The Brandeis Hoot - September 3rd, 2010

VOL 7, NO. 12

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

B R A N D E I S U N I V E R S I T Y ' S C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R

WA LT H A M , M A

Krauss to leave provost post, return to teaching

BY NATHAN KOSKELLA Editor

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

PASSING THE TORCH: Provost Marty Krauss will leave her post at the end of the year

Provost Marty Krauss will end her tenure as Brandeis’ chief academic officer and a university senior vice president by the end of this academic year, according to a community-wide e-mail from outgoing President Jehuda Reinharz.

Krauss has been at the uppermost levels of the university’s administration for the last seven years, with “responsibility for all academic programs and schools at Brandeis, the University Libraries, an expanded number of centers and insti-

Admissions may adopt ‘need-sensitive’ approach

BY NATHAN KOSKELLA Editor

The Brandeis faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid announced Thursday that a partial transition of undergraduate admissions from “need-blind” to “need-sensitive” would be permissible “after all available financial aid is exhausted.”

The committee chair Professor Steven Burg (POL), who made the announcement at Thursday’s faculty meeting, stressed that such measures should only be used as a last resort and that a need-blind admissions policy should remain a “core value of the institution.”

Currently, university admissions are only need-aware for international students and students on the wait-list–a practice common at other top-tier universities.

However, the university has been staunchly need-blind for all other applicants, and currently 75 percent of students receive some form of financial aid. Though Burg’s announcement is only a recommendation which would need to be approved by Admissions in order to be adopted, the university has never put the idea of considering an applicant’s financial needs during the admissions process on the table until now.

In an interview with The Hoot, Burg was adamant that if the admissions process were to become “need-sensitive,” it

would not automatically decline students with financial need, and would instead use a mathematical formula to calculate a student’s needs (based on their race, Grade Point Average and high school performance) and set it against the university’s capacity.

“The term ‘need-sensitive’ is distinct from ‘need-aware’ in that the admissions committee never actually sees financial aid information, it’s behind a firewall,” Burg explained.

The recommendations also argue that this should only be done once “all available financial aid” is used, meaning money would potentially run out after the most sought-after students are already accepted, regardless of need. Already, Admissions has a master list of the most desired applicants, with the term a loose one to include not only academic performance but the university’s diversity and character attributes it looks for in students.

The recommendations are meant to address a “threepronged problem,” Burg said.

“Our aid funds have been inadequate; there are negative effects on matriculation rates when students are accepted and cannot attend because of [unmet] need; and yet still keep our firm commitment to need-blind admissions.” This would explain, he said, the firm wish for the timing of switching to acknowledging need and the firewall difSee ADMISSIONS, p. 5

THIS Fix-it man WEEK:

Hoot Highlights, page 7

tutes, the research infrastructure and the Rose Art Museum,” according to Reinharz’s e-mail.

She is involved in hiring at such Brandeis institutions as the international business and Heller graduate schools and works with the faculty leadership on all things academic.

“It’s a job that has so many challenges, and the last eight years we’ve been engaged in deep thinking, with new leadership that’s devoted to this academy, and I’ve enjoyed this very much,” Krauss said. “This is an incredible institution, I give the deans credit, and the faculty, who are very engaged in the running of this institution.”

With her departure, Krauss becomes the latest in a line of top administrators who have stepped down from their posts since Jan. 2009, including the president himself and nearly all of Krauss’ fellow senior vice presidents, including those in finance and administration, students and enrollment, and communications.

See page 20 for more information on recent changes in the administration.

But Krauss’ decision exists independently in that she said it had been long coming, and in that

she plans on becoming a full faculty member again at the Heller School.

“I’ve been thinking about how long I wanted to stay on before the new president was named,” she said. “We’ve had some tough years, it’s a tough position, it’s draining, but it’s an exciting one.” Krauss added that she looked forward to a one-year sabbatical and then returning to teaching in the Brandeis community.

“I’ll still be a part of this community,” she said, “because I’m devoted to this institution. I look forward to working with Fred Lawrence and the next provost.”

It’s not easy going ‘green’ Univ solar energy not considered ‘renewable’ by renewable portfolio standards

PHOTO BY Nafiz ‘Fiz’ Ahmed/The Hoot

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

Last November, the university installed solar panels on the roof of the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center as part of a Power Purchase Agreement with EOS Ventures in an effort to make the campus more “green.” Although the panels have been supplying the university with solar energy since February, the university is not allowed to label this energy “renewable” due to conventions relating to the way renewable energy is produced and sold.

When renewable energy is produced, there are two parts of the product that can be sold; the energy itself, measured in Kilowatthours, and “Renewable Energy

Certificates” (REC), which represent the positive environmental effects associated with the Kilowatt-hours.

According to Massachusetts state law, these two products do not have to be sold to the same consumer, and only the consumer with the REC can claim to be using “green” or “renewable” energy.

While Brandeis buys energy from the panels–which supply Gosman with 10 percent of its electricity–the university did not buy the corresponding RECs. “That’s why we have to say that the solar panels are reducing world-wide carbon, not Brandeis carbon,” Brandeis Sustainability Coordinator Janna CohenRosenthal ’03 said. “We can say we are helping humanity’s envi-

Road tripping the bases Sports, page 18

ronmental impact, but not in regard to Brandeis’ personal carbon footprint.”

Conversely, whoever purchased the REC from the solar panels can claim a proportion of their energy supply as “renewable,” even though it came from another location. This is in part due to the way the Massachusetts electricity grid works.

When energy is produced in Massachusetts, it goes into the New England grid, or network, where it mixes with all other energy produced in New England.

This electricity is then sent to consumers, who get a “grid mix” of energy produced from nuclear, coal, gas, oil, hydro and solar power.

See SOLAR, p. 3

@TheBrandeisHoot.com Learn why members of the senior administraiton are leaving Twitter: http://twitter.com/thebrandeishoot Facebook: http://facebook.thebrandeishoot.com

2 The Brandeis Hoot

NEWS

September 3, 2010

Crown Center hosts panel on Middle East politics

BY MARSHA PATEL Special to The Hoot

Five Brandeis faculty members discussed Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Palestine-Israel and Middle East relations Wednesday afternoon in a panel hosted by the The Crown Center for Middle East Studies.

Naghmeh Sohrabi, Director of Research at the Crown Center, Professor Kanan Makiya (IMES), Crown Center Junior Fellow Joshua Walker, Professor Nader Habibi (ECON) and Professor Shai Feldmen (POL) participated in the panel.

Sohrabi, examined the lack of foreign journalism in Iran and said that Iran’s role in international economics and nuclear decisions seems stagnant because the “events of 2009 imposed that way of thinking about Iran.”

However, Iran “has made very important domestic developments,” Sohrabi said.

“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [the sixth and current president of Iran] has been working with the supreme leader of Iran [Rahbare Mo’azzame Enqelab] regarding foreign policy making the supreme leader an active piece on with in the chess board rather than an overseer of the game.”

If they both continue to work together, Sohrabi predicts the United States will have to intervene to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. “If our end goal is practical we can play up the rift and give him assistance, ... but if we go to promote liberal democracy the future isn’t … very bright,” Sohrabi said.

Makiya discussed the official end of the Iraqi invasion and said that “intangible costs of the war are real but not countable like the stand of American respect.

“It is completely understandable why people feel betrayed,” he said. However, that was the American perspective.

According to Makiya, “most Iraqis: the women, the Shia and the Kurds would consider the outlook a positive one since for the first time these groups have been given a chance to speak for themselves.”

Makiya believes that although the war seemed to damage many individuals it was a necessary evil. “My post is something had to be done. A war can be good for some, maybe not for others, and who is to say which one is right and which one is not,” she said.

After the discussion on Iraq Walker addressed the prevailing distance in American and Turkish relations. Walker believes that “after the Cold War Turkey remained allies to United States and Europe but now as it realizes its strengths, in Turkish perspective, Europe seems irrelevant.

“They are now trying [to] find

PHOTO BY Ingrid Schulte/The Hoot

ROUND TABLE: Speakers at the Crown Center’s panel discuss Middle Eastern relations.

themselves in the middle of the who listened to the discussion.

Middle East.” Walker still “ re“It was really cool and nice to mains optimistic” and believes hear about the whole region. It that Turkey likes to stay on the addressed a lot of issues that I line between the west and the study,” Mark Grinberg ’11 said. east.

While Grinberg came to the Building off Walker’s perspec- event for educational purposes, tive on Turkey’s emerging power Jen Wang ’14 came to stay conin the Middle East, Habibi said nected with international isthat “2009 was a bad year for ev- sues. “Since coming to Brandeis ery country … But now Turkey I’ve been out of touch with the seems to rise as the Dubai of the media. It was nice to just know Middle East.” what was going on around the At the end of the panel, Feld- world,” Wang said. man, Director of the Crown Center said the Obama administration should handle the PalestineIsrael negotiation. “ Bothcount r i e s - Professor Kanan Makiya (IMES) h a v e w e a k l e a d ers and therefore [the] United States need to intervene,” Feldman said.

