, on Thursday, March 28 at Whole Foods in Hyannis, MA, and on Thursday, March 28 at Target in Braintree, MA. For a complete list of locations and times, visit the Massachusetts DPH website.

“Massachusetts regulates proof of immunity (through vaccine records or blood tests proving immunity) for all incoming students, including college students,” the administrative director of the

Brandeis Health Center, Diana Denning, wrote to The Brandeis Hoot in an email. “Brandeis has a very high compliance rate.”

“College campuses are considered higher risk environments for infectious diseases as transmission is easier within dense living conditions. That is why we have the regulated requirements for proof of immunity before arrival to campus,” she said.

2019 has seen the second-greatest number of diagnosed cases of measles in the U.S. since the disease was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, according to data from the CDC. There were 387 individual cases confirmed between Jan 1. and March 28, 2019.

More cases of measles can occur in any given year because of an increase in the number of travelers who get measles while abroad and bring it back to the U.S. or because of measles spreading in pockets of unvaccinated people, according to the CDC.

PHOTO FROM MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH

6 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

TEDx presenters reflect on past, look toward future TEDX, from page 1

dreadlocks for almost two years and felt like the dreadlocks were a connection for him to his Jamaican heritage and his mother.

He went on to debunk common myths and misconceptions about dreadlocks. “It is what happens when natural hair is left to grow on its own,” he explained. “It will grow how it wants. It is essentially an encouraged section of knots.”

Matthews also spoke about a 2016 law that gave companies the right to refuse to hire an individual because of their dreadlocks. “My mother had to cut her own dreadlocks to ensure a job in the U.S.,” he said.

As he entered his senior year and started applying for jobs, Matthews once again didn’t know what to do about his hair. “Did I really want to work for a company that wasn’t willing to accept my full self?” Matthews asked himself. He said that he found himself pulling his hair back so employers would focus on his face, not his hair.

“To all the people who judge me based on my hair, thank you,” Matthews said. “You serve as my catalyst to my evaluation of self.”

Nakul Srinivas: Hindu Stories Teach us about

“What can Gender”

In fourth grade, Srinivas saw a same-sex couple for the first time. “Why does that girl have two moms?” he asked his parents.

Nakul related this experience to Hindu mythology, which has three main deities: Brahma the

Creator, Shiva the Destroyer and Vishnu the Preserver. All of the gods are both male and female, according to Srinivas.

Srinivas highlighted how “gender is not only fluid but attractive.” To Srinivias, Shakhandi, the main character in a famous Hindu epic, was as a superhero that he needed in his life. “But maybe it’s the eternal stories of the past that can help direct the future.”

Ben are

Greene: you

“Where sitting?”

During Greene’s junior year of high school, “I stopped being able to recognize the person that was looking back on me, looking in the mirror,” he said.

After surviving a major car accident, Greene decided to come out to his family and friends. As one of two trans people at his school, Greene helped develop trans topics in the school curriculum and became the president of a secret underground LGBT group in the state of Connecticut.

Greene then told the story of his coming out and finding himself.

During one of the lowest points of his life, Greene “couldn’t see a reason to be alive,” he said during his talk. After being locked in a pediatric emergency ward, Greene said a guy in a “cool leather jacket and street clothes looked at me and said, ‘Hey, I heard what you said, and I want to let you know that as long as you stay true to yourself, everything will work out.’”

He said that this man was a sign that helped show him the light.

Throughout his talk, Greene

also spoke about ways to be a better ally for trans people: Don’t stop learning; it’s no one’s place to identify someone except yourself; it’s okay to admit you don’t know something and to listen to trans people.

Shaquan McDowell: “An Arbitrary Racial Identity: The Evolution of Race in America” McDowell talked about his interest in genealogy, guiding us through his ancestral past and what he discovered about American perspectives on race.

He discovered that there was a change in what people perceived as “black” after the Civil War. He focused on one of his ancestors, his fifth great-grandmother Elizabeth Scott, who lived through the Civil War and was labeled as both white and black throughout the course of her life due to this change in definition in the 1860s. Scott’s experience of living most of her life perceived as white, and then labeled as black by outside forces, shows the triviality of race itself, said McDowell.

“The way a person looks and who they actually are can often be misleading,” McDowell said during his talk. “Race is an idea that is encapsulated in society.”

“The use of race as a prejudice apparatus is just stupid,” because race is ever-changing, he said.

“But it’s still a methodology of prejudice we still utilize,” he continued. “We believe that we can look at a person and see how they will vote and what social movements they will identify with.”

McDowell believes everyone should be more inquisitive and create dialogues about race, rather than making assumptions based on their outward appearances.

I

Abeer Won

Pamuk: The Syrian

“How War”

Pamuk highlighted on the power of dreaming and demonstrated how dreams can be made into reality.

Pamuk spoke about her personal connection to the Syrian War: she lived through it. On the dusk of a summer day in 2012, a bomb destroyed Pamuk’s house. During her last few minutes at home after being forced out by her mother, she stood next to her brother’s bed while he was sleeping. “I wanted to watch the silhouette of his chest moving up and down,” she said. “It gave me an extended image of him alive before I left.”

On the first day of midterms in 2013 while Pamuk was in Leb-

anon, the University of Aleppo, where she studied, was bombed.

Even though her family survived, Pamuk found out that four of her friends had died. After learning this news Pamuk was determined to make it back home.

Her next dream was to start a new chapter of her life; she wanted to move to the brightest city in the world: New York City.

Like home in Syria, Pamuk was mentored by another single mother in Brooklyn. It was this second mother that helped Pamuk accomplish all her firsts in New York. “My dreams were knitted by two single mothers who sit an ocean apart. They’re knitted by the people of New York City who mentored me and made sure I stayed here,” she said. “I stand here today to prove that single mothers are amazing, and girls can fly.”

All of the talks are available on TEDx Brandeis’ Facebook and YouTube pages.

PHOTO BY SABRINA CHOW/THE HOOT

Students beat faculty in ‘Hoops for Help’

By Ryan Spencer editor

Students beat faculty and staff 50-40 in a basketball game that accompanied a fundraiser to support causes at Brandeis.

The causes included the Brandeis Food Pantry, the Student Emergency Fund, the Gen-

eral Scholarship Fund, The Green Fund for Campus Sustainability, World of Work (WOW) Fellowships and the Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center (PARC).

The six causes will share $10,000 donated by a Brandeis alumna. The money will be divided between the causes according to how additional donors vote in a challenge that the event called a

#1Gift1Vote Challenge.

According to the challenge rules, a donation of at least $5 to one of the six causes also counted as a vote for that cause. The $10,000 will be divided among the causes according to what percentage of the votes each cause received.

Students opened the scoring in the first quarter and led through-

out the game, if only narrowly.

The first quarter break saw a shooting challenge where a student could win $500 cash by making a layup, a freethrow, a three point shot and a half-court shot in under a minute. The participant, Camila Casanueva, made the first three shots but narrowly missed the half-court shot after several attempts.

At halftime, several students competed for a $50 cash prize in a game of musical chairs.

A dance off between the Judge mascot and “blue man,” someone dressed in a blue morph suit, entertained after the third quarter.

The faculty team managed to score in the closing seconds of the game, but it was not enough to come back against the students.

Author speaks on history of Iranian Jews

By Madeline Herrup staff

The author of a book about Jewish history in Iran spoke about the history of Iranian Jews and the community’s present impact on the global Jewish community.

Lior Sternfeld is the author of the book “Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth Century Iran.” He is not an Iranian Jew himself. Sternfeld comes from an Ashkenazi Jewish background and studied the Middle East at Ben Gurion University in Israel.

Initially he had no intention of being academically invested in the studies of Iranian Jewry, he said. However, his interest in how Iranian Jewish voices during the Iranian Revolution impacted history started the path he is on now.

The presentation consisted mainly of a rundown of Iranian Jewish history, as the title of the talk, “Revolutionary Jews: The Politicization of The Iranian Jewish Communities In The Twentieth Century,” described.

He began with a focus on the lack of information available surrounding the Middle East and Jews from the Middle East outside of Israel. He presents results of searching for literature on Iranian Jewish history in the 20th century, as opposed to other regions such as the US, Germany or China. The results are significantly small in number, prompting Sternfeld to delve in further.

An ongoing component of the discussion involved Iranian Jews and the historically growing conversation around Zionism.

The movement emphasizes the re-establishment and protection of a Jewish homeland. In modern terms, this refers to the present states of Israel and Palestine.

The discussion of Zionism is one of several major points Sternfeld presents to tie together the strong identity many Iranian Jews had historically, and presently, with their personal homeland: Iran. Politics within the country did not go against this idea; many individuals understood it, kept overall positive

ties with the later established State of Israel and, with all this in mind, decided to remain in Iran.

As Zionism and other movements gained footing, Jews from Iran often made their connection to Iran clear, said Sternfeld.

Though Israel may be a historic homeland for the Jewish people, they make a point to separate this from what they see as truly familiar and as a home.

Sternfeld focuses on many aspects of Iranian society—both before, during and after the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s—and how the Jewish communities within Iran contributed to history. This included newspapers such as Nissan, Tamuz and Bnei Adam; all words found in Hebrew but written in Persian, the language spoken in Iran.

One significant contribution Sternfeld includes in his presentation is the importance of Sapir Hospital in Tehran, a Jewish hospital recognized as pivotal especially during the Iranian Revolution. Along with the traditional Persian writing on

the front of the hospital, a well known Hebrew phrase stands out on one corner of the building.

The Hebrew phrase “ve’ahavta le’raecha kamokha” translates to “love your neighbor as yourself.” These words stand out in the context of Iranian Jewish history. Sternfeld segways from this into a quote from a memoir titled “Journey from the Land of No” about a young girl in Iran growing up before and during the Iranian Revolution.

The quote describes the central figure in the story at a Passover seder in late 1970s Tehran.

The person “dreamt of the land of milk and honey,” or how Jews and biblical texts refer to the land of Israel, “but wanted to wake up in Tehran.” This quotes brings the deep feeling of identity and belonging to Iran home for the global community of Iranian Jews.

Sternfeld went on to present the difficulty many scholars have with differentiating what is Middle East Studies, and not Jewish Studies. His main point is that Iranian Jews specifically

have a history reaching beyond their relationship to Judaism, to include geography, culture and personal identity as Iranian Jews.

Sternfeld ended his talk and Q&A with stating that “we’re about to see the revisiting of Jewish Iranian history.” Sternfeld described the LA, California, and Great Neck, NY, regions as ones with prominent Iranian Jewish communities, and said that this group is significant within the global Jewish community.

Sternfeld began and ended his talk with the idea that Iranian Jewry is something worth analyzing and paying attention to.

Furthermore, Sternfeld states that while it is not currently easy to be Jewish in Iran, the community has remained stable for the past few decades. This speaks volumes for the resilience of Iran’s Jewish communities, ultimately contributing to global Jewry, along with the ability to sustain complex histories even when not fairly represented in history books, he said.

FEATURES

April 5, 2019

The Brandeis Hoot 7

Awards show looks to honor students and faculty across campus

By Sabrina Chow editor

Let’s face it, we have all had that dLet’s face it, we have all had that dream to walk a red carpet with famous Hollywood stars, gazing into a sea of flashing cameras, getting the chance for a spotlight.

But the reality… most of us will never get to that point. But we do have the next best thing: Brandeis’ own awards show, The Ollies!

After a conversation between Director of Student Activities Dennis Hicks, Student Activities Specialist Robbie Steinberg and members of the Student Union, the awards show was born. Led

by Benedikt Reynolds ’19, The Ollies “is meant to help recognize the work and passion students, clubs, faculty and staff put in through the year and spread some love,” Reynolds told The Brandeis Hoot in an email.

Reynolds and the rest of the founding committee thought the award show would be a great opportunity for the extracurricular community to come together outside of the Activities Fair to recognize the work that students put in throughout the school year.

A committee of seven undergraduates were chosen from

different club categories across campus to form the Ollies Awards Selection Committee, according to their website: academic, spiritual, sports and fitness, media and publications, political and advocacy, etc. Along with Hicks and Steinberg, this committee will review all the nominations and select award winners.

According to The Ollies official website, the main inspiration for The Ollies was the student leader awards that are given out at The University of Chicago (UC).

A majority of the categories of awards are similar to UC with the addition of a few awards to recognize more groups on campus.

There are eight different award categories, but there is no limit to the number of awards that will be given out in each category, according to their website. All the nomination forms involve the nominator to give reasons why the nominee is deserving of each of the respective awards.

The committee will then use this reasoning to decide on winners.

The nomination deadline is Wednesday, April 10 at 11:59 p.m. Any undergraduate, faculty or staff member can nominate someone for an award.

Nominators can only nominate a person, event or club once per

award but are able to make as many nominations as they want.

Winners will be notified on April 17th and will be given their awards at the ceremony on May 1 in the SCC theater and atrium at 7 p.m.

RISE Up Award: This award is open to all undergraduate students that have demonstrated the principles of RISE: Reflect, Intervene, Speak, Engage. “Through their engagement with members of the campus community, student awardees represent our shared commitment to the values of diversity and inclusion,” according to the award description.

Volunteer Service Award: This award is open to all undergraduate students; however, self-nominations are not accepted. Students must be nominated by a member of the Brandeis community or beyond. “The award acknowledges voluntary community service that extends beyond the boundaries of Brandeis and has significant impact on the greater community,” according to the award description. The selection committee will also look at the nominee’s engagement in community service to the greater community beyond Brandeis.

Outstanding Leadership Award: This award is only open to graduating seniors who have

made “outstanding contributions” through their co-curricular activities and to a range of different campus organizations.

Campus Life and Leadership Award: This award is open to all undergraduate students on campus who have made “exceptional and unique contributions to the University community,” according to the award description. The award is similar to the Outstanding Leadership Award, except it is open to non-graduating students.

Unsung Hero Award: This award is open to all undergraduate students who do not serve in an executive leadership position. “The Unsung Hero award recognizes students who have positively influenced a program or organization from behind the scenes with a positive attitude, a willingness to help in whatever capacity necessary, and a commitment to excellence,” according to the award description.

Outstanding Faculty and Staff Award: Open to any faculty or staff member at Brandeis, this award is specifically targeted towards work done during the 2018-2019 academic school year. The award is looking to honor members of the faculty and staff that have positively influenced and improved student organizations on campus

and made exceptional contributions to the Brandeis community.

Club of the Year: Open to any club on campus, regardless if they are recognized by the Student Union or not, this award recognizes different student organizations that have “demonstrated consistent flexibility, initiative, creativity and perseverance through their activities and programs,” according to the award description. Members of the club are able to nominate their own organization and the actions must have been accomplished April 2018 through March 2019.

Event of the Year: This award is open to any event that was organized and put on during the 20182019 academic school year. The organizing group does not have to be a recognized club by the Student Union and members of the planning committee for the event are able to nominate their own event.

“The organization’s event exemplified a commitment to leadership development, collaboration among groups, and programmatic efforts to enhance the quality of campus life at Brandeis,” according to the award description.

Featured Events Calendar Civic Engagement Celebration!

Friday, April 5, 11 a.m.3:30p.m., Shapiro Campus Center Atrium and Multipurpose Room Come one, come all to the biggest celebration of civic participation Brandeis has ever seen! We will be hosting Brandeis clubs, state organizations and other resources to show the students at Brandeis how they can affect systemic change in their communities.

There will be tabling to show how you can get involved at the campus, local or state level to make change. We will also have a panel discussion featuring the elected representatives of Waltham to talk about how constituents affect their agenda. Panelists include Waltham Mayor Jeanette McCarthy, State Representative Tom Stanley and State Senator Michael Barrett.

Tabling will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the panel will begin at 2 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center Multipurpose Room.

Refreshments will be served.

Toxic’s Soul Train Showcase!

Saturday, April 6, 7-9 p.m., Shapiro Campus Center Theater Love, Peace, & Soul Train- We are paying homage to “America’s Favorite Dance Show,” Soul Train, that aired in 1971 and ran for over 30 years, showcasing icons such as the Jackson 5, David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Destiny’s Child and hundreds more!

A Living Matter: The Character-System(s) of Anna Karenina Monday, April 8, 2-4 p.m., Shiffman 219 Lecturer: Chloë Kitzinger, Assistant Professor, Department of German, Russian, & East European Languages & Literatures at Rutgers University Refreshments will be served.

ENACT Forum on Women’s Political Engagement Monday, April 8, 2-3:15 p.m., International Lounge Event Sponsor(s): This event is hosted

by The Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation (ENACT) and is sponsored by the Rice Family Foundation. The event is cosponsored by the Legal Studies Program, the Politics Department, the Social Justice and Social Policy Program and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.

Massachusetts State Senator Diana DiZoglio, Massachusetts State Senator Cindy Friedman and Kentucky State Representative Attica Scott will discuss their careers in politics and political advocacy, as well as their perspectives on political engagement, particularly at the state level, in conversation with the students from ENACT courses around the United States and members of the public.

The moderator will be Professor Melissa Stimell (LGLS), Academic Program Director of ENACT. Representative Scott will join via Zoom-based video call.

I AM Proud Tuesday, April 9, 5:30-8 p.m., Levin Ballroom We invite you to this year’s annual “I Am” event, I AM PROUD, presented

by Brandeis University Student Support Services Program and the SSSP Student Leadership Board.

Through the recognition of one’s passions, aspirations and culture, we gain an understanding of the challenges and accomplishments that shape SSSP Students’ unique identities. Join us for “I Am Proud,” a night dedicated to commemorating our individuality as we unify our community by reflecting and appreciating our triumphs.

All are welcomed, dinner to follow.

Please contact Patrice Charlot with any dietary needs.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m, the event starts promptly at 6 p.m.

The Student Support Services Program (SSSP), within the Department of Academic Services, is a small, community-oriented program funded by a federal TRIO grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Offered on the Brandeis campus since 1990, SSSP serves 150 Undergraduates who are First-Generation College Students and have overcome significant financial barriers to attend college.

Women LEAD (Lead, Empower, and Develop) in Tech Wednesday, April 10, 6-8 p.m., Volen, Vertica Lounge Join BITMAP for its second annual Women LEAD (Lead, Empower, and Develop) in Tech Event! Women LEAD in Tech will consist of a panel of female tech professionals as well as Brandeis students where they will share their experiences, describe their career paths and give advice on how to be a woman leader in a male-dominated industry. Following the panel, there will be a networking session over a meal where attendees can talk and ask questions of the panelists. This event is open to all Brandeis students and faculty!

Words and Artifacts: Treasures of a Cuban Jewish Exile Wednesday, April 10, 7-9 p.m., Rapaporte Treasure Hall Ruth Behar, a Cuban-Jewish anthropologist and the first Latina MacArthur Fellow, shows how culture is both an artifact of history and a vehicle of ongoing memory. Join us for a reading of her latest book of poetry.

- Compiled by Polina Potochevska

8 FEATURES

The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

Students mobilize to get sexual violence legislation passed in Massachusetts

By Rachel Saal editor

Sagie Tvizer ’19 encountered people throughout his time at Brandeis who showed interest in organizing around sexual violence prevention and equity, so he helped form a small, informal coalition aimed at trying to help these causes.

When Alison Hagani ’22, a worker at Brandeis’ Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center (PARC), came to Tvizer with the idea to mobilize students in response to the Department of Education’s proposed Title IX rule, they decided to temporarily shift their small group’s focus toward bringing students together to testify before the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on

Higher Education and to inform students about the effects of these bills in Massachusetts.

Hagani serves as the official campus lead for the Every Voice Coalition, an organization that serves to help students mobilize and help pass sexual violence legislation. Hagani and Tvizer have rounded up 12 students that will be going to the Massachusetts State House on April 9 at 10 a.m., and many of the students have agreed to testify before the Massachusetts Legislature. Hagani and Tvizer are spearheading, but according to Hagani, it would mean nothing if it was just them.

“It’s crucial that we’re mobilizing other people because that’s the heart of grassroot organizing,” said Hagani.

The four proposed bills being heard include one House and one

Senate bill for a mandated campus climate survey on college campuses, and one House and one Senate bill for Title IX provisions.

“This fight is very new to Brandeis. When I first brought it up here, no one really knew about it. It’s more prevalent at bigger Massachusetts schools,” said Hagani. The group efforts at Brandeis have included reaching out to over a dozen clubs, tabling in the SCC and trying to spread the word in any way that they can, according to Hagani. She said considering that they have started the mobilization movement at Brandeis from the ground up, she is proud of the work that they have done.

“We as students have the power to seek issues that we care about, to reach out to our friends and to meet informally and we can have

an impact in doing that, and it doesn’t need to be mutually exclusive with other things that make us leaders on campus, in fact I think that it’s enabled when we’re leaders on campus,” said Tvizer.

“We’re only part of what’s going on on campus. There are people who are doing this work. We’re just a piece of this puzzle,” continued Tvizer.

Hagani said that she first heard about Every Voice when they came to the College Democrats of Massachusetts Winter Convention in February, and she brought their mission to Brandeis.

“I can sit there, and I can be an advocate for PARC, but I think that advocacy stretches far beyond one’s own immediate surroundings, so I wanted to use my role and my privilege of being able to provide services to students at

Brandeis to fight to get resources everywhere,” said Hagani.

PARC has agreed to provide transportation to the State House.

Tvizer said that the activism at Brandeis seems to be different than it is at other schools. “I’ve noticed that there seems to be some institutionalization that is really awesome at Brandeis,” said Tvizer.

“I’m seeing that PARC is really taking a leading role in empowering their students to engage in this type of activism, and even if they’re in an office in an institutional setting, they can have a role in supporting student initiatives.”

For information on how to get involved or to get transportation to the Massachusetts State House, email Alison Hagani at alisonhagani@brandeis.edu.

Building a school at BINCA

By Shruthi Manjunath editor

Imagine moving to a new country and having to learn the language, embrace the culture and understand the social norms. This is exceedingly difficult, but on top of that, imagine not having access to a library. You have very few ways of accessing books, which aid you in learning about the new world around you that is the country you have recently moved to. You have no way to learn how to communicate with people. According to radio station WGBH, “73 schools in Boston out of 126 do not have a working library.”