“I hope they start to implement their policies as they decide them and not wait for the whole package to be resolved. If that happens the entire process remains hostage to the strongest issue and there is no visible implantation for the people to see,” Feldman said.

There were some students in attendance, but it was mainly professors and other adults from the Brandeis community

Most Iraqis, the women, the Shia and the Kurds would consider the outlook a positive one since for the first time these groups have been given a chance to speak for themselves.

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

NEWS

3

Solar panels can’t New study abroad program in The Hague completes first summer claim ‘greenness’

BY LEAH FINKELMAN

SOLAR (from p. 1)

So while Brandeis benefits from the panel’s energy due to their proximity, the panels actually decrease New England’s carbon footprint as a whole.

“You can’t tell electrons where to go,” Cohen-Rosenthal said, “which is why you can sell the REC separate from the energy.”

Despite the inability to claim Brandeis as a renewable energy consumer, Cohen-Rosenthal said purchasing the RECs, which could cost $50 each, does not make financial sense for the university.

The buyer of an REC could potentially get a tax deduction for their purchase if they consider it to be a donation. Because Brandeis is a non-profit, the university is tax-exempt, and therefore cannot receive the financial benefits of buying the RECs. Instead, the university has a 20year contract with EOS Ventures that allows it to purchase the solar energy at a fixed price.

“The price we are paying now is a little more expensive than grid power, but because of market changes, we’ll be paying less for it than grid power within three to four years,” Cohen-Rosenthal explained, adding that it is the fixed price of the solar energy that will save the university one million dollars durring the course of the contract.

Cohen-Rosenthal said that two years ago the university bought enough RECs to make up 15 percent of the university’s energy supply as part of President Jehuda Reinharz’ climate commitment.

When the RECs retired after one year, the university did not buy any more for financial reasons.

Cohen-Rosenthal said she initially was hoping to obtain solarenergy and RECs for the university, but said that most Power Purchase Agreements do not include the RECs. “RECs are a way for power companies to finance the installation of the solar panels, which they have to pay for in a Power Purchase Agreement,” she explained.

Though Cohen-Rosenthal said she does think the REC system is a bit disingenuous on behalf of the person buying the REC and not the actual energy, calling it “green-washing,” Brandeis not purchasing the REC was “the only financially responsible way for us to get solar power.”

“Basically we could buy three types of energy; there’s ‘dirty energy,’ which isn’t renewable at all, there’s ‘green energy’ which is from a renewable source like solar panels that you buy with the REC so you can call it green, and there’s ‘olive energy,’ which is technically renewable energy but we can’t call it that because we don’t own the RECs,” she said. “So we buy ‘olive energy,’ which isn’t green, but it’s better than dirty energy.”

Cohen-Rosenthal hopes to use the money saved by not purchasing the RECs to encourage energy efficiency around campus.

“For all this talk about ‘green’ kilowatt hours, and ‘olive’ kilowatt hours, the best kind of kilowatt hour is the one we don’t use,” she said.

Staff

Brandeis piloted an all-new study abroad option this summer in The Hague, where 18 Brandeis students joined Professor Richard Gaskins (LGLS) for the new six-week immersion program.

The program aimed to open students’ eyes to world-renowned international criminal courts and legal processes.

While in The Hague, one of the largest cities and the seat of government in the Netherlands, students lived at the University of Leiden, about 15 minutes outside the city.

They saw first-hand how courts like the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court work through classes, visits, workshops and seminars.

“We were essentially immersed in the subject of international law,” participant Rick Alterbaum ’12 said, explaining that he and his classmates took classes with Gaskins and spent two weeks at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies.

While at the Grotius Centre, the students took part in a twoweek program with participants from around the world, including law students and legal professionals.

They participated in a moot court, in which they were broken into small teams and acted as International Criminal Court lawyers and argued for or against war criminals. One team from Brandeis took home first prize from the experience.

Jennifer Craig ’13 thought the

PEACE PALACE: The home of international justice, the top UN judicial body.

experiential learning aspect was and teaching two Brandeis in integral to the program’s suc- The Hague courses, “The Spirit cess. “Nothing makes you feel of International Law” and “Adlike you vocacy in really the Intermost successful part of n a t i o n a l k n o w the program was the stu- C r i m i n a l w h a t y o u ’ r e dents’ self-confidence with legal is- Court.” talking “ T h e sues, which allowed them to explore most about suclike go- the global impact of international c e s s f u l ing to law. part of an inthe pro- Professor Richard Gaskins ternagram was tional the stucourt, d e nt s’ such as the ICC, and being able self-confidence with legal isto follow what is going on,” she sues, which allowed them to said. explore the global impact of Gaskins was instrumental international law,” Gaskins in the organization of the trip, said. from arranging for guest speakThe Hague program was just ers and field visits to planning one of four Justice Brandeis Se-

The

PHOTO BY Nathan Koskella/The Hoot

mester (JBS) pilot programs that ran durring the summer.

JBS program manager Alyssa Grinberg, who played a part in the creation of The Hague program said, “The program had a positive impact on students’ personal growth that relates to the overall university learning goals.”

“Much of the success of the program should also be attributed to the students, who were dedicated to the experience and the learning process,” she said.

The program was developed as a joint effort between the Office of Global Affairs, the Office of Study Abroad, Legal Studies and International Global Studies, and is being revised and updated for an expected reprisal in summer 2011.

Univ advises building changes during heat wave

BY JON OSTROWSKY Editor

With temperatures in the upper 90s this week, the university asked all members of the Brandeis community to turn off extra lights, close windows, avoid extra electrical use and close shades facing south, south-east and south-west in a statement sent on Monday from Peter Baker, director of facilities services.

“The systems are not designed to handle temperatures and humidity above the 90 degree level,” university Energy Manager Bill Bushel said.

Baker said they asked that “systems that were not critical or necessary be shut off.

“Where possible, scale back electricity usage by shutting off power consuming equipment that isn’t being used,” he wrote in the statement.

The hot start to the school year has been uncomfortable for many students sleeping in dorms with no air conditioning, but Baker explained that it would be too expensive to install central air conditioning in

PHOTO BY Phil Small/The Hoot

GETTING HOT IN HERE: The Charles River Appartments are some of many dorms on campus that are not air conditioned.

older buildings.

“The reality is that these buildings were never designed with air conditioning [in mind,]” Baker said.

He said that it is a far better use of money to use it for construction than to retro-fit old buildings. All academic buildings and new residence halls have air conditioning, Baker said; however some dorms in North and Massell Quads, the

Charles River Apartments and the Foster-Mods do not.

Students with a medical need for cooler air may submit a request to the Department of Community Living, along with a doctor’s note, and an air-conditioning window unit could be installed.

Baker said he thinks that window units overall would be a See HEAT WAVE, p. 5

The reality is that these buildings were never designed with air conditioning [in mind] -Peter Baker

4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

September 3, 2010

Lawrence introduces himself to student body

BY JON OSTROWSKY Editor

Presidential appointee Frederick Lawrence spoke briefly and met with students at an event in Ridgewood Commons courtyard Monday night.

In the student body’s first opportunity to meet the new president, Lawrence, who will officially be installed as president of the university on Jan. 1, 2011, offered brief remarks on his excitement to serve as president and the role students had in the search process, and spent most of the evening walking around and shaking hands with students.

Lawrence explained that he was attracted to Brandeis because of its historic and successful background, its commitment to social justice and its ability to exist as both a liberal arts college and a research university.

“There is literally no other job in higher education that could pull together all the threads of my personal and professional life the way this opportunity does,” he said.

“For me, meeting the students wasn’t just part of the process,” Lawrence said in an interview with The Hoot. “For me, meeting the students was part of the way I

was sold on this school.”

During the search for a new president, former Union President Andy Hogan ’11, Student Representative to the Board of Trustees Heddy Ben-Atar ’11, and former Student Representative to the Board of Trustees Jonathan Kane ’10, held multiple meetings with trustees about how to involve the student body, according to a statement from Union President Daniel Acheampong ’11.

Hogan said the he was involved in “all parts of the search,” including “drafting the case statement” to interviewing the candidates and finalists.

“It says a significant amount about the administration and trustees acceptance of student involvement,” Hogan said.

Hogan, Ben-Atar and Kane also selected six students to serve on the Student Advisory Committee and presented a report detailing the concerns of students to the Official Search Committee.

Acheampong said that the Student Advisory Committee “not only interviewed the final candidate but they also did of extensive research to make sure that students’ inputs were heard.”

Lawrence said he was equally impressed with the impact stu-

dents had during the process.

“The student role in the search committee shows that student opinion was considered important to the process,” he said. “It also shows something equally if not more significant – that the school understood that showcasing the students was an important attraction for a certain kind of candidate.”

Before Lawrence takes office as University President in January, he said he will be splitting his time between Brandeis and Washington D.C., where he currently serves as Dean of The George Washington University Law School. Even this week, he had several flights scheduled back and forth between Boston and Washington, D.C. From mid-November on, Lawrence, a graduate of Williams College with a law degree from Yale University, said he plans to spend most of his time here at Brandeis preparing to serve as president.

Lawrence, met with students even as it got dark Monday evening, asking students about their concerns and hopes for the university, something Hogan considers promising.

“My hope is this upward trend of student involvement stays with us for a while,” Hogan said.

MEET THE PRESIDENT Frederick Lawrence talks with students on Monday evening in Ridgewood Commons.

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

NEWS

5

Admissions may change needblind policy

BBQ on the quad

ADMISSIONS (from p. 1)

fering between the model they use to estimate need and true “awareness.”

“This is a much fairer way than need-aware,” Burg said.

“Our goal is to recruit the best class possible every year, regardless of need, and one of the biggest factors in deciding whether or not to come here is financial.”

The office of Admissions will determine the consequences of the recommendations later in the year, but need-sensitivity may begin with the class of 2015.

Univ prepares for heat, hurricane HEAT WAVE (from p. 1)

Seniors gather in the Foster Mods for a back to school barbeque organized by the Department of Community Living.

YOUR AD COULD BE HERE! Advertise in The Brandeis Hoot Students: Prices start @ $15 ads@thebrandeishoot.com

“pretty inefficient” way of cooling a building.

“These are sort of common sense things,” Baker said, discussing the requests from Facilities Services. “When everything’s [running] at it’s maximum, it really makes a difference.”

Temperatures are expected to drop significantly this weekend as tropical storm conditions are anticipated Friday and Friday night, effects from Hurricane Earl.

The hurricane is expected to hit Cape Cod and the islands as well as parts of South East Massachusetts between Friday and Saturday.

6 ADVERTISMENT

The Brandeis Hoot

September 3, 2010

Eddy: Ready for RISD

BY NATHAN KOSKELLA Editor

Everyone wears more than one hat at Brandeis. Whether it’s being a community service leader, academic advisor or club captain. As university President Jehuda Reinharz often says, “everyone’s a president at Brandeis.”

The metaphor fits perfectly for Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy, who has also been the acting dean of admissions for the last year since the departure of Gil Villanueva. In September she announced her own exit from her Brandeis home of 10 years.

Before she came to Brandeis, Eddy’s position on the Brandeis administration didn’t exist: Reinharz created it for her.

“It was a brand new position created here,” she said. “[It was] the biggest position of this kind in the country at that time, and I was excited about it because I could impact the whole portal of the student experience, the entire experience.”

This “portal” is what Eddy calls virtually every activity or happening that makes up students’ lives outside (and some inside) the classroom. Her office of Students and Enrollment, encompasses a whopping slice of the Brandeis experience: the entire Division of Student Affairs, which includes the Departments of Community Living, Orientation and Student Activities; the Department of Athletics; Academic Services and the University Registrar, in addition to the many other special programs the university facilitates.

“I really care about the entire student experience,” Eddy said, talking about the sheer scope of her post. “Everyone [in this office] is worrying about and working for the same thing.”

This past year’s foray into admissions only fits more evenly into her vision of this powerful senior vice presidency. According to Eddy, students are “recruited to come, fall in love, and we have to do everything to make sure they stay in love.”

It is this justification that allows her to be comfortable in both jobs, and to manage the giant portfolio. When accepting

PHOTO BY Ingrid Schulte/The Hoot

Brandeisians, “you had better make sure you fulfill your promise,” she said. “It’s up to everyone else here to make sure the student is happy.

“The first touch after a student pays their deposit, a student is a little worried. For this reason, after the Orientation Leaders, Student Activities and Community Advisors, you find that people around them are needed to pull them in and help build a community around them,” she said. The scope of the senior vice president and his or her division, she said, is simply “about everybody pulling together to create this really fabulous place.”

Before taking over her current position at Brandeis, Eddy served in a top enrollment position at Northeastern University. Eddy said she was of two minds about her lengthy stay at Brandeis.

“The thing about this place is people ask all the time how long I’ve worked here,” she said, “and sometimes I really don’t know.

I’m pulled in, engaged, and I know it’s been 10 years, but it feels like five minutes.”

At the beginning of Eddy’s time here, she attended a basketball game and nearly every student, the small amount that was there, was doing homework.

She wondered why Brandeis did not yet have that certain spark of belonging.

In her time here, she has strengthened not only the Ath-

GIVE A HOOT READ THE HOOT JOIN THE HOOT

letics program but also sought to step up the community involvement at large through Student Affairs’ student leadership positions and special programs. In the second phase of her story, Eddy recounted a recent time at Brandeis.

“Something that made me sit back years later was, at another basketball game, in the NCAA Championship, and the gym was completely packed— and a string of boys had the big Brandeis blue letters across their bare chests,” she says. “I thought to myself that this could not be the same place I walked into. We had come full-circle.”

Jean Eddy will step down at the end of September to take a similar position at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), a top national arts college.

“I still love the students here, and the people I work with, nothing has changed,” Eddy says. “But RISD will be a very different institution, with new challenges for me.”

In the 10 years since her position was an exploration into the limits of enrollment office powers, RISD has joined the growing national movement for a central leader for the student experience.

“If I was ever going to take on new challenges and another student experience, now would be the time. They’re embracing the same model Brandeis did, and that I was a part of,” Eddy says.

“For me, leaving now means I get to do it all over again.”

E-mail eic@thebrandeishoot.com

September 3, 2010

HOOT HIGHLIGHTS

The Brandeis Hoot 7

Handy to have around

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

Sitting in Mod 12 on a Monday afternoon, Karl Nauss acts like he lives there. In a plush turquoise folding chair bought from Bed, Bath And Beyond three years earlier, he knows all of the suite-mates, and even some of their families.

“Hey Kansas City,” he calls to Madeline Mayer ’11, “how’s your Ma?” “She’s good.”

“Has she had any ribs since she went back?”

“Not yet. But she will.”

“Well, tell her to have some of those with Belgian beer, that’s the greatest.”

The last time Karl visited this Mod was just more than a week ago to fix shelves in Mayer’s second-floor room.

Karl, a Trade Person’s Helper (TPH), or facilities worker, had been working on a separate Mod when Mayer spotted him in the parking lot and asked if he could fix her shelves.

He did, and brought two friends–other TPHs who caulked the bathtub and repaired blinds without even being asked.

“Other people might say ‘well, you didn’t fill out a work order, that’s not why I’m down here, so I’m not going to do it,’” Karl says.

“But if I don’t do it now, I’m just gonna have to come back, so I might as well do it

all in one trip.”

“Plus, when you have a woman like Kansas City’s Ma asking nicely and sticking around while we do it to be friendly, it makes it fun.”

The time between movein and Rosh Hashannah is the busiest time for facilities workers on campus. Firstyear move-in day is the worst, because there are no work-orders.

“People see us and grab us,” Karl says. “We’re busy most of the day, but if you’re nice to us, we’ll do anything.

You know I had parents over in Massell helping me move beds? They don’t have to do that.”

“Shades, screens and doors” are the most common repairs Karl and his five fellow TPHs are called to fix.

“Sometimes kids just don’t know how to use these blinds, they don’t know you have to snap them to get them to go up,” he says.

“The first few weeks we get a lot of calls that shades are broken and we end up just teaching kids how to use them.”

With Karl in Mod 12 is his friend and fellow TPH who didn’t want to be named in the newspaper because both he and Karl were recently “demoted” as part of a 75-person layoff in 2009–the first of its scope at Brandeis–to help alleviate the university’s economic

form-blue khaki pants and woes.

Karl’s friend, who used work-boots, also likes to to work days, now has to lift weights. As a Brandeis work the midnight shift to staff-member he gets free ensure there is a TPH on access to the Gosman gym.

“Even though I got staff 24-hours a day. Karl, who has worked at Brandeis switched to week-ends, I since 1986, used to special- get to lift weights here every ize in air-conditioning, but morning,” he says. “We get after the layoffs he became a four weeks off, 12 sick days TPH, a less specialized job. and the kids are alright.

Now he works weekends in- You can’t complain, it’s too easy a place.” stead of weeks.

Karl is confident that jobs “I’m here all alone on the weekends, so I could be called for anything from toilets, to roof floodings–anything,” he says.

“But boy, if I could choose, give me a -Karl Nauss, TPH flooded toilet.

That’s a real fast job.”

During the week when he’s not work- will open up soon and he ing, Karl is a bird-watcher, can get back to air-condigardener and Belgian-beer tioning.

“They just finished buildaficionado. But, he’ll settle for good old American beer ing that science center and the Mandel center–sometoo.

“Do you guys want any- one’s got to work on those,” thing to drink, water?” May- he said.

Senior Vice President for er asks.

“I’ll take a BudLight,” he Administration Mark Coljokes, before going into a lins did not respond to redescription of the turkey- quests to comment on the vultures that can be found layoffs, demotions or any at Brandeis by Spingold the- other aspect of facilities at Brandeis. ater.