Many students at the Boston International Newcomers Academy (BINCA) face this problem, as they have emigrated from various countries and do not speak English. In addition, the school previously did not have a library, which made it extremely difficult for students to not only learn English but also have the ability to read simply for enjoyment. Gabriel Sol Aronson Fontes ’19 and Naomi Spector ’12, an English teacher at BINCA and Fontes’ godsister, respectively, have created the idea of building a library consisting of “multicultural and multilin-

PAINTING A MURAL

gual” books to aid these students in their pursuit of knowledge.

Fontes was first introduced to students at BINCA through Spector, who invited him into her classroom to get the experience of teaching students. Fontes wants to become an English Language Learning (ELL) teacher in the future and therefore wanted to experience the environment at BINCA. Once Fontes realized that the school did not have a library, he and Spector took action.

A survey was created that asked students which books they desired in the library. The books for the library were ordered based on those requests.

A variety of books were ordered, ranging from romance to books in students’ native languages.

Fontes and Spector are trying to add books with authors from “across the African diaspora and the global south and foster a sense of internationalism” in order to decrease the number of books that are written and read from a white perspective. Fontes and Spector hope that with authors who are from minority groups, students at BINCA are better able to connect with the books they are reading. The construction of the library is still in progress, and students are working with Justus

BINCA students paint a mural on the bookshelves of the library.

BINCA STUDENTS LOVE READING

The students of BINCA show off their favorite books.

Davis ’19 to paint a mural on the bookshelves in the library with symbols that represent the countries they have emigrated from.

Fontes explains his own rapture with books by describing

PHOTOS COURTESY GABRIEL SOL DE FONTES

how “My grandma used to illegally supply books on women’s reproductive health into Portugal during the fascist dictatorship.

You know how risky that is? Her neighbors were being imprisoned and murdered by the secret police for far less than that. My commitment to reading runs deep.”

He believes that through working with and aiding students at BINCA, he is able to connect to his family and understand the hardships they went through. He can also understand the sacrifices they had to make for their children, which have allowed him to attend Brandeis. He also feels that through working with the students at BINCA, he is able to pay his family back for the sacrifices they made and also aid the world by helping those in need.

Students at BINCA have explained what the library means to them, highlighting how “it [is] very important because it will help improve my ready [sic] skills and learn vocabulary” and it “[i]s important to have a place where you can feed your brain with knowledge,” according to an email to The Brandeis Hoot. A library is essential to the success of these students in the future. Without a library, these students are at

a disadvantage in their education.

Fontes urges people to apply for grants or receive funding in order to aid local communities.

He hopes money will go towards aiding local communities rather than guest speakers at Brandeis because that creates a bigger difference and aids those in need. He would like to thank “Will Brummett and the Rich/Collins Fellowship, Melissa Stimell and Lauren Jordahl at the Meehan Social Justice in Action Grant, Ingrid Schorr and Ingrid Pabon at the Bernstein Festival of the Arts, Elaine Wong and Joan Tarkulich at The Brandeis Pluralism Alliance, Professor Ramie Targoff and Sheryl Seller at Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy” for making the project possible.

Lastly, Fontes explains his fascination with books by highlighting that, “[b]ooks are a companion.

Books are solace. Books are an escape. Books are an invitation into a new world. Books are a stepping stone. I couldn’t imagine going to school without a library!” Books provide us with the knowledge we need to face the world around us. Without books, we are nothing, therefore a library is crucial to students as they progress in their journey through life.

EDITORIALS

April 5, 2019

“To acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

Editors-in-Chief Abigail Gardener Sarah Terrazano Managing Editor Emily Botto Senior Editor Ryan Spencer Copy Editor Natalie Fritzson Deputy Copy Editor Jennifer Cook News Editor Celia Young Deputy News Editor Rachel Saal Arts Editors Ben Beriss Noah Harper Opinions Editor Sabrina Chow Deputy Opinions Editor Sasha Skarboviychuk Features Editor Polina Potochevska Deputy Features Editor Shruthi Manjunath Sports Editors Zach Cihlar Shea Decker-Jacoby Deputy Sports Editor Sophie Trachtenberg Layout Editor Candace Ng Social Media Editor Emma Lichtenstein Cartoonist Helen Wong

Volume 16 • Issue 10 the brandeis hoot • brandeis university 415 south street • waltham, ma

STAFF Medjine Barionette, Emma Belkin, Camila Casanueva, Chris DeMena, James Feltner, John Fornagiel, Daniel Freedman, Madeline Herrup, Stewart Huang, Jonah Koslofsky, Jackie Kostenko, Alex Kougasian, Aaron LaFauci, Jenna Lifschitz, Josh Lannon, Thalia Plata, Joseph Silber, Zachary Sosland, Rachel Wang, Emerson White, Hannah Wilson

MISSION As the weekly community student newspaper of Brandeis University, The Brandeis Hoot aims to provide our readers with a reliable, accurate and unbiased source of news and information. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events.

Recognizing that better journalism leads to better policy, The Brandeis Hoot is dedicated to the principles of investigative reporting and news analysis. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

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

Please submit letters to letters@thebrandeishoot.com along with your contact information. Letters should not exceed 500 words. The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

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UNSOLICITED SUBMISSIONS We welcome unsolicited submissions from members of the community sent by e-mail to eic@thebrandeishoot.com. Please limit submissions to 800 words. All submissions are subject to editing.

B

The Brandeis Hoot 9

Put more faith in Brandeis students

efore John Stossel spoke at the Young Americans for Liberty event on Monday, April 1, Director of Student Activities Dennis Hicks read a prepared speech essentially warning students that if they were to disrupt the talk in an unsafe or blatantly rude or disrespectful way, they would be “dealt with” by university police. He pointed out a designated area for protest outside of Olin-Sang.

The students’ remarks and designated protest area seemed to be solutions without a problem—if there was any hint of interrupting dissent, it wasn’t in the room that night. In fact, any dissent to the ideas in Stossel’s talk was quite civil rather than interruptive. Those who disagreed with Stossel got a chance to ask critical questions and did so during a Q&A session at the end of the talk. The Brandeis students who attended the event acted respectfully toward the speaker in their questions and their overall behavior.

Stossel commented on Hicks’ speech shortly after, saying it is sad that statement even had to be made.

We are not sure what Hicks’ moti-

vation was for making that speech and find it unnecessary that such a speech be made at all. Brandeis should put more trust in the student body’s ability to intelligently and respectfully engage in dialogue with people whose political beliefs may differ from their own.

Brandeis has a reputation for being social justice-oriented, perhaps sometimes too much so. Often Brandeis students are criticized for their tendency to be overly politically correct, resulting from their immersion in “the Brandeis bubble.” Although this may be the case for many students, it does not mean Brandeis students cannot engage in polite discussion about politics, even if we may disagree with the other’s viewpoints.

At a university like Brandeis, which prides itself on being an institution of critical thinking and social justice, students should be trusted to think critically when a potentially controversial event arises. While there have been headline-grabbing protests at other universities, incidents at Brandeis are scattered, and even when protests occur, by

and large the student body has engaged with speakers in a civil manner. Case in point: Dinesh D’Souza spoke last spring, and despite the lack of a cautionary warning by the administration, the event went on without student interruption. The administration should show that they trust the student body to be able to act appropriately in these situations rather than preemptively assume that students will interrupt an event.

In politically tense times, it is important for students to hear political speakers from both sides of the aisle and gain knowledge. Furthermore, knowing all sides of an issue and hearing different perspectives of a topic is a way to gain a holistic understanding of the issue. Encouraging political speakers of all backgrounds on campus is a way to be an informed citizen, and being able to respectfully protest is another.

Free speech goes both ways.

Editor’s note: News editor Celia Young and arts editor Ben Beriss did not contribute to this editorial.

SPORTS

10 The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

Tennis continues to move up national rankings

By Sophie Trachtenberg editor

In their past three and two matches respectively, both the Brandeis men’s and women’s tennis teams were overly victorious, essentially sweeping all of their opponents. The men are ranked No. 10 in the nation, while the women sit at No. 18, both cracking the top 20 in NCAA’s Division III. Against the Beavers of nearby Babson College, the Judges won the match handily by a score of 8-1. In the doubles category, both duos at the number one and two spots found success. At number one, Anupreeth Coramutla ’21 and David Aizenberg ’20 beat

their opponents 8-2, while Jeffrey Chen ’22 and Adam Tzeng ’22 came in hot to defeat Babson 8-0. On the singles side, the Judges swept the Beavers, winning at all spots.

At number one, Aizenberg sought a 6-2, 6-2 win while Coramutla finished similarly at the number two spot, defeating his opponent 6-1, 6-2. Tzeng also had an impressive performance at number three, winning 6-1, 6-0.

Lastly, Nikhil Das ’21, classmate Rajah Vohra ’21 and Tyler Ng ’19 also were victorious at the fourth, fifth and sixth placements, sealing their success.

Also against Babson, the women swept 6-0, having remarkable showings in both singles and doubles. For doubles, the senior-rookie duo of Olivia Leavitt

’19 and Lauren Bertsch ’22 nailed an 8-4 win over their opponents at the number one spot. At number two, Diana Dehterevich ’20 and Keren Khromchenko ’19 won a close one, sealing the deal with a score of 8-6. Lastly, Ana Hatfield ’22 and partner Sophia He ’19 also won by a margin of 8-6 in the last doubles match. Next in singles, Dehterevich at number one, Leavitt at number two and Khromchenko at number three were victorious, leaving the last three battles unfinished because the Judges had already defeated the Beavers.

The men went on to play a double header against both Wheaton College and Endicott College, sweeping the former by a score of 9-0 and the latter 6-0.

Against the Lyons from Whea-

ton, Chen and Tzeng started the day off with an 8-4 win at number one doubles, followed by Das and Vohra winning 8-6 at number two, and Ben Maffa ’21 and Benjamin Wolfe ’20 coming in at number three with a victory of 8-4.

In singles, Nico Ramirez ’22 stole the number four spot, coming out victorious with a win of 6-0, 6-1. At number three, Colt Tegtmeier ’22 earned success with a score of 6-3, 6-4. Lastly, Zach Cihlar ’19, sports editor of The Brandeis Hoot, dominated the number six spot, winning 6-2, 6-2.

Later that afternoon, the Judges swept their opponent again, defeating Endicott College after great showings in both categories. Headlining the doubles ac-

tion, Tegtmeier and Ng won 8-3 at the number one spot, followed

by Maffa and Wolfe who reaped a score of 8-1 at number two, and lastly Ramirez and Cihlar finishing the sweep at number three with a final of 8-1. For singles, the Judges won at all spots, seeing performances form Vohra at number one and following sequentially with Tegtmeier and Maffa. This left the last three matches unfinished, as the Judges were already victorious.

After these matches, the men improve their record to 12-2, while the women improve to 6-4 on the season. Next, the women will take on Wellesley College in Auerbach Arena, while the men will face the Bowdoin Polar Bears at home as well in the upcoming weekend.

Softball remains undefeated after series cancellation

By Zach Cihlar editor

After a series cancellation against University Athletic Association (UAA) Conference opponent Washington University in St. Louis due to inclement weather, Brandeis softball played a double-header against local team Wellesley University on Wednesday, April 3.

The game cancellations in St. Louis ensured the softball team’s perfect 10-0 record going into

the games against Wellesley on Wednesday, and they looked to use their momentum to propel them to a couple more wins.

Wellesley hosted the Judges in their first away game since February.

Home field advantage didn’t seem to help the Wellesley Blue in the first game, as the Judges held onto a steady lead throughout the game, closing it out in seven innings. Brandeis consolidated on four one-run innings to trump the home team 4-2.

The game lacked any big hits, with no home runs from either

team. Right fielder Bridget Cifuni ’21 captured the most plate touches, earning two runs for the Judges.

Short-stop Jolie Fujita ’21 played the most consistent offensive game for the Judges, achieving three hits at just four at-bats.

Scottie Todd ’21 pitched a winning game in the first game of the day, pitching seven full innings against 30 total at-bats.

The second game of the day was much tighter and resulted in Brandeis’ first tie of the season.

Going a total of nine innings, the two teams kept the score neck-

and-neck throughout the entire game.

Both teams secured runs in the first inning of the game, but Wellesley was the first to pull definitively ahead with a four-run third inning. The lead did not remain long, as the Judges answered with a four-run inning in their next at-bat.

The score remained tied at 5-5 throughout the next three scoreless innings until the Judges secured two runs in the top of the eighth to go up 7-5. Offensive came up clutch with RBIs from Fujita and second baseman Bri-

anna Urena ’20.

Brandeis’ defense failed to consolidate on the offensive push, however, and ultimately dropped two runs in the bottom of the eighth as two hitters scored RBIs on a groundout and single. The game was called a tie after the ninth inning due to darkness.

The Judges embark on another away series against UAA conference opponent NYU. They will play a four-game series beginning on Friday, April 5. The Judges are also set to play Clark University in a two-game series on Tuesday, April 9.

Track and field opens outdoor season at Tufts

By Jesse Lieberman staff

The Judges track and field teams opened their outdoor season this past Saturday in the Tufts Snowflake Outdoor Classic.

Regan Charie ’19 and Anna Touitou ’22 each qualified for the final in the 100-meter dash.

Charie finished fourth in the final with a time of 11.16 seconds.

Touitou, who finished sixth in the

final, nearly set a personal record in her preliminary when she ran 13.02. Aaron Baublis ’21 finished fifth in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.67 seconds.

Doyin Ogundiran ’19 won the 800-meter run with a mark of 2:15.94, while Aaron Portman ’22 came in seventh place in the men’s 800 with a time of 1:58.46.

Lisbeth Valdez ’21 came in ninth in the 800 with a time of 2:21.64 seconds.

Devin Hiltunen ’22 had two top 10 finishes; she came in fifth

in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.97 seconds, and 10th in the 400 with a time of 1:01.06. Patrick Quinlan ’21 finished ninth in the 400 with a time of 52.14 seconds, and Daniel Curley ’20 came in sixth in the 5,000 with a time of 15:49.49.

Andrea Bolduc ’22 ran a 4:56.52 in the 1,500, placing seventh, while fellow Niamh Kenney ’22 came in third in the 5,000 meter, with a time of 18:21.24.

Maya Bliss ’19 finished 15th in the 800 with a time of 2:24.44.

Bliss and her sister Scarlet Bliss, who runs for Tufts, raced in the same heat, where S. Bliss edged M. Bliss by less than two tenths of a second.

Scott Grote ’19 came in second in the discus throw with a throw of 44.14 meters, less than a meter from the winner. Grote finished sixth in the hammer throw with a throw of 42.99 meters and 12th in the shot put with a throw of 11.75 meters, while Breylen Ammen ’21 came in eighth in the javelin throw with a throw of 49.31 me-

ters.

Aaron Corrin ’20 finished third in the pole vault; he cleared 4.10 meters.

Julia Bryson ’19 and Emily Bryson ’19 both competed in the 1500 last Friday at the Raleigh Relays at North Carolina State University. J. Bryson ran a 4:45.39, while E. Bryson ran a 4:28.65, the fastest time of a Division III competitor.

The Judges will compete in the Amherst Invitational this Saturday.

March Madness: the Final Four is set

By Camila Casanueva staff

The Final Four of the NCAA Tournament has been decided: Virginia, Texas Tech, Michigan State and Auburn punched their tickets to Minneapolis, Minnesota on Saturday. The Spartans were able to pull off the upset, knocking off the number one overall seed in the tournament in Duke.

The Auburn Tigers continued their magical run as they beat another top program in Kentucky.

On day one of the Elite 8, it was No. 3 Texas Tech who pulled off the upset, knocking off No. 1 Gonzaga, 75-69. It was a defensive performance by the Red Raiders as they gutted out a win to earn their first trip to the Final Four in program history. They held the nation’s top scoring team to 20 points below their season average and forced a costly 16 turnovers.

It was the Red Raiders top-ranked defense that has gotten them thus far, but their shooting late in the game helped secure the victory.

Jarrett Culver, who has been the Raider’s leading scorer in all four games of the NCAA Tournament this year led the way once again with 19 points. For Gonzaga, it was NBA Draft prospect Hachimura who led the way for the Zags, with 22 points along with six rebounds. The Bulldogs finish the season with a record of 334, while Texas Tech earns their 30th victory of the season, as they punch their ticket to the Final Four.

The second game on Friday was wild from start to finish, with impressive performances on display, in an overtime thriller between Virginia and Purdue.

Purdue’s Carsen Edwards put on one of the best NCAA Tournament performances in history, but ultimately the Boilermakers fell in heartbreaking fashion, 7580 to the Cavaliers. The game was an instant classic, as Purdue took the best defensive team in the nation to their absolute limit, shooting just under 50 percent and 44 percent from three. Edwards had one of, if not the best, game of his

career, scoring 42 points. With his 42-point performance, the junior finished with 139 points in this year’s NCAA Tournament, the most points through four tournament games since 2000, according to the NCAA. The roof almost came off the arena when Edwards banked home a three to put Purdue ahead 69-67 with a minute remaining. Edwards traded baskets down the stretch with the Virginia duo of Guy and Jerome, but the Cavaliers were finally able to contain Edwards in overtime, to secure the win. Guy led the way for Virginia with 25 points and 10 rebounds while Jerome finished with 24 points and seven assists.

Virginia’s Final Four appearance will be the program’s first since 1984. The Cavaliers punching their ticket to the Final Four comes as redemption, as they are making up for their upset loss to 16 seed UMBC in the first round of last year’s NCAA Tournament.

Day 2 of Elite 8 action did not disappoint, as Michigan State showed up big time and came away with a huge upset over the

top seed of the Tournament in Duke. The Blue Devils had it going their way all tournament long, as Zion Williamson has been absolutely incredible and R.J. Barrett has been great in his own right. The loss most likely marks the end of both Williamson’s and Barrett’s collegiate careers, as they are both projected to go in the top five of the 2019 NBA Draft. Williamson led Duke with 24 points, 14 rebounds, three steals and three blocks.

It was Michigan State who came roaring out of the gate, however, locking down Duke in transition, while converting on the other end as they grabbed a 68-67 win over the top seeded Blue Devils. Cassius Winston led the way once again for the Spartans as the junior guard finished with 20 points, 10 assists and four steals.

This was a big win for Coach Tom Izzo as he leads his team back to the Final Four for the first time since 2015. The Spartans will face off against Texas Tech on Saturday night for a shot to go to the national championship game.

The 5th seeded Auburn Tigers shocked the nation as they made history, clinching the program’s very first trip to the Final Four with a 77-71 overtime win over the Kentucky Wildcats. Kentucky beat the Tigers twice during the regular season, but Auburn’s resilience pushed them over the hump with an incredible victory.

Jared Harper led Auburn with 26 points to go with five assists, four rebounds, three steals and two blocks. Kentucky led by five at halftime, but Auburn would not go away as the game remained close, with neither team able to pull away. Once the game got to overtime, Harper scored the first four points and the Tigers never looked back. Washington came off the bench to lead Kentucky with 28 points and 13 rebounds.

Not only did the Tigers punch their first ever ticket to the Final Four, but they have beaten some impressive competition in Kansas, North Carolina, and now Kentucky to earn a trip to Minneapolis. The Tigers will take on top seeded Virginia in the Final Four.

OPINIONS

April 5, 2019

The Brandeis Hoot 11

What our leaders owe us

By Noah Harper editor

Student government at Brandeis needs to be better. We elect people to the Union in order to represent us. But that hasn’t been going on—instead of listening, they disregard their constituents, bent on passing their patronizing pet legislation, so they can pad their resumes.

In both their words and deeds, our elected student representatives are undermining their mandated responsibilities, so they can check one more thing off before they graduate.

It’s been a trainwreck of a year for the Union. We’ve seen petty infighting, a never-ending slew of scandals and resignations. But finally they’ve managed to accomplish something: pass an amendment to the Constitution mandating faculty advisors for all secured clubs, which will eventually be expanded to all chartered clubs at Brandeis.

Over the past month, as the president of a secured club and an E-Board member of a chartered one, I’ve been involved in a “listening session” about this amendment, had a one-on-one meeting with the Union and spoken with multiple senators on the issue. I’ve voiced my concerns continually, and each time felt like I was hitting a brick wall.

None of the chief actors behind this legislation—Vice Pres-

ident Aaron Finkel ’19, Senator-at-Large Noah Nguyen ’21, Chief of Staff Emma Russell ’19—have seemed to care about what club leaders had to say. Sure they’ve listened—but their listening sessions have instead turned into series of rebuttals, indicating that, despite many objections and arguments from constituents against this amendment, they were going to pass it no matter what. This isn’t representative democracy; it’s autocracy.

In the first meeting with E-Board members of secured clubs, including BTV (which I’m the president of), WBRS and the Justice, there was a marked disregard for what we had to say. The senior representatives present from the Union were unreceptive to criticism. It was apparent that this was a done deal from the start.

That meeting made it abundantly clear why this legislation is foolish: Director of Student Activities Dennis Hicks, serving as an advisor for this proposal, continually rebutted all arguments. It wasn’t so much a listening session as an opportunity to spew talking points.

To me, it seemed that Hicks, a staff member in the Department of Student Activities, also really wanted this proposal passed, and he—like Finkel, Nguyen, Russell and the multiple senators I’ve talked to—wasn’t willing to seriously consider any arguments to the contrary. Instead of listening

to our concerns, it was the Union (and their advisor) just telling us what to do.

This could happen in the future with other clubs: mentor figures with their own agenda continually pushing it on students, stepping far beyond their bounds. Hicks’ involvement in all of this is an argument for why mandated club advisors are such a bad idea.

What happened last Sunday with the amendment’s passage is more disturbing. Angry constituents were denied the ability to speak out against the proposal, and the Senate meeting was called into executive session—meaning

non-senator students couldn’t be present during the discussion over the amendment. It demonstrated a condescending disregard for the voices of students from the Union. “We know better than you,” was their message. I hope that the student body hears that loud and clear.

These senators and members of the Union think they know what’s best for Brandeis. To me, their behavior seems elitist and patronizing.

It’s dangerous, especially for media clubs, who need the latitude to speak freely about Brandeis in ways that a faculty advisor—fear-

ful of losing their position—could try to keep quiet.

Leadership in the Union was unreceptive to requests to change the advisory position to that of a financial consultant, rendering the point moot that this is about managing finances better.

It was never about finances; it’s about control. It’s about adding another layer to an already broken bureaucracy that’s second only to Brandeis itself in its inefficiency and byzantine power structures.