Working in facilities does Karl, who has bright blond have its dangers. Karl has hair and tattoos on his arms to accompany his uni- been out on workmen’s

Boy, if I could choose, give me a flooded toilet. That’s a real fast job,

compensation for shoulder injuries, and onetime in the 1990’s he fell through a roof in the Mods.

This summer another TPH was working to repair a window in East when it broke and fell onto him. According to Chief of Brandeis Public Safety Ed Callahan, the TPH tried to block his face with his arms, which were thrashed by the falling glass.

Unable to call on his radio, the TPH went into shock on his way to Public Safety. He was found semi-conscious by a Brandeis Police officer who took him to the hospital where he received 74 stitches on one arm and 65 on the other.

“Our jobs don’t end when the kids go home for summer,” Karl explains, saying TPHs work through June, July and August doing “preventative maintenance” before students arrive.

The Charles River Appartments used to need the most repairs, but since their renovation this summer, Karl and his fellow TPHs have had the most calls for the Foster-Mods.

“That means we’ll have to keep visiting Kansas City,” Karl says as his radio goes off.

Somewhere in Scheffres a shade needs to be fixed and Karl needs to fix it.

“It just keeps coming and coming,” he says as he heads out the door.

EDITORIAL

8 The Brandeis Hoot

The Brandeisian dream

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

Ariel Wittenberg Editor in Chief Nathan Koskella News Editor Jon Ostrowsky News Editor Bret Matthew Impressions Editor Kara Karter Sports Editor Kayla Dos Santos Arts, Etc. Editor Jodi Elkin Layout Editor Leah Lefkowitz Layout Editor Max Shay Photography Editor Vanessa Kerr Business Editor Savannah Pearlman Copy Editor Yael Katzwer Deputy Copy Editor Associate Editors Alex Schneider, Destiny D. Aquino

FOUNDED BY

Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

SUBMISSION POLICIES The Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the general community. Preference is given to current or former community members. The Hoot reserves the right to edit any submissions for libel, grammar, punctuation, spelling and clarity. The Hoot is under no obligation to print any of the pieces submitted.

Letters in print will also appear on-line at www.thehoot.net.

The deadline for submitting letters is Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. All letters must be submitted electronically at www. thehoot.net. All letters must be from a valid e-mail address and include contact information for the author. Letters of length greater than 500 words may not be accepted.

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

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

Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

Think our editorials are wrong?

Write a letter to the editor at eic@thebrandeishoot.com

Hoot Classifieds First post is free! thebrandeishoot.com /classifieds

September 3, 2010

T

he Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid Thursday announced that, if financially needed, the university should in the future become “needsensitive” in its admissions.

Currently, the only students not admitted through “need-blind” means are international students and students admitted from the wait-list. If approved by the Department of Admissions, this recommendation could soon come into practice.

The nation’s financial crisis has, once again, caused Brandeis to reconsider our priorities. We strongly urge the Admissions department to consult the Brandeis community at large and think long and hard before adopting a position that would speak to the character of our university.

Brandeis has long insisted that we are an academic institution firmly rooted in social justice, and it would appear that declining access to students whom the Ad-

missions Department deems too needy would be a departure from that mission.

Brandeis is also an institution founded on academic excellence, and any budget cuts, or academic cuts, that would result from an attempt to save need-blind admissions would also be a setback to our university. We hoped that last spring’s academic restructuring would be the end of cuts at Brandeis, but what Thursday’s announcement suggests is that the cuts will keep coming.

Certain cuts, however drastic, must be on the table if using a mathematical formula that accurately guesses aid, determining which students are accepted instead of others who may demonstrate more financial need, is being debated. These possible cuts can and should include even certain academic programs; faculty hiring decisions; and student and staff conveniences many of us are accustomed to.

Judging students by the amount of money they or their families can or cannot pay, at any time or under any circumstances, limits the educational opportunities and meaningful collegiate life experiences of all of us. A community of one stripe and status does not a socially just world make. An unrepresentative Brandeis class, populated after a certain limit only by the well-to-do and fortunate, undermines the very notions of diversity and acceptance.

Brandeis should give graduates far more than a skewed lens of American life, and offer students an accurate and inclusive look at the American class structure and beyond it to what we all share.

The American dream is not often accomplished alone.

One of the highest priorities on this or any campus should be the no-barriers access to education for bright, enthusiastic students of all races, creeds and socioeconomic status.

September 3, 2010

Don’t know where to find your Hoot?

Check out our new boxes in convenient locations around campus

ADVERTISMENTS 9

The Brandeis Hoot

Chag Sameach, from The Hoot!

Because of the many holidays next week, The Hoot will not publish in print during the week of Sept. 6.

We will publish online as needed.

Stop by weekly to get the latest addition of The Hoot

Check out

www.thebrandeishoot.com for updates!

ARTS, etc.

10 The Brandeis Hoot

September 3, 2010

Summer flab into fall fab

BY GABBY KATZ

Keeping fit throughout the school year

Special to The Hoot

First-years and seniors alike experience the back to school hustle and bustle of hounding Amazon for textbooks, going overboard on the club fair sign-up sheets and choosing late night Lizzy’s ice cream with friends over the usual nightly work-out. Ah yes, the life of a Brandeis student is often one of pushing the extreme in every activity, overlooking the one essential vehicle that allows us to be the nutty over-achievers we are: our bodies. So, I, Gabby Katz, am here to be the weekly voice of your sad liver, fried brain, hungry tummy, and sleepy heart.

I will try my best to give weekly tips on easy ways to keep mentally and physically fit on campus without having to take on any more time commitments than you already have.

Often, many use meal times or breaks for coffee and sugary snacks as the perfect point in the day to catch up with friends or to call parents to vent about our days. However, what if we relocated this social gathering outside? Walking around Loop Road once is about one mile, can be completed in 20 minutes at a moderate pace, and removes the mindset that socializing and eating have to go hand-in-hand. Studies show that even short-distance walking or standing up a couple times a day instead of continually sitting in a chair can increase the levels of lipoprotein lipase, which are enzymes that help metabolize fat. Additionally, walking can burn significant calories, according to runnersworld.com. By multiplying 0.30 by your weight you can figure out your net calorie burn per mile, which

Basically, all I have told you this article can really add up if you make this a new but it is the new campus trend. My blue is to drink water and walk, but hopefully re-useable camelback with frog stickers practice in your daily routine. Walking you now see how these two activities can keeps me hydrated, green and in-style as also promotes heart health and socializing with friends and family can increase mental stability and relieve stress. Best part of all, you don’t have to step into the sweaty gym or fill up on extra unneeded calories to socialize.

Not sold on the walking thing? Here’s another tip: Drink. Drink. Drink.

Not the kind of drinking at the party this weekend, I mean water. And lots of it.

Roughly 70 percent of your body and 90 percent of your brain are made of water, and 45 percent of all statistics are made up. Just kidding on the last one, but really, we are made mostly of water, so to deprive our bodies of the essential liquids we run on would seem a bit counterintuitive, right? Drinking water at the first signs of hunger can also help us distinguish if we are hungry or thirsty and help save those extra calories that may be consumed out of confusion. Water can also PHOTO BY Nafiz Ahmed /The Hoot regulate body temperature in TIME IN THE GYM: Students work out in the weight room, located in the Gosman Gym. this scary heat wave, alleviate constipation from Sherman food and I fill up at the many water fountains or be easily incorporated into your social flush toxins from our bodies. To calculate sinks around campus. Access to drink- lives and have great impact over your how much water you should drink per able water on campus is abundant and health. Stay tuned next week for more day, divide your weight in pounds in two free, and water bottles are given out at health tips and please send an e-mail to and that value is the amount in ounces of many campus events (like this past club gkatz10@brandeis.edu if you have any water that your body demands per day. fair) so drinking water can be a change to health related questions or interests that Not only is it essential for our health, your daily life that is easy and beneficial. you want featured in the column.

A midyear’s journey

BY LUKE HAYSLIP Special to The Hoot

When I was offered admittance to Brandeis as a midyear student, I was at first quite disheartened and confused as to why I had not been accepted into the fall term. So I began to read through the literature that Brandeis provided, as well as blogs and college-prep websites, about what it meant to be a midyear at Brandeis.

I discovered that midyear students were no less qualified than fall term students, with no discrepancies in high school course difficulty, Grade Point Averages or extracurricular activities. I realized that being a midyear was not such a bad thing, and that it could be something unique and rewarding if I truly embraced the program for what it is worth.

One of the initial benefits of midyear acceptance is approximately four and a half more months of free time than general acceptance students have before classes begin. One may take courses at a local college to earn the same credits as they would during a semester at Brandeis, or perhaps an individual could find employment in order to earn extra money to afford the pricey tuition of a top-level private education. But then there is the kid who is simply burnt out from four years of fingernail-biting, hair-pulling and 21 hour days of the International Baccalaureate Program, who wants to just relax, attend concerts and sleep through half

the day.