It’s about Finkel and co. getting to pad their resumes. Because, in the end, they don’t really care. They did it just because they could.

CARTOON BY HELEN WONG/THE HOOT

How conservatives contribute to the polarized nature of political discourse

By Alex Kougasian staff

In hearing the opinions of people on both sides of the spectrum, I have noticed that many believe the left to be the source of much of the recent polarized socio-political discussion. More specifically, they cite outrage culture as the reason that it is so difficult to cooperate with liberals to reach a meaningful compromise or understanding. I do not entirely disagree with this position. In many ways, I find outrage culture to be a necessary evil. On one hand, it contributes greatly to the stereotype of the “inconsolable liberal,” which is referenced so frequently on Fox News. On the other hand, outrage is the only way that some groups can make their voices heard.

Ultimately, I do think it is the responsibility of liberals to find ways to be constructive, but I also argue it is fallacious to insinuate that the polarized discourse we have experienced as of late is solely the fault of the left. To demonstrate this, I will evaluate the modes of discourse of two prominent conservative figures.

The discussion strategies of Steven Crowder are ones which I present as examples of divisive behavior, whereas Jordan Peterson, who is often referred to in the same breath, provides an instance of what I would call much more civilized conservative discourse.

Crowder is a YouTuber with over 3.5 million subscribers and is the host of a quite popular internet show called “Change My

Mind.” The premise of his show is exactly what the title would suggest: Crowder goes to college campuses with a table, microphone and a sign displaying a controversial statement with the words “change my mind” under it. One by one people come to discuss the issue printed on the sign and, somehow, the person with whom Crowder speaks often ends up being a hot-headed liberal. Crowder has with him a binder full of statistics and counterarguments.

He sets up the situation such that his viewpoint is well-thought out and defensible, which is not in itself a disingenuous thing to do. However, in most episodes, it is quite clear that Crowder ends up having the upper hand with his knowledge of empirical data that ends up drowning the college students who merely were not prepared with research. This leads some of Crowder’s opponents saying they “disagree” with a statistic or otherwise become very emotional in the discussion.

Of course, in theory, it is the responsibility of the college student to change Crowder’s mind, but it feels like the entire show is just a way to make all liberals seem like temperamental idealogues.

Sometimes the liberal voice on Crowder’s show does become unreasonably passionate, and I do believe that to be reflective of a problem with liberal discourse.

Seperate from that, however, Crowder himself represents many of the polarizing aspects of conservative discourse.

Peterson subverts this by displaying what I see as respectful

debate etiquette. Likely because of his academic background, when Peterson talks to students or even other academics, he assumes an amount of intelligence on their part. When speaking to students, Peterson, who himself is a professor, informs the students of the model he is operating under. In debating with fellow scholars or other social figures, Peterson is much quicker to pinpoint the differences in his and his opponent’s arguments. If need be, Peterson will concede when he becomes convinced of a different perspective. Even though he does not often change his mind, Peterson’s focus during a discussion seems not to be on winning a debate, rather teaching and learning from his interlocutor.

Take, for example, Peterson’s now viral discussion with Cathy Newman, in which Newman asked Peterson why his right to freedom of speech should trump a trans person’s right not to be offended. Taken aback, Peterson replied that in order to think one must risk being offensive. He then cited their conversation as being one that had been quite uncomfortable for him yet was important to have in order for Newman to get to the heart of the issue as a journalist. He later stated in an interview with Dutch blogger GeenStijl that Newman had been quite civil before the interview but then quickly started stating odd views that seemed to blindly serve her ideology. Peterson said it was at the moment I described earlier that he felt he had broken through her ideological facade and started talking to the person

he had met before the interview.

It is that attitude that Peterson takes towards discourse that impresses me. Rather than trying to humiliate and shut down liberals like Crowder does, Peterson shows those who carry perspectives with weak justifications where their logic does not make sense and takes those views which are well substantiated as seriously as his own. I believe that applying an academic mode of dialogue will make conversing on politics

more productive in general, but even academics does not entirely teach the respect for the other side that Peterson exemplifies.

It can be difficult to carry out discussion that is not polarized when the views that are being expressed are as opposed as they are right now. But I believe that both sides can find themselves coming to much more meaningful compromises in following Peterson’s approach to discourse.

PHOTO FROM YOUTUBE.COM

12 OPINIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

Washing sustainability away

By John Fornagiel and Sasha Skarboviychuk staff and editor

Brandeis students are very busy people. It is not surprising that amid seven majors, five minors, being a part of eleven clubs, going to nine recitations per week and trying to squeeze in a few hours of sleep and a meal or two, showering does not seem like something that should have a high place on one’s list of priorities. So you would think that the administration would make something like laundry easier for students to do, just so members of the community can at least pretend to know what personal hygiene means.

There have been many issues with the current laundry system, which DCL has been dealing with for years. Problems include people unplugging the machines to get free laundry, which would interrupt the loads in other machines.

Or the swipe machines not working properly: taking money off the student’s card and then not actually starting the cycle, or starting the wrong machine. The administration has decided to make changes to the system. Finally, our prayers have been answered.

As students and administrators discussed various financial policies throughout Brandeis, one of the components that came up during discussion was indeed laundry. More specifically, at the beginning of the next academic year, students who pay for housing on campus no longer need to pay for their laundry every time they have to put a load in.

At first glance, this new policy seems like what students want.

Many students are already paying tens of thousands of dollars per year and over $10,000 for housing alone. It seems counterintuitive to make students pay a dollar to wash their clothes and another dollar to dry if students already have to pay over $10,000 to live on campus. A new policy that removes the required price of laundry seems perfect. Too perfect.

Looking deep into the policy, it is clear that indeed this new policy is too good to be true. In-

stead of completely abolishing the price associated with laundry, administration has instead shifted the payment. This year and prior, students use WhoCash or coins to pay for laundry. After the next academic year, instead, this fee is paid for as a part of Housing and Board. So it’s not that students no longer have to pay for their own laundry, it’s that they have to pay a set amount for laundry at the very beginning. Therefore, students living on campus who would not even take advantage of the laundry machines would be forced to pay a fee for something they don’t even need!

This new policy takes yet another financial aspect out of the hands of the students. We already do not choose how much money we spend on food, textbooks, housing, etc., and now we don’t even get to choose how much we spend on laundry. After doing some very complex math, we came to the conclusion that we each spend $24 on laundry per year. This isn’t so much a question of saving money, though if you do laundry weekly, the $3 a week do begin to add up, but more of a question of necessity. If you have enough clothing to last you a month, and therefore do laundry less frequently, you are being more cost and environmentally efficient.

With these new changes, however, we do not have costs to think about and will most likely start doing laundry more often, since there is no direct fee associated with it, and we do not want to waste more money than we already do by living on campus (i.e on food). If we already paid the fee for laundry, of course, we are going to do as much laundry as we paid for, at least. Which for the two of us, would mean doing laundry twice as much as we used to before.

The average amount of water used per laundry cycle varies from machine to machine, the lowest being 15 gallons of water per load. So with these new changes, instead of using 120 gallons of water per year each, we will use 240 gallons. With no cost directly associated with doing laundry, students will not hesitate to wash a piece of clothing they

just stained. That’s fifteen gallons of water for one clothing item with a stain. Sustainability what?

For a campus that is trying to become more green, this is definitely not a step in the right direction. There are many posters in the laundry room that tell students to not use hot water while doing laundry, and there’s a good reason for it. Laundry consumes a large amount of energy, and hot water for laundry only adds to this amount. Making laundry free would consume even more energy as students would be more incentivized to frequently do their laundry. Making students pay for each load of laundry may not have increased students’ consciousness of how much water they used, but it definitely discouraged them from doing excessive amounts of it.

There is already an issue with a shortage of washing machines and dryers in residential quads.

Unless you do laundry at a ridiculous time, like at two in the morning on a Wednesday, good luck finding an empty and working washing machine or dryer.

Now imagine what will happen next year when everyone does laundry a lot more frequently. You’d have to make multiple trips to the laundry room just to find a vacant washer, which is inconvenient at best.

The administration is once again taking aspects of students’ lives under their own control. Who this will benefit is also debatable. It will waste the money of students who do not do laundry on campus and encourage the usage of more water, even when it is not really necessary. How exactly is Brandeis planning on becoming more green if they take one step forward and then one step back?

They introduced a fee for printing to reduce the amount of printing, so students think twice before printing something they may not necessarily need. Decreasing paper usage: a step forward towards a greener campus.

Making laundry free, thereby increasing water usage: a step back.

So what is our goal Brandeis?

Where do our priorities lie?

April 5, 2019

SSIS: advice column

By SSIS special to the hoot

Welcome back to the SSIS column, where we answer any and all of Brandeis students’ questions about sex, sexuality, identity and relationships.

If you have a question you’d like answered in our next column, email ssis@brandeis.edu or leave a question in the Google

What do with

do his

you balls?

This is a great question! Playing with your partner’s balls can be a great way to increase and intensify sensation. Before we dive in with tips, though, it’s important to make sure to ask if your partner enjoys ball stimulation at all. Many find it too intense or simply don’t find it pleasurable. It can be intimidating to ask these questions in the moment, so if you’re shy or nervous, perhaps consider bringing up the topic in a non-sexual moment.

All of these are general tips, and may not necessarily apply to him. Licking all around the scrotal sack may help you find out what parts feel specifically good to him. Many people with scrotums enjoy stimulation of the raphe, which is the line separating the testes. He may also enjoy having you take one or both of his balls into your mouth. Simultaneous stimulation is also great: fondling his balls with your hand with your mouth on his penis (or vice versa) can feel really good.

Essentially, experimenting with licking and sucking different areas is a good general idea. If he is interested in prostate stimulation, pressing on the perineum (the area between the scrotum and anus) might feel really good to him. Be very careful with all of this, as this area is especially sensitive! As always, asking him what feels good and monitoring his reactions are great ways of determining what works and what doesn’t. And don’t forget to be gentle, unless told otherwise!

We hope that these tips helped and wish you the best of luck with this adventure!

Prior to the guy I’m currently seeing, I only ever gave a blowjob to one other person. The other person always came pretty quickly when I was blowing him, even though he lasted a good while during sex. I haven’t had sex with the guy I’m currently seeing, but he takes significantly longer to come during oral sex. As much as I enjoy pleasuring my partners, I just get tired trying to make him come... He is very communicative, so that isn’t the issue. I don’t really have a point of reference or know how to keep track of how long its taking. How do I make him come faster? Or how do I focus on enjoying the process of pleasuring him when it literally hurts?

PHOTO FROM TEEPUBLIC.COM

Thank you for asking this

Form link on our Facebook page.

Any and all questions are welcome: there are no bad, stupid or weird questions!

(Note: These answers are goodfaith attempts by SSIS to be helpful to the Brandeis community, and are by no means exhaustive or to be taken as universal.

If these answers don’t resonate with you, either pay them no mind or reach out to us with suggestions for improvement!) question! It’s great that your partner is communicative, but we also want to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself in the process. You’ve said that you “just get tired of trying to make him come” and that “it literally hurts” at times, so we want to make sure that you know that you never are obligated to engage in sexual activity if you aren’t enthusiastic about it, or especially if it’s causing you pain. Also, you’re never obligated to make him come all on your own, or at all! A good blow job doesn’t necessarily have to include the whole process from start-to-finish.

A lot of the time, the person performing oral sex has different wants and limits than the person receiving, and as long as all parties’ wants and limits are respected, that’s okay! One way to mitigate this might be to divide the “work” between the two of you. You might give him a blow job for as long as you’re comfortable, and he can finish the process himself. Or perhaps the other way around: he starts off the process, and you finish it! Dividing the work can be a great way to work together to help make him come.

Another thing you could try would be to alternate techniques.

If your mouth needs a rest, try alternating with hands. Changing up speed can also be a great way to do this: try alternating between hard/fast and slow/sensual strokes. Of course, continuing to communicate and asking what he likes is essential, but switching things up like this is often really hot to a lot of people (and also provides a good break for you)!

You could also ask if he would be comfortable with you playing with or licking/sucking his testicles or stimulating his perineum (the area between the penis and the anus). If it’s the position that is causing you pain, you could play around with trying different positions - you could lie on your back with some pillows or the headboard of a bed keeping your upper body upright and he could straddle your chest; he could stand and you could kneel; he could lie on his back and you could lie down or kneel between his legs and if you’re comfortable, you could ask him to stimulate you manually with his fingers while you give him a blowjob; you could even try “69-ing” or engaging in mutual and simultaneous oral sex so that you can feel pleasure too! When everyone is enthusiastic and happy about what’s going on, pleasure will likely follow!

ARTS

April 5, 2019

The Brandeis Hoot 13

Call you when the album’s over

By Jennifer Cook and Polina Potochevska editors

Imagine sitting in a dark, cold room, surrounded by all your deepest fears and darkest thoughts. Now imagine those things set to heavy bass and feathery vocals, and you have Billie Eilish’s debut album, “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?” Eilish and her older brother Finneas O’Connell, who produces their music and also co-songwrites, perform together and skillfully incorporate their individual talents into this eerie album.

His solo career is quite different from the music he creates with Eilish, but she has him to thank for writing the song which brought her to fame at the age of 14; “ocean eyes” was originally written for his band. Eilish hearkens back to these roots in “you should see me in a crown” with the line leading up to the chorus: “fell for these ocean eyes.”

Eilish has never failed to release tracks about very mature topics.

Three years later “WHEN WE FALL” is no different; Eilish’s light, airy voice narrates stories about Xanax, suicide and seducing your dad.

The subject matter of “WHEN

WE FALL” is not the only thing that makes the album unique; the songs are characterized by a slew of odd sound effects and samples. An incomplete list of these includes samples from the television show “The Office,” sound effects from a video game, police sirens and what sounds like straight up screaming. Eilish even starts the album with a 14-second long song entitled “!!!!!!!” where she states that “I have taken out my Invisalign and… this is the album!”

We both agree that “8” is going to be an underrated track.

The song begins with Eilish’s voice pitch-shifted to a higher octave than normal, and continually shifts between her natural voice and other pitches. This is one of the least heavy songs on the album in terms of the instrumentals, but the lyrics are no less heavy than any other Billie Eilish song. While neither of us are quite sure what the song means—in fact, we had to look up the lyrics to understand them—we agree that the song feels very honest. In the chorus, she states, “I think I better go/I never really know how to please you/you’re lookin’ at me like I’m see-through,” and I really felt that.

Polina’s favorite song is “bad guy,” one of the rare upbeat songs on the album. Its rhythmic and staccato beat is paired with Eilish’s

characteristic voice layering and harmonizing. If you haven’t seen the music video yet, it’s an experience you have to have. From sped up rolling on a multi-colored carpet, to an array of beer bellies, it is stuffed with every ounce of Eilish’s quirkiness and charm. While she may sing that she’s “only good at being bad,” Eilish is unapologetically herself, on all accounts.

Another standout is “xanny,” in which Eilish delves into the world of party culture and the use of drugs within it, specifically Xanax. She makes her stance on this topic very clear; the opening lines of the song are “What is it about them/I must be missing something/they just keep doing nothing/too intoxicated to be scared.” As the song progresses, Eilish continues to speak over quiet, simple instrumentals about how she does not understand the use of drugs, especially amongst her friends. She drives this point home in the chorus, where the song switches starkly over to what Eilish, in an interview with MTV, referred to as “crazy, distorted, broken-sounding bass.” In the same interview, she states, “I just wanted it to sound the way that it feels to breathe in recycled breath.

Recycled, poisonous breath, I may add. I just wanted it to feel miserable.” And, that it does; Polina has tried to listen to it, and it hurts her ears. However, she appreciates the

PHOTO FROM CONSEQUENCEOFSOUND.COM

unique audible experience that it offers and the use of the bass to disorient and leave listeners in a daze.

The final three songs of the album, “listen before i go,” “i love you” and “goodbye” are what Jennifer considers some of its most haunting songs. “listen before i go” opens and closes with the sound of sirens, and throughout the song Eilish puts herself in the shoes of a person telling someone their final words. Frankly, this track is heartbreaking, and the next song is not any happier. “i love you” is set to a soft acoustic guitar, where Eilish pines over a someone who she wishes would take back those three words.

While tragic, the harmonies between Eilish and O’Connell’s voices on this song are beautiful.

If these two songs were not sad enough, “goodbye” drove me to

tears. Stripped down to almost only Eilish’s vocals, she begs the listener, “please/please don’t leave me be.” The rest of the lines are drawn from previous songs on the album, moving backwards through the tracks until it eventually fades out, drawing the album to a close.

If the musical experience wasn’t enough, Spotify teamed up with Eilish to create an immersive experience in downtown Los Angeles in which visitors can walk through 14 rooms—one for each song on the album—and interact with it. Some rooms featured LED lights, a foam pit, puppies and a bubble machine. While the interactive experience has now closed, the music affects each listener in a similarly strong way. Foam pit or not, “WHEN WE FALL” will hit you hard and stay with you long after the party’s over.

UTC’s ‘Mamma Mia’ puts new spin on classic

By Ben Beriss editor

In the interest of transparency, I’ll start this article with a brief disclaimer. I have been critiquing, and sometimes creating, student theater for five years. Despite the skepticism I sometimes face when discussing it, I will champion it as something with as much worth as the work created by more experienced artists. The student musical is no exception. There is, I believe, a limit to the number of student musicals a human being should see in one lifetime. They tend to be repetitive; student theater tends towards a community driven, exaggeratedly comedic style and because choreography and singing are so complex, student musicals tend to revolve around the big numbers which demand the majority of rehearsal time. So when you’ve been watching (and sometimes working on) them for five years straight, you tend to build an immunity to their charms.

“Mamma Mia,” however, is a top-notch student musical. What better choice for a production which demands a focus on the musical numbers than a show which consists almost entirely of loosely connected dance sequences? And, under Leah Sherin’s ’19 direction, the show leans into the ridiculous fun only student theater can produce with a wink and a smile.

The core of the production comes from its choreography, created by Emma Johnston ’22, which doesn’t bother to justify itself. As the stag and hen parties dance at each other in “Lay All Your Love on Me” or hotel workers sweep guests into their movement in support of their boss in “Mamma Mia,” the performers carry the lively spirit with pride.

The entire cast is incredibly enthusiastic as they carry out these movements, charming the audience with animated facial expressions and full-out dancing.

And through this spirit comes choreography which carries the emotions of each song straight to the viewer’s heart. The songs themselves are performed with impressive vocals, particularly from leads Amber Crossman ’21 (Donna) and Sophia Seufert ’22 (Sophie) as well as the notable belting of Remony Perlman ’19 (Tanya) in “Does Your Mother Know.”

The dramatic performances are similarly impressive, particularly from Crossman, who stylizes her Donna to match the whimsical nature of the show, creating a spiritedly dynamic character. Her three paramours are worthy backups; Sean Riordan ’22 as Harry is earnestly bashful with an amusing accent, Alex Ross ’22 is an adorable Bill as he negotiates his outward bluster and emotional vulnerability and Bryan McNamara ’19 exemplifies the winking nature of the production (though his constant skeptical looks out to the audience did begin to grate eventually). The loving couple of Sophie and Sky (JAMR Marceaux ’21) were sweet together even as their quieter performances were somewhat overshadowed by other more overstated performances.

They were backed by an impressive suite of comic performers, most notably the salacious Pepper of Max LeBlanc ’22 and the truly hilarious winks and nudges from Talia Jacobson ’22 as Rosie.

These performances were carried out on an impressive set, designed by Jacob Bers ’20, which provided a structure basic enough to allow the choreography to take center stage (and then move as freely as required) while still grounding each scene in a loca-

tion identifiable with minimal props. And the sparkly stage curtain made up of shiny silver ribbons was a masterful touch. The lighting, unfortunately, was often misplaced with solos occasionally

underlit and the occasional clashes between the lighting location and the dancers’ movement.

I may not be able to truly enjoy student musicals anymore, but can still recognize impres-

sive work. And, judging from the enthusiastic participation in the sing-alongs which concluded each performance, the audience connected with this rendition of the classically fun musical, too.

Hoot Recommends “Last Seen”

Still curious about the unsolved art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum?

So are WBUR and The Boston Globe, who recently produced the 10-episode podcast “Last Seen” to delve into the 28-yearold mystery and world’s largest unsolved art crime. The team talks to a slew of investigators, suspects, eyewitnesses and art heist experts; at the end of the series, they even wind up pursuing a lead that their investigative reporting helped uncover.

At this point, the 13 valuable artworks are still at large, and the $10 million reward is unclaimed. Co-hosts Kelly Horan and Jack Rodolico artfully (no pun intended) narrate the podcast, taking listeners on a gripping account of the theft and continued mystery. —Sarah Terrazano

Terrace House

“Terrace House” isn’t your average reality TV show. Instead of screaming and manufactured drama, it’s all real—or, at least, more real than most of what we see on reality TV. Originally a Japanese show and now being produced under the Netflix umbrella, each season follows six strangers—three men and three women—living in a house and getting to know one another.

That’s it. But, surprisingly, such

a quiet show can become incredibly tense. These are regular people trying to get along and find love. Watching them navigate relationships and try to figure out their lives is incredibly compelling television. —Noah Harper

Annamarie Tendler Mulaney

If you like stand-up comedian John Mulaney, there’s a good chance you’ll like his wife, Annamarie Tendler Mulaney, just as much or even more. Tendler Mulaney is likely not the person you’d expect her to be; she started out as a hair and makeup artist but has since taught herself how to work with textiles.

Now, she creates and sells Victorian lampshades through her own business, Silk Parlor. You can find her incredibly detailed lampshades and other embroidered or woven artworks on her Instagram (@amtendler). Additional pleasing content to be found on Tendler Mulaney’s Instagram are photos of her impeccable fashion sense, sometimes pictured with Mulaney and their French bulldog, Petunia. —Abigail Gardener

“Sky Blue Sky”

They say April showers bring May flowers, but so far April has been little more than sunshine complimented by a stiff breeze.