As a product of the IB Program, there is nothing more than I would love to do that to take the final path above and let my brain and body rest in a semi-vegetative state, but I am not one to simply give up when the going gets rough. In this economy, it can be very difficult to find work, especially when you’re an 18-yearold high school graduate with v ery little prior work experience. Luckily, I was hired at Winn-Dixie, a southern grocery chain, where I work as a cashier and occasional bagger, about 30 to 36 hours a week. With my mother away at the University of Florida College of Education (she is getting her doctorate in education) and my father struggling to find employment as a merchant marine of over 35 years, I am the only one in the family earning an income.

Through these hardships, I have gained great insight into how tight money can be, how to balance the food budget with the utilities bills, and how to manage to have fun without breaking the bank. No longer am I the careless teen who goes to the movies every time I have a gap in my schedule, or who buys anything I want. I have also learned the value of faith and hope, and the importance of having friends and family to help get you through the difficulties in life. My precollege journey has been very helpful and insightful, and was a much needed reality check into the importance of a good education, perseverance and dedication.

As I write this article, I have about

three and a half months until I begin my next path in life as a college first-year.

Of course, I am sad to leave behind my family, friends, girlfriend, beloved pets, the temperate year-round climate of the Florida coast and the essence of my childhood self … but I know that this is

an important step in my life. No longer will I simply dream of my future. Now comes the time to fulfill my dreams.

I am proud to be a midyear student in the Brandeis Class of 2014 and I cannot wait to join the rest of you guys in midJanuary!

GRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

11

Images from abroad: Travel writing overseas

BY ANDREA FISHMAN Special to The Hoot

This past summer marked my first time across the Atlantic Ocean. While people are normally afraid to travel such long distances even with friends and family, I had to do it all alone.

I was headed to spend a month in Madrid, Spain with a family teaching English and being an allaround nanny, attempting to formulate a sense of friendly control over kids who were strangers to me in an estranging culture and place. The highlight of my time in Madrid was not when Spain won the World Cup, nor was it seeing masterpieces in Museo del Prado. It was being a witness to the nature and spirit of Granada, Spain, where I visited Alhambra and could not keep my eyes off the constellation-filled night sky.

There was such excitement and beauty in the immateriality of my experiences, the fleeting nature of a time that would inevitably end.

During my time spent waiting for my flight back to Miami in my one layover stop of London’s Heathrow Airport, I was shocked back into the reality of traveling from one place to the next, not staying to learn, but only to capture moments. It is with all of these experiences that I was inspired to write these pieces. While traveling alone had its trials and tribulations, it was with my pen and paper I felt at home.

Granada, Spain These desert mountains seem deserted, but you scan the perfectly tree-aligned slopes, you spot a small house or church among the nothingness; you think to yourself that someone else could be doing the same meticulous scoping of the summer hills and spot you standing there, occasionally swat-

ting away flies as you try to take it all in.

You have the sudden urge to go swimming across the valley of the gentle slopes, to skim across the harsh, dried-out landscape and feel the sun’s rays burn your skin. You went to bed under visibly bright stars, the darkness of the night not as shocking as the luminosity of the constellations marking the sky. You woke up to the bright sun over the different shades of browns and greens.

You have never seen these nighttime and daytime sights and probably will never again. You want to reach out and touch the hills, but you can barely walk anywhere on the scorched-out rocky roads.

The night comes and cools you off from a day of nothing but staring all around you. You think to yourself: why can’t the whole world appear like this—like you are in a planetarium, in a closely monitored astronomical enclosure, when really all there remains is the night sky and your eyes to feast upon the wonders before you. You start to cry because you realize this star-filled night sky over shadows of mountains is the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen and you won’t be able to see it again. Then, you cry because you have no one there to share it with.

Alhambra at Night The white-carved walls of art emanate the spirits of the past as the symmetrically and poignantly placed rivulets of water envelope you in a feeling of the highest serenity. The intricacies are astounding to you and you position yourself accordingly to view the architectural beauty from all angles. Tourists and residents alike eagerly snap photos that will undoubtedly never live up to the presence of being there. You take photos as well, an attempt to re-

HEATHROW: In Fishman’s piece,, the London airport presents a chaotic yet beautiful experience for a traveler.

member all of the minute details: the lace-like etchings and painted tiles, the numerous arches and columns. You are taken aback by the realization that you cannot truly capture the past in the present. You smile at the sacredness of such a place trapped in time and continue walking through the maze-like corridors.

Heathrow Airport All she could hear was the emotion-filled music of Glen Hansard pumping into her brain—rejuvenating her mind—as all around her the noises of people bustling past gates, stores, and sitting people became a hushed murmur. She has a look of serenity and longing—such a yearning for life she thought she would burst. What is it about airports that get to her?

Such futile, instantaneous interac-

BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS: Fishman travelled to Granada, Spain where she was inspired by nature scenes and gorgeous architecture.

PHOTOS BY Andrea Fishman/The Hoot

tions with people, the bumping of shoulders, a possible sorry if by accident a minuscule portion of two strangers touch, the quickened footsteps, the worried glances at the flight information screens; people come and go all around her creating a desired form of solitude amongst many—the feeling that any interaction could become something worthwhile, or remain simple obligatory pleasantries passed between two people assigned to the same vicinity. She doesn’t know what it is exactly that makes the traveling so much more pleasurable. Perhaps it’s because she feels airports are like the circuitry board of the brain—the hypothalamus—controlling which messages are sent and where, the synapses receiving only certain input and denying others. Will the signals ever be crossed? Will two signals ever overlap in symmetry?

Will the isolation of every individual become intertwined so that the signals of fleeting companionship can become whole? Every path chosen or not could lead to something due to pure coincidence, pure chance of arrivals and departures and the same destination. It is one of the only times in life where you know exactly where you’re going and with a little bit of faith and a lot of reliance on intelligence of others—you will arrive.

If she could experience all of the airports in the world as pinpoints of a journey unknown, like airport hopping, she would; to see the mechanisms behind all sorts of people weaving in and out like a web—a collection of itineraries, of definitive schedules all combined in one place at one time. There is such beauty is this harmony amongst chaos that she craves.

12 ARTS, ETC.

The Brandeis Hoot

September 3, 2010

Flavors of the North End

BY KAYLA DOS SANTOS Editor

During the summer, I fell in love with the North End. The North End is a foodie’s dream. Boston’s appropriately named “Little Italy” features a hodge-podge of cozy restaurants, cafés, bakeries and gelaterias.

One of my first experiences of food in the North End was at Mike’s Pastry. Mike’s Pastry, like the area in which it is located, is a major tourist attraction. Every night, Mike’s is filled with people wearing Boston Red Sox t-shirts and clutching cameras. At first the crowd of people spilling out the bakery’s doors and onto Hanover Street can be a little daunting, but to the staff this flood of hungry people is old-hat. The line moves quickly and orders are filled at a break-neck pace. What’s great about Mike’s is that it lives up to the hype. Nearly everything is made fresh on-site, and with 50 years of baking experience, their pastries are worth the wait.

Their cannolis are huge flaky

shells filled with creamy ricotta cheese that can be covered in powdered sugar, chocolate or even pistachio nuts.

While Mike’s Pastry appears to be the tourist destination, locals seem to swear by The Modern Pastry, which is also on Hanover Street Declared “Best of Boston” by Boston Magazine and with 70 years of baking experience, The Modern Pastry is a tiny bakery that specializes in handmade cookies and other traditional Italian sweets. I tried a pink, sugared cookie that was fresh and delicious. Modern’s emphasis on its traditional offerings is one of the many signs that the North End is keeping its Italian heritage alive.

The first-year experience in haikus

BY MORGAN GROSS Special to the Hoot,

Welcome to Brandeis Is everyone this friendly?

So many blue shirts.

Dinner in Sherman.

Everything looks delicious.

Oh wait. It isn’t.

GRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

Other notable bakeries include Bova’s Bakery, open 24 hours per day, and Lulu’s Bake Shoppe. Lulu’s cupcakes satisfy a diverse range of tastes with their imaginative flavors from red velvet to lemon hearts. For gelato lovers, unfortunately the gelaterias tend to overcharge.

Instead, many bakeries also have a selection of gelato, often at a third of the price of the expensive gelaterias.

The numerous bakeries are not only noteworthy for their tasty treats, but also because they reveal a slice of North End’s character. The bakeries are small and do not always offer much space for customers to enjoy their purchases, so one is often obliged to perch on storefront steps or apartment stoops.

Almost everything in the North End takes place on the streets or sidewalks. Many of the restaurants and cafés have outside dining tables and since the streets are very narrow and there is a lot of foot-traffic, this leads to a festive, social atmo-

sphere. The North End is ideal for people watching and for listening.

In order to experience the sounds of the North End, go during the evening. At night is when friends meet up after work to cheer for their teams on the television at a café, when musicians walk and play soft tunes, when restaurants entertain their guests with singing, when couples chat and laugh. All these noises spill out onto the street to create a wonderful cacophony.

Apart from the bakeries, to have a true foodie experience of North End, some of the numerous Italian restaurants should also be visited. There are an overwhelming number to choose from. During the evening, hosts stand at the restaurants’ doors and beckon people walking by with promises of serving Boston’s best rigatoni, risotto, lasagna and pizza. It’s difficult to choose and regrettably, because the North End is a popular area for tourists, all the options tend toward the pricey side. A cheap-

er (though still delicious) option is Ernesto’s. Located on Salem Street, the pizzeria offers 24 different slices. One plain slice is three dollars, but considering its gigantic size, it may be worth it.

I’d recommend walking up and down the streets to peer at the menus posted outside. There are often lunch deals and occasionally hosts will offer potential diners a bargain.

Besides, why not walk around?

After all, the North End epitomizes Boston’s claim of being a “walking city.” Exploring the area’s cozy streets and pathways can lead to surprising and charming discoveries. The Freedom Trail winds its way through the North End and tucked among its streets is the Paul Revere house, the Old North Church, Boston’s oldest standing church, as well as a few other historical sites.

The flavors of the North End are vibrant and worth experiencing. Who knows? Maybe you’ll fall in love with Boston’s “Little Italy” too.

I’ve met him before.

Oh shoot, I forgot his name.

Danny … Ben … David?

A Good Fall. Ha Jin Did anyone read that book?

Collective nap time.

First day of classes Chem in Shapiro, but which?

Come on, Carl and Ruth.

What are you taking?

Stat? Chemistry? Calculus?

Ha. Good luck with that.

Activities fair.

Many ways to get involved.

LOOK. THERE’S A CHEESE CLUB. Hey! It’s my OL. Oh. Yup. She didn’t wave back.

That’s pretty awkward.

Why is it so hot?

Would it kill to get AC? 50 thou a year?

Welcome week is done.

So much time to hang out here.

Just kidding. Homework.

Like watching movies? Reading books? Attending plays? Join the Arts section! http:// thebrandeishoot. com/

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS, ETC.

13

Labor day adventures

BY KAYLA DOS SANTOS Editor

In order to celebrate the end of the first week of school and the long weekend, go on an adventure. This weekend take advantage of the beautiful (and very hot) summer weather. Boston and the surrounding area offer many opportunities to explore the outdoors, here are a few suggestions which are all accessible via the MBTA.

1. Arnold Arboretum

Location: Forest Hills stop on the Orange Line Harvard University’s 265 acre arboretum is the perfect place for a picnic or hike. The arboretum, situated in Jamaica Plain, is one of the top centers of botanical research and features more than 15,000 different kinds of plants. In September, you can encounter red maples, dawn red woods and rose lanterns, as well as numerous other flora.

Most of the plants and trees are labeled for the curious and can make the trip an educational one if so desired. Be sure to stop by the visitor center in the Hunnewell building to learn more about the arboretum’s enormous collection. The shade offered by

the trees makes the arboretum ideal for taking leisurely walks or for relaxing against a tree trunk with a good book.

The nearby area also features cute, independently owned bakeries, so if you forget to pack a lunch, you should check out their sweets.

2. Revere Beach

Location: Revere Stop on the Blue Line Don’t want to let go of the summer yet? Head to the beach.

America’s First Public Beach is right across from the T making it relatively easy to get to.

The best time to go to the beach is early in the day as its convenient location tends to draw huge crowds in the afternoon.

Revere Beach offers many fun and free events. Most recently, a Bocce tournament was held at the beach and in July there was a sand sculpting festival. Alongside the beach there are many tasty lunch and dessert options.

The original Kelly’s Roast Beef is located at Revere Beach, serving their well-known gigantic sandwiches as well as seafood and salad options. For ice cream, I’d recommend Twist And Shake which offers a huge selection of 24 different flavors of soft-serve

along with scrumptious shakes and refreshing lemonade.

3. Boston Harbor Islands

Location: Aquarium Stop on the Blue Line Try something different, island hop! Take a 20 minute ferry ride from Long-Wharf North to one of the 12 Boston Harbor Islands available for visitors. Round-trip ferry tickets cost only $14 for a round trip ticket and on Sundays there are free connector ferry rides between islands. On Spectacle Island stretch out on the beach and catch some rays or hike around and explore the island.

While hiking, be sure to take in the gorgeous view of Boston and check out the local fauna.

The island is also undergoing an effort to go green featuring environmentally friendly facilities. Be careful to bring your sunscreen, though, there is very little shade. While Spectacle Island is great for hiking, Georges Island is the destination for history buffs. The island has a Civil War fort, Fort Warren, and plenty of nice areas to stroll around.

Arts Recommends

PHOTOS FROM Internet Sources

GO EXPLORE: During the weekend take a hike at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum (Above) or take a look at the Boston Harbor Islands (Below).

Not everyone has the time to pick up the latest books or see the latest films. Our editors make some recommendations that you can pick up at the nearest library.

Movie Pick: “Persepolis ”

Based on the autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, this 2007 film uses stark black and white cartoons to depict the life of a young Iranian woman. This coming-of-age tale portrays Marji’s struggle of growing up in a country in turmoil from the 1979 Islamic Revolution. After her parents deem Iran unsafe, Marji lives in Vienna for a short time. When she returns to her home, she must cope with the clash of European and traditional Iranian values. The film presents an interesting portrait of a young woman coming to terms with her identity.

Book Pick: “One More For The Road” by Ray Bradbury Don’t have time for a full-length novel? Read a few short stories from Ray Bradbury’s gorgeous collection. Ranging from the humorous to the wistful, Bradbury’s 25 tales touch on a variety aspects of human existence. You may know Bradbury for his 1951 science fiction novel “Fahrenheit 451,” but now rediscover him as a master storyteller. A few stand-outs are “A Heart Transplant,” a bitter sweet love story, and “The Dragon Danced at Midnight,” an absurdist look at the film industry.

TV Pick: “Mad Men: Season 1” Now is your chance to catch up with the hit AMC show “Mad Men.” About a New York ad agency in the 1960s, the show has received well-deserved critical and popular acclaim. Jon Hamm as Don Draper is brilliant as the womanizing Creative Director at Sterling Cooper and the young Vincent Kartheiser as the ambitious Pete Campbell presents him with a good foil. Other impressive performances are

by Elisabeth Moss as the new secretary Peggy Olson and January Jones as Betty Draper, presenting strong and complex female characters. The social and political atmosphere of the 60s is so well portrayed that the decade must almost be considered to be a character on the show.

PHOTOS FROM Internet Sources

IMPRESSIONS Parking permits pose problems

14 The Brandeis Hoot

September 3, 2010

BY GORDY STILLMAN Staff

This past summer I drove approximately 1,500 miles to bring my car from Minneapolis, Minn. to Waltham, Mass. It was a long journey, stopping first in New Jersey and then trekking up to Brandeis for the year. Beforehand, I followed all the steps necessary to gain a parking permit. I applied last May, answering questions such as where I would be living this year (presumably to determine where I would park) and providing information about my car.

Last week I arrived at Brandeis, parked my car in the residence lot by my building and waited patiently for Sept. 2 to roll around so I could finally get my parking permit. I went, waited in line and was then informed that sophomores are only given Charles River lot parking permits. Sophomores don’t even live in the Charles River apartments, and yet that is where we park.

Sophomores parking in Charles River lot made sense … when sophomores were allowed to live in the Charles River apartments. This year, no sophomore is allowed to live in the Charles River Apartments, which is actually near the parking lot.

Sophomores live in East, Castle, Rosenthal, Village A, first-years quads and 567 South Street. Two of those, Village and 567, are at least somewhat near Charles

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

River. But the sophomores living in East, Castle, and North are about as far as can be.

Sure, Seniors and Juniors should get priority for parking on campus, it’s a perk of being an upperclassmen. That being said, entire lots should not be arbitrarily reserved for students that may not have even applied

Book of Matthew

To give, or not to give at North Station

BY BRET MATTHEW Editor

I had just gotten off the train when I saw him. He wore a Boston Red Sox jersey, a white one with red piping, just like the ones the players wear during home games. He had a Red Sox cap, too.

It was dirty and frayed around the edges, and looked like it hadn’t been taken off in years.

He looked like most of the other people who crowded Boston’s North Station. And yet, he managed to stand out. He didn’t join the rush of people trying to get to the stations T stop, nor did he sit among the passengers waiting to board their trains. Instead, he hovered around the ticket booth area, as if waiting for something.

I was heading over to put some money on my Charlie Card when I saw what he was doing. As people went to buy their tickets, he approached them, asking if they could spare some money for his ticket. He wasn’t having much luck. An elderly couple smiled

awkwardly at him, but said nothing. A young business professional rushed past without stopping, his eyes glued to his Blackberry screen. A teenager, who hadn’t even bothered to take out his earbuds, shook his head and then quickly proceeded to buy his own ticket.