I, for one, am glad that all we’ve seen is sunshine and blue skies which brings me to my recommendation: “Sky Blue Sky” by Wilco. It may not be the most jolly tune ever written, but it’s simple, sweet and hopeful. Two verses followed by a chorus, a delicate solo and another chorus. And Wilco gets it just right, with a sky blue sky, this “rotten time, doesn’t seem so bad, to me now.” To me, these sunny days and blissful sun have been all I need to get through a slough of assignments, job applications and work. —Ryan Spencer

“The Bold Type”

“The Bold Type” is the best show on network television. The show follows three young women working at Scarlet magazine, loosely based on Cosmopolitan magazine. There’s Jane Sloan, the ambitious writer dying for a big break; there’s Kat Edison, the social media expert discovering new things about her sexuality; there’s Sutton Brady, the assistant dreaming of moving up the business ladder. The three are the best of friends, navigating through the treacherous waters of their personal and work lives.

The new season starts April 9 on Freeform, so binge now! You can find it on the Freeform website or app, or on Hulu. —Emma Lichtenstein

14 ARTS

The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

Sweet nothings: postbaccalaureate exhibition 2019

By Aaron LaFauci staff

The best part about Brandeis Art (besides the art, of course) is the food. As it turns out, our Studio Arts department possesses a superb cheese plate game. Those attending the opening day of the 2019 Post Baccalaureate exhibition two weeks ago were greeted with a great variety of cheeses, crackers, berries and (most importantly) a choice between red and white wine. The Dreitzer gallery, normally a deserted space, is packed on Post-Bac day.

But what is a Post-Bac? If you’ve taken a studio art class recently, you’ve probably met a few of them. Brandeis’ post baccalaureate program offers recent graduates an opportunity to continue building a portfolio while TAing, meeting visiting artists and partaking in a few “artscipades” to various galleries in the Boston area and beyond. The gallery exhibition is the culmination of a year’s worth of extra study, and it is indeed work until the very end.

I was surprised to learn that the gallery itself wasn’t assembled by a museum crew or some other janitorial force. Gallery organization is an artform in itself, and the work of physically pinning massive sheets of canvas and paper to the Dreitzer walls was up to the Post-Bacs themselves.

Despite the fancy cheese, the atmosphere was hardly formal. After a few pleasant toasts and some wine refills, the artists and faculty that had been milling about the lobby decided it was time to begin the spectacle, and so it began. The stereotype of the antisocial artist couldn’t be farther from the truth here. Fill a small gallery with Post-Bacs that have been working on presumably nothing but their art for the past year in an academic setting and the result is a tight group of genial artists that, quite frankly, really seem to know their stuff. I was pulled aside by one artist immediately upon entering the gallery, and the discourse didn’t stop for the rest of the time.

These Post-Bacs haven’t only studied together for a year; some have been literally working on each other’s projects. Standing out in this year’s exhibition is a set of “Failure Projects,” so named because they are the discarded remains of one Post-Bac’s failed works completed by the hands of another. I came upon the first of these Failure Projects as I descended into the gallery. It was a

PHOTOS BY NOAH HARPER/THE HOOT

saggy bundle of fabric ornamented with a thick layer of painted flowers. The pillow is the collaborative work of Zoila Coc-Chang and Orli Swergold, who decided that the discarded canvas of sculpted flowers would make a fantastic polyfill-stuffed pillow.

These collaborations serve as a chance for fellow Post-Bacs to get to know one another’s internal processes on a more palpable level. I asked Swergold if she was ever nervous about potentially mutilating her colleague’s work, but she explained that it wasn’t like that at all. Since the Projects were already deemed “failures” by their original artists, the Projects were an open and fun way to experiment with entirely new forms of expression.

Swergold was the first artist to steal my attention. After explaining the pillow, she brought me to her artwork located on the right side of the central bay. Her work is marked by two distinct features: pulpy textures and Jewish mythology. The raised texture was achieved by applying masses of paper pulp directly to the painting. The artist allowed me to feel one of them (you’d never hear that at the Louvre) and although the masses of pulp looked moist and pliable, they were actually caked on hard like volcanic rock. This effect is wonderfully executed in her work “Shemita.” It portrays a Jewish agricultural concept with the pulp technique being used

to render a row of freshly tilled earth. The effect is gritty and rich.

At a glance, it is as if she had plastered soil directly onto the wall.

The figures populating Swergold’s pieces are textured silhouettes, monstrous giants towering over vague, languishing forms.

The subjects of her paintings are born from an Orthodox Jewish upbringing. These narratives, born from Jewish canon alongside a lived experience, are imbued with a dreamlike ephemerality. There is a biblical objectivity to her simplistic forms that juxtaposes deeper psychological truth.

One of her smallest pieces, “Sea of Rabbis” looks like nothing more than a sheet of paper drowned in marker cross hatching, but closer inspection reveals the sharp forms of distinctly orthodox beards and hats. The sea of faces converge on a central head that is at once prideful, angry, and stoic. The piece conveys Swergold’s upbringing in a society that is simultaneously “cult-like” and “admirable.” Fable meets reality; obsession and worship are given tactility and form.

Personal narratives like these pervade most (if not all) of the artist’s collections. It’s hard not to expose a few deeply personal threads when an artist is forced to account for a year’s worth of work all at once. Sarah Valente’s works do not try to hide this personality at all. There is markedly less abstraction in her works compared to that of others in the exhibition.

Her paintings consist of skillfully rendered portraits of figures from her life. The lounging man is a chemist, mentor and close friend.

The painting of the scientist peering through her equipment is also the bride in a Portuguese wedding that Valente herself attended. Taken without pretension, Valente’s collection is an overt celebration of all the wonderful things that produce her identity: a love of art, science and family. The artist also became quite skilled at fixing sewing-machines.

Valente’s experiments go beyond simply employing a realistic style of painting. She is a self-professed multi-medium artist, and alongside mixing both oils and acrylics in a single piece, she also employs screen printing, casting and fabric-work. The books sitting upon the spectacled man’s shelf are real books transposed

onto the painting. The pattern on the scientist’s wedding dress are also screen printed, and the archway above the bride and groom is adorned with literal sewn fabric and plaster roses fixed to the canvas. The first piece that Valente showed me was not a painting at all, but a small patchwork quilt, a mythic object that simultaneously represents practicality, artifice, and personal history.

My next artist, Scott Lerner, took Valente’s ideas of the material process of creation and pushed it to an extreme. His central work, an untitled collision of two canvases splattered in an “enormous mess” (his own words) of caked blues, pinks and yellows, was achieved through a relentless, Frankensteinian manipulation of the canvas. His methods sounded incredibly violent; he described using a belt sander and other power tools to wear down successive layers of dried paint and paper waste to produce a palimpsestic portrait of confusion and grandeur. The look of the work changed dramatically and constantly throughout its process of creation.

Guiding my attention to a specific splotch of color that resembled a topographic map, Lerner emphasized the layered nature of the work. A sanding belt had exposed concentric rings of color that, like the rings of a tree, attested to the history of Lerner’s process. This idea relates to another of his works, “The Public Gets What the Public Wants,” which consisted of 3D printed (a highly topographic medium) reliefs of screaming CNN hosts. By manipulating the depth of various parts of the face, Lerner toes the line between the recognizable and the mundane, the pictographic ratio of “signal to noise.”

Presumably, this cycle of endless application and reduction could last forever. When asked how he knew his piece was completed, Lerner answered that there was no objective indication.

It’s all in the feeling. A completed piece, abstract or not, must “resonate” on the canvas. He often tried to imagine how the piece would look on display. If it couldn’t “hold its own” in the gallery, then the painting wasn’t done. Lerner’s delight in experimentation was contagious. In his world, art is all about “phenomenon”--the plea-

sure in “something happening.”

The bay next to Lerner’s contained the works of Stephanie Boyer. Like Orli’s pieces, Boyer’s paintings contain shadowy figures, but here they are all women, and all seemingly locked in intense anguish. These paintings are much less vague, however, and less mythical. Of all the collections, Boyer’s wields the rawest emotion and possibly the most powerful political force. Her two largest pieces, “Las Brujas” and “Shadow Puppets” present masses of tangled limbs, grasping hands and bent expressions. The artist sought to build a “psychological space” highlighting moments of female agitation and anxiety. I caught flavors of Dali and Picasso: dripping forms caught in utter terror and the utterly mundane.

Take in “Las Brujas” and then look up “The Scream” or “Guernica.” I’d like to return to the gallery after it has resumed its silence and hear what the paintings have to say for themselves.

I ended my tour with the works that spoke most to me. Tucked in the left corner of the gallery was the vast collection of Zoila Coc-Chang. I refused to leave the gallery until I had a chance to speak with her. This artist’s specialty is foliage and landscapes; Coc-Chang’s larger works present jungle scenes. Her paintings are densely planted and equally dense on the eyes. Bright, solid colored linework causes the intricate leafage to pop while the undergrowth beckons. They’re like candy or fruit, proudly touting their delicious allure.

The story behind these pieces is touching. Where I crudely assumed an exotic intent behind the painting, they actually speak to something more profound and personal; to the artist, these paintings represent “home.” As a multicultural student, CocChang’s sense of home is complicated--an indescribable feeling of displacement. It’s a feeling that she routinely has difficulty communicating to the faculty. The concept is unfixed, unpredictable; it can manifest in “unexpected places.” It comes in snatches and dreams, but plants help bridge the gap. “People are scary--Plants are friends,” she said. By painting these so called “hybrid worlds,” Coc-Chang gets a little closer to capturing the elusive idea.

This goes without mentioning Zoila’s impressive plant portraits, which can seem more like sculptures than mere paintings. No 3D glasses required, the paint is so thickly packed that they pop right off the canvas. The artist claims that she found pleasure in the “tactile” and “hands on” experience of molding her plant subjects, and the effort really shows.

I have provided only a taste of the exhibition here. The Post-Bacs have loaded the place with more than a hundred hidden pleasures waiting to be discovered. It’s a shame the artists aren’t being paid to speak full time! Though spectators might never again have the opportunity to meet this particular batch of Post-Bacs all in the same gallery and all at the same time, the gallery itself is still open and will remain so until April 17.

It’s an infinitely diverse array of works from a group of promising young artists, many of whom are on the cusp of long and fruitful careers in the creative world.

Catch the moment before it’s broken up forever.

April 5, 2019

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The Brandeis Hoot

‘Shazam:’ the importance of being earnest

By Jonah Koslofsky staff

“Shazam” starts off like so many superhero movies: an over-thetop prologue, an average chase sequence—you get the picture. But about 15 minutes in, something changes. After getting kicked out of multiple group homes, Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is given one last chance. He’s introduced to his new foster family, parents Rosa and Victor (Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews), an older sister Mary (Grace Fulton), and younger siblings Darla, Eugene, Pedro and Freddy (Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand and Jack Dylan Grazer).

While Billy initially scoffs at his adoptive kin, we do not. Screenwriter Henry Gayden and director David F. Sandberg set their high-flying story in thoughtful, emotionally-resonant territory.

The movie’s sincerity becomes its secret weapon, asking the audience to invest in this non-traditional household. What do we owe to the families we aren’t born to? It works. “Shazam”—not to be confused with Shaquille O’Neal’s magnum opus “Kazaam”—succeeds because of the balance it strikes between heroic hijinks and genuinely meaningful relationships. Who would’ve guessed?

After all, this is the last place you’d expect to find such worthwhile set-up for caped antics.

PHOTO FROM CRITICALHIT.COM

With the exception of “Wonder Woman,” all prior entries in the DC Extended Universe have been overblown and unnecessary, and failed to provide anything compelling beneath the chaos onscreen. So perhaps it is no surprise that “Shazam” shares more DNA with better stuff: There’s a touch of the self-referential a la “Deadpool,” filtered through the sincere tone of Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy. What’s astonishing is how much this silly flick has in common with last year’s Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters,” another loving affirmation of an alternative family.