He took each rejection calmly, without saying anything to the passersby. Then, probably because I hadn’t taken my eyes off him, he came over to me.

“Hey, buddy,” he said. “Do you have a couple bucks? I don’t have enough for my ticket.”

He looked even worse up close.

His face was unshaven. His Red Sox shirt hung like a dress over his surprisingly skinny frame. He looked extremely tired—like he had been sleeping on the street, even—and I found myself reaching into my pocket.

“How much do you need?” I asked.

“Two, maybe three bucks.”

See STRANGERS, p. 18

for permits yet.

In my previous experience with parking permits in high school, permits were first come, first served with seniority determining when a student could apply. If a senior didn’t apply during their head start, they had to wait in the same line as everyone else. If a sophomore a few spots

ahead got the last choice space, the senior had to deal with it.

If a student applies for a permit in May, regardless of year designation, they should have the opportunity to get a better parking spot than a student that applies over the summer or when school resumes.

Another factor to consider is

price. Some seniors or juniors might want to park in Charles River lot because it is four times cheaper (at $60) than parking on campus (at $250). Some may say “at least you have a car,” and their point is valid, however the value of having a car is significantly reduced when access to said car is not readily available.

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

The Self Shelf

IMPRESSIONS

15

Blind justice:

The need to reform the prison system

BY ALEX SELF Columnist

A man (we will call him John) is led in shackles to the front of the court. His appearance is scraggly and defeated; his well-dressed lawyer stands next to him solemnly.

The judge begins to ask him a set of procedural questions. “How far did you go in school? Is English your first language? Etc. …” John answers in the affirmative with the voice of a guilty student talking to a principal.

The judge then asks a series of questions to determine whether John is knowingly and intelligently pleading “no lo contendere” (the legal equivalent of a guilty plea). Each monotone response leads to another procedural question. Finally, the judge is satisfied that John is pleading guilty of his own free will.

Yet his problems do not end there. He has a history of criminality and was on probation at the time of his crime. John will serve time both for the crimes he has committed and those he has committed in the past.

He bows his head as the judge reads the sentence that will send him to prison for whatever remains of the cream of his adult life. After she finishes, John is led out of court in shackles as another similar malcontent is led in to take his place.

Scenes like this unfolded nearly 100 times in front of me this past summer. I interned at the Providence Superior Court in Providence Rhode Island, and was able to view a fair amount of trials and hearings.

There was one courtroom which was dedicated to “no lo contenderes,” and this was always the busiest courtroom on any given day.

Thus, I spent a fair amount of time there. In fact, I spent so much time there that the judge allowed me and my coworkers to sit in on plea bargaining negotiations in her chambers.

While there, I was saddened to hear the horrific

tales of the ruined lives of the men and women who came through the court serving what was referred to by the judge and lawyers as “life on the installment plan.” This meant one infraction after another until finally the criminal had spent most of his life in prison.

By the time he finally got out (if he lived that long), he would find himself old and destitute in a world that had no time for aging multiple felons. Life on the installment plan is almost worse than life in prison–at least life in prison is final.

These men squandered chance after chance in a heartbreaking manner, only to end up eventually ceding any hopes of recovery.

The majority of criminals who came to plead to offenses were either already serving life on the installment plan or well on their way to doing so. Nationwide, the recidivism rate for prisoners within one year is an alarming 44 percent.

Within three years, it skyrockets to 67 percent.

Once a criminal, the odds are stacked against you to an alarming extent and it is the same pitiful parade of offenders that clogs up the court system and overpopulates the prisons.

Yet if only a few reforms were passed, we could take a sizable chunk out of the recidivism rate and start ensuring that men like John stop adding to their rap sheets and start leading normal, productive lives.

The first and probably most pressing problem is the deplorable conditions in the prison system. Of course, prisons shouldn’t be a hotel, but when 70 percent

of prisoners report being assaulted, many sexually, there is a problem.

When prisoners are assaulted, they are much more likely to be

prone to violence and/or lawbreaking when they get out, due to the jarring psychological effects of such abuse. Solving this problem isn’t easy, but perhaps a powerful and effective federal watchdog agency could monitor the

prisons around the country.

There are prison inspections in the status quo but they are far from producing any sort of universal solvency.

For example, just last week, a prisoner in L ou i s i an a was beaten so badly

that h e ended up in a coma.

He had been complaining of beatings and sexual assaults for months. And it was not as if this abuse was unknown–the prison chaplain had lost his job trying to bring some attention to him. Yet he still ended up brain damaged and broken. Most prisoners don’t suffer to such an extent but their experiences are similar and they find it harder to rejoin society after such abuse.

At the same time, more rehabilitation initiatives should be employed in prisons. Chances for education are already provided in many instances but perhaps prisoners could be provided training in a field of their choice so that they can be prepared for employment upon release.

It may not work for all prisoners but education should be mandatory and more effective than it is currently. Additionally, perhaps prisoners could work low level jobs (inside the walls of course) both to enrich themselves psychologically and to possibly make the destitute prison system some money.

Either way, it is all a lot better than simply leaving them

to their own devices and throwing them back out on the street when their sentence is complete.

My final suggestion (and probably my most controversial) would be to allow first time nonviolent offenders to expunge their criminal records upon the termination of their sentences. When offenders are released into society, many find their paths blocked because of the criminal label. If the courts forgave these criminals their first offense, they would have a lot less trouble f inding employment, especially in such a sluggish economy.

And it is not as if all of these first time offenders have committed such horrible crimes –the most common felony committed in the United States is drunkenness. Finally, expunging the records does not mean that these criminals’ records would disappear.

If ever they were to commit another crime, the legal system would have access to their records. All in all, I can understand the reasoning against it but I believe the risks of such an initiative are far outweighed by the benefits of lessening the amount of criminals who end up back behind the walls they so recently left.

Taken altogether, my hope is that initiatives like this will help lessen the recidivism rate in America’s prisons.

This would help not only the prisoners but also state governments insofar as it would lessen their tab as it lessened their prisons’ dockets.

Every one of these initiatives has been on a state ballot somewhere and I believe it is time that they were instituted, lest men like John continually complete the vicious cycle of crime, courts, prison, repeat.

16 IMPRESSIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

Sexcapades

Indecision in North Station GIVING (from p. 16)

I had three dollars floating around. I gave them to him.

“Thanks buddy,” he said.

“Thank you. God bless you.”

I’m sure some of you are thinking:: “Bret, you know you were probably scammed, right?” Indeed, most of us have been taught—either explicitly or by the examples of our family and friends—to ignore strangers who ask for money. After all, we are told, these people could be lazy bums who don’t want to work, or worse, drug addicts who are just looking to support their habits.

The fear that strangers are trying to take advantage of us is a rather pressing one, which is why it is far more common to see people ignore these strangers than to see them stop and open their wallets.

Of course, it is true that some of these strangers will misuse the money they are given. But there are no statistics, to my knowledge, that can conclusively prove that

Wrap it up

BY SOPHIE RIESE Columnist

Last year during Orientation Leader Training they told us that most Sexually Transmitted Diseases are transmitted during the first couple weeks of school.

I know I write about STDs a lot, but those types of statistics really scare me.

The first few weeks of school are party-filled. They are before classes and obligations get too heavy, before first-years have really made friends and before everyone has fallen back into their own groups. First-years celebrating their first tastes of freedom mingle with seniors trying to forget that it’s senior year. Alcohol, and other drugs, are often a part of the festivities.

As we all know, these two things can combine to make people forget that sex without a condom is not safe, especially if you don’t exactly know the person on the other side.

Recently, I’ve overheard a number of conversations where guys excitedly share stories about meeting girls who for some reason or another are willing to participate in sex without a condom. One of the most common reasons I hear is that the girl is on birth control. But while, yes, birth control certainly performs the duty of preventing pregnancy, it does not protect against the many STDs wandering around on our campus. The first couple of weeks of school, or of a new relationship, are times to be especially careful. We hope that our partners will be respectful of us in the same way that we (hopefully) are of them–re-

September 3, 2010

fraining from activities that they know will put us at risk, but not all partners are. Particularly if we choose our partners at parties and bars while intoxicated, there is a high risk that they might not know, or share, information about their health, or that they will rush to have sex without first thinking about the consequences.

This week, there was an article in The New York Times discussing the reemergence of the “withdrawal” method as a feasible birth control option. A group of scientists at the Guttmacher Institute decided to study the efficacy of the pull-out method (as it is sometimes called) versus that of condoms, because they felt that the method was underappreciated. However, they point out again and again that while it may be nearly as effective as condoms in preventing pregnancy, it is not something that can be considered a replacement for condoms, as, for obvious reasons, it does not protect from STDs. I wonder if there is something we can do, either as a school or just generally, to reduce the number of STDs circulating on campus. Maybe if we stop thinking about condoms as a form of birth control and begin thinking of them more as a protective device, people will reevaluate their choices. Most girls I know insist on condoms not because of pregnancy fears, but instead because the risk of contracting an STD is too high, and too terrifying. The last thing you want to remember from this year is how you felt about getting something in the first few weeks of college.

they all have ill intentions. To assume so is to punish those who actually need help, especially in a tough economy.

“But Bret,” comes the cry from the peanut gallery. “If people are needy, they can go to homeless shelters and have a place to stay.

And they can go to soup kitchens to get something to eat. There’s no need for them to ask us for money; others will take care of them.”

This is true, but only if you ignore the fact that many homeless shelters are becoming increasingly crowded these days, limiting their effectiveness. And soup kitchens are not always open. I spent many weeknights volunteering at a local soup kitchen during high school. The place was closed on Saturdays.

People still need to eat on Saturday.

Regardless of what others do, we still have a responsibility to take care of each other. Many, many years ago, a probably ficti-

tious but nonetheless important literary character was once quoted in the biblical Book of Matthew as saying: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And he wasn’t the first, nor the last person to say something along those lines. It is a common lesson that applies to all people, regardless of beliefs.

Nobody can safely assume that they will go through life without ever needing help from others.

So, how can we justify ignoring those who may need help right now?

Perhaps someday it will be me wandering around North Station, lacking my wallet and running out of time before my train departs. Which is why I didn’t worry about my money as I watched the man in the Red Sox shirt melt into the crowd, presumably heading toward the ticket booths. Whoever he is, I hope it served him well and that he got wherever he needed to go.

Do you want a better parking pass?

Do you think America needs to be more accepting of Muslims?

Or are you just a generally angry person?

Write for The Hoot I mpressions!

E-mail impressions@thehoot.net

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

ADVERTISEMENT

17

Is America anti-Islam?

Students discuss the New York Muslim Community Center controversy Altered Consciousness

Religious freedom makes America great Ultimately, rejecting extremism and violence in the name of God is what this proposed Islamic community center should be about.

BY SAM ALLEN

Special to The Hoot

Change the tone of the debate

BY RICK ALTERBAUM Columnist

Perhaps the biggest national controversy that has emerged this summer has involved the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. After reading countless articles and opinions on the matter, I honestly still don’t know which side I should take. Instead, I believe that the conversation itself has to change, and that the proponents and opponents of this project need to take into account certain issues that, up to this point at least, they seem to have ignored.

Firstly, the left, who form the vast majority of the advocates for this center, have framed this debate in a misleading way. Specifically, they consider themselves to be the upholders of religious tolerance and freedom, but at the same time, dismiss their opponent’s concerns as being either bigoted, fearmongering or misguided.

However, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the Islamic community centerthat are not necessarily Islamophobic. For instance, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who is leading this initiative, holds many highly controversial views. He is ambiguous on the nature of terrorism, has written in support of sharia law, does not condemn Hamas, implied that the U.S. brought 9/11 upon itself due to its policies and supports bi-nationalism for or the

destruction of Israel. Yes, he is a Sufi, which is a more mystical and moderate brand of Islam that is opposed by extremist Salafists and Wahhabists. However, that does not excuse him from making statements that most objective observers would perceive as radical and anything but conciliatory.

Additionally, there are many individuals living in New York and elsewhere who seriously view this initiative as provocative and disrespectful to the 9/11 victims due to its location.

Also, they may find it counterproductive in regards to its goal of promoting religious reconciliation, considering it has engendered so much controversy and division.

I am not saying that everyone should oppose the Islamic community center for these reasons.

Rather, liberals should look past their ideological convictions, address the direct sources of people’s discomfort and educate Americans on Islam and the traditions and beliefs of Muslim people. A solely abstract, legalistic and constitutionalist approach, as embodied by Barack Obama’s comments during the White House Ramadan Dinner, is not enough to address the visceral and emotional reaction many Americans have to this project.

At the same time, the Islamic community center’s opponents, who mostly consist of conservatives and some Democrats, have simply taken their rhetoric too

far on this matter. What began as opposition to this particular center for reasons related to sensitivity and location has turned into a broader indictment of Islam and the Muslim people.

There is a fine line between concern about this particular center and an ideological and political drive to incite fear into the hearts of the American people and turn them against those of differing faiths.

Such rhetoric concerns me for several reasons. In excess, it can threaten America’s democratic and liberal character. This has been evidenced by disturbing reports of protests about not just over the downtown Manhattan site, but mosques across the country. Additionally, it plays right into the heart of the clash of civilizations narrative, in which the West is at war with Islam, that Al Qaeda and other extremist groups persistently promote to justify their heinous acts. And, this general Islamophobia can potentially alienate and even radicalize more moderate and peaceful Muslims who have integrated into American society.

The ground zero community center issue is a complicated one that touches on such topics as America’s national identity, the limits of religious tolerance and freedom, and our relations with the Muslim world. Perhaps changing the tone and substance of the debate will make the question of whether or not to build it easier to answer.

The United States of America was founded with the ideas of religious freedom and a lack of a national church written into its constitution. This is a direct contrast to the country of origin of the majority of the 9/11 hijackers, Saudi Arabia, where religious freedom is but a pipe dream and the construction of a church or a Jewish temple is illegal. Sadly, during the last few months many Americans have seemingly forgotten the importance of religious freedom to American strength.

This summer there has been non-stop press coverage regarding the planned Islamic community center that is within a few blocks of the felled World Trade Center. Because Brandeis University was founded with the ideals of tolerance and acceptance for all, it should outrage Brandeisians that there has been so much hostility toward a group of people wanting to build a place of worship on privately owned property.

Furthermore, it has been even more disturbing that much of the comments about the proposed project have often been laced with incredible ignorance and bouts of racism regarding Muslims. With the exception of the families of 9/11 victims, the voices that have denounced the community center have largely been shrill. Representative Peter King of New York and Sarah Palin are particularly guilty of this, as they have unsurprisingly engaged in demagoguery on this issue to incite conservative voters for the upcoming midterm election.

The uproar surroumdimg this issue, and the fact that there has been so much resistance to other Islamic centers, such as the one that was suspiciously closed by public officials right before the start of Ramadan in the town of Bethpage, New York, is disturbing. Even more disturbing is what happened in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where protests against the

construction of a mosque failed.

Sadly, the situation ended tragically when an arsonist destroyed the construction equipment at the site. These cases are just two examples showing that a minority of Americans are genuinely anti-Muslim. Instead of outrage, Americans and Brandeisians alike should be proud that a group of Muslims, who reject extremism, want to build a holy site near ground zero that also includes a memorial to the victims of 9/11.

Ultimately, rejecting extremism and violence in the name of God is what this proposed Islamic community center should be about. Islam as a religion was perverted by the 9/11 hijackers and their Al Qaeda masterminds.

The presence of an Islamic community center near ground zero filled with moderate American Muslims would be a stark contrast and powerful symbol to counteract the ideology that the United States is a country hostile to Islam.

Ultimately, that is the most tragic part of this whole debate, as it has empowered Islamic extremists and their twisted ideology, as they can now use this as propaganda and as a recruiting tool for their organizations throughout the Muslim world.

Ultimately, none of these debates really matter. The proposed Islamic community center is going to be built on private property, which means the Cordoba House builders and financiers are under no obligation to justify their decision of what they’re building to the public at large. Also, the movement to make the entire area a landmark is ridiculous considering a strip club and a sex shop are in the area.

All that being said, a Muslim community center a few blocks from the site of the worst terrorist attack in American history would send a strong message to the rest of the world, and especially Islamic extremists, that the United States is undaunted in its struggle for religious tolerance and freedom for all.

18 The Brandeis Hoot

SPORTS

September 3, 2010

American summer

BY KARA KARTER Editor

Nothing is more American than baseball. Nothing, except for maybe an American Studies major traversing the country, watching as many baseball games, in as many different parks, as possible.

At least I like to think so.

Prior to this summer, I had only ventured to four major league ballparks–one no longer standing, one no longer used for baseball, one in Boston and one reviled

by Boston. Shea Stadium, the Metrodome, Fenway Park and the new Yankee Stadium were the only venues in which I had experienced professional baseball–not a very impressive count for a native New Yorker who attends school outside Boston.

When Brandeis let out this past May, my summer of baseball began. I made a return visit to Fenway to cheer on my beloved Minnesota Twins. In three prior visits to Fenway I had yet to see the Twins win. This rainy Wednesday night was no exception.

Days later, a few friends and I embarked on a cross-country road trip, destination Bay Area, Calif. After a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York (a requisite stop for any true baseball fan), we found ourselves at Chicago’s Wrigley Field and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Along the way, we crossed paths with Toronto’s Rogers Centre, Detroit’s Comerica Park, Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field, Milwaukee’s Miller Park, Denver’s Coors Field and AT&T Park in San Francisco. I had seen Busch Stadium on a February visit to St. Louis and, upon returning from San Francisco, caught a few games at Citi Field, home of the Mets, and the new Yankee Stadium.

Then, on the Fourth of July, I stopped by Minnesota’s Target Field.

The Twins lost again.

Still, as I watched