But “Shazam’s” main influence is obviously “Big”—or maybe “13 Going on 30.” See, soon after Billy

gets acquainted with his new family, he’s whisked away by a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) and bestowed with magical powers—along with the ability to transform into the extremely likable Zachary Levi.

“Shazam” is entirely effective during this middle act, before Billy comprehends the extent of his responsibility. Watching this super-powered faux-grownup sneak his brother out of school, learn the limits of his abilities and waltz around Philadelphia is a blast, even when Levi’s enthusiasm doesn’t quite mesh with Billy’s original moody exterior.

That said, by the climax Angel and Levi’s performances coalesce into a believable individual. Once the big bad (played by the ev-

er-menacing Mark Strong) does show up, you’re almost having too much fun to care—until Sandberg and Gayden start tugging at the heartstrings again. It helps that they’ve got such an endearing supporting cast to lean on, especially the superhero-obsessed Freddy and the adorable Darla.

Honestly, aside from some unconvincing visual effects, I’ve got no complaints.

A bumper-sticker on the back of Rosa and Victor’s van reads “I’m a foster parent. What’s your superpower?” Bright and bold, “Shazam” exceeds all expectations—and its peers could learn a thing or two. When superhero movies actually give us a reason to care, anything is possible.

PHOTO FROM TIME.COM

‘Justice League vs. the Fatal Five’ is effortlessly entertaining

By Josh Lannon staff

DC Comics’ newest animated movie, “Justice League vs. the Fatal Five,” is a joy to experience for any DC Comics fan. The premise of the movie is equal parts simple and convoluted, just like the comics they are based on. The Fatal Five, the arch enemies of the Legion of Superheroes in the 31st century, travel back in time and fight the Justice League. While the plot may seem like a stretch to some, any experienced DC Comics fan will recognize iconic items like the time bubble, which the five used to travel to the 21st century. While the story itself is entirely original, there are clear similarities between this new story and classic comic arcs. The film never feels repetitive, however, and the love and admiration that the development team has for these characters is apparent.

The film harkens back to the nostalgic times of the DCAU (DC Animated Universe) shows like “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited” by using the

same character designs from the show. There has been no word on whether this movie is considered DCAU canon, most likely because there are several incongruities between the show and the film, but seeing the heroes of the DC Animated Universe was incredibly nostalgic.

Even the original voice actors Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg and George Newbern returned to their iconic roles as Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.

The return of these now iconic versions was a great choice because it makes the characters, their personalities and beliefs clearly apparent just by their design and voice.

From the moment I saw Superman save a little boy in the first few minutes, and I heard George Newbern’s voice say, “You alright son?” I knew I wasn’t in for a dark gritty Snyder movie. Instead, I was in for an action-packed, fun adventure.

While nostalgia is a major reason for my adoration of the film, it also does an excellent job of incorporating new characters. In addition to the trinity of Batman,

Superman and Wonder Woman, there are Mr. Terrific, the Justice League scientist, the League candidate Miss Martian, and the reluctant hero Jessica Cruz, the newest Green Lantern. Mr. Terrific has previously appeared in the DCAU but only as a supporting role and never really got to fight, which he more than makes up for in this film. No longer a sidelines superhero, Mr. Terrific is in some of the best action scenes in the movie. On the other hand, Miss Martian had yet to appear in the DCAU but plays a significant role in the story, while also serving as a comedic foil for Batman.

The most important new addition to the team, however, is Jessica Cruz, as the newest Green Lantern in both comics and in the context of the film. The movie does an excellent job of adapting Jessica’s origin story to the film. A traumatic experience left her unable to leave the house because of fear and anxiety. Nevertheless, she was chosen to become a Green Lantern because of her ability to overcome that fear. Her character arc is directly tied into the plot of the film and plays a role in the

PHOTO FROM IMDB.COM

PHOTO FROM YOUTUBE.COM

overall message on the nature of fear in the film.

This film does a great job of blending classic characters with new ones, but it also shines with its action. From the very beginning of the film, the audience is dropped right into the action, and it does not stop. Since this is not a kids’ TV show, there is significantly more violence and blood in “Justice League vs. the Fatal Five” than in the TV shows.

While it sometimes can be a little over the top, particularly with the Emerald Empress, they are called the Fatal Five after all.

The action scenes in the film are crafted extremely well, and there is attention to detail in regards to the unique powers of each character. For example, the Persuader wields the Cosmic Axe, which can cut through anything—and there is actually a scene where he cuts Superman with it. The fact that this occurs fairly early in the film established early on that the Fatal

Five are a serious threat and not just your standard villain-of-theweek types. Some other standout fight sequences include Wonder Woman vs. Persuader and Superman vs. Validus.

While there are a great many things to appreciate about the film, it does suffer from some significant flaws. Beyond simple plot holes or convoluted story telling, both of which are usually a given in a comic book movie, the film suffers most because of its intended audience. As a long time fan of both the Justice League and the Fatal Five, I couldn’t wait for this movie. But the average person might not know who Jessica Cruz or the Fatal Five even are. This is the film’s fatal flaw: It is perfect for any longtime fan of DC, or even a committed newcomer to comics, but to the average viewer, the movie may be a bit of an overload on the senses. Otherwise, if you love DC Comics, you will enjoy this movie.

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The Brandeis Hoot

April 5, 2019

Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts preview

By Sabrina Chow and Noah Harper editors

The annual Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts is fast approaching, running from “Super Sunday” April 7 to Sunday, April 14.

The festival features both student and faculty-run groups around campus as well as out-

side performances throughout the weeklong festival. According to a press release given to The Brandeis Hoot by the sponsor of the event, the Office of the Arts, “The Festival of the Arts honors its founder, the great American composer, conductor and Brandeis faculty member, Leonard Bernstein, and his incredible lega-

cy as an artist, educator, activist and humanitarian.” Bernstein was a prominent composer during the 20th century, composing works for Broadway to film and international concert halls.

According to the official Festival of the Arts Guidebook, social justice was an important issue to Berstein.

“Through his com-

mitment and connections, he helped bring public attention to the historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 and to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, where he conducted concerts on both sides of the wall.”

He was also a faculty member in the Brandeis music department from 19511956. Bernstein direct-

ed the Festival of the Arts during Brandeis’ first commencement in 1952.

“Art can be a fullbody experience,” says festival producer Ingrid Schorr, director of the Office of the Arts.

“At the Festival of the Arts, art will surround you. You’ll experience the flavor of music or the sound of a painting.”

Featured Artists

L. Jones and J. Jones are the Len Cabral, Storyteller: Sunday, April 7, 1 p.m., SCC founders of Afro Flow Yoga, a place that “promotes healing, Multipurpose Room Cabral is an internationally recognized storyteller who has been storytelling since the late 1970’s, according to his website.

As a great grandson of a Cape Verdean whaler, his ancestry shines through in their retelling of African, Cape Verdean and Caribbean folktales. He is the recipient of the National Storytelling Network Circle of Excellence Oracle Award.

balance, peace and the elevation of all humanity through the practices of yoga, dance, rhythms, spirituality and cultural values of the African Diaspora, in a compassionate, non-judgmental and safe environment. Must hold a Brandeis ID to enter.

Leslie Salmon Jones and Jeff W. Jones: Afro Flow Yoga, Wednesday, April 10, 7 p.m., Shapiro Gym in Gosman Athletic Center

The world-renowned Lydian String Quartet, comprised of violinists Andrea Segar and Judith Eissenberg, violist Mark Berger and cellist Joshua Gordon will

Lydian String Quartet: Saturday, May 11, 8 p.m. (7 p.m. preconcert talk), Slosberg Music Center

perform part III of their ongoing series “Love and Death.” Since its beginning in 1980, the quartet “explores the ever-expanding world of music through the intimate voice of the string quartet,” according to their website. “We believe that the immediacy of chamber music expresses the full range of human experience, and we are thrilled to share this with you, our audience.” During this performance, they will be performing Puccini’s “Crisantemi,” SC 65; Britten’s String Quartet No. 3, Op. 94; and Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden.”

Howardena Pindell: “What Remains to Be Seen,” through May 19, Rose Art Museum

“What Remains to Be Seen” is a career retrospective of Howardena Pindell’s work. A trailblazing African American artist who rose to prominence in a time when people of color were excluded from the art world, Pindell’s paintings, collages, sculptures and other pieces interrogate identity, politics, social activism and more through an often abstract lens. From her earlier grids and numbers to her later large-scale circular canvases, it’s a comprehensive tribute to an artist who deserves the spotlight.

Boston Hidden Sacred Spaces - Goldfarb 1

Organized by Prof Wendy Cadge (SOC/WGS) and photographer Randall Armor, this project looks at lesser known sacred

spaces all around Boston that are often unseen by the public eye.

Beginnings of Music at Brandeis - Archives & Special Collections, Goldfarb 2

Delve into the history of the music department at Brandeis by looking into five famous composers that helped shape the department: Erwin Bodky, Irving Fine, Harold Shapero, Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Berger. Materials on display include correspondences, concert programs, music scores and more.

Post-Baccalaureate and Senior Honors Exhibition Dreitzer Gallery (Spingold Theater Center)

Post-baccalaureate and Seniors with Honors show their work in this annual exhibition in the Dreitzer Gallery. Paintings, sculptures and drawings vary from abstract explorations to social critique.

The gallery is only accessible by a flight of stairs. Open during business hours, Monday through Friday.

PHOTO BY NOAH HARPER/THE HOOT

One Foot Planted - Kniz-

PHOTOS COURTESY BRANDEIS OFFICE OF THE ARTS

The Rose is open Wednesday-Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Friday, April 12 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Free and open to the public.

Dmitry Troyanovsky: “The Bacchae,” April 11-14, varying times, Spingold Theater

“How does a society, that appears so ordered and secure behind its walls, plunge into collective madness and carnage?” said associate professor of theater arts, Dmitry Troyanovsky, speaking on the relevant themes in his new play, “The Bacchae.” The work is

based on a new translation of the classic text by Euripides, a tragedy about Dionysus’ revenge on the city of Thebes.

“What the audience will hopefully experience will be timeless and totally modern.” Troyanovsky said. “It’s a music theater spectacle, which distills themes of desire, political authority, ambition, family, madness, violence, and grief into images and sounds that can unsettle and mesmerize.”

“The Bacchae” premieres Thursday, April 11 at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale at the SCC Ticketbooth now.

Featured Exhibitions

PHOTO COURTESY HADASSAH-BRANDEIS INSTITUTE

nick Gallery, Epstein Building

A caravan of people travel through the desert on different devices—wheels, stilts, a three-dimensional star—bearing banners.

The procession traveling down the Israel National Trail is one of several video pieces on display at the Kniznick Gallery in the Women’s Studies Research Center, created by Israeli video and perfor-

mance artists Ayelet Carmi and Meirav Heiman.

Carmi will be present on Sunday, April 7 for “Women Gathering and the Kibbutz,” to discuss experiences and ideas relating to growing up on a collective farm in Northern Israel. “One Foot Planted” will be on view during special weekend hours Sunday, April 7 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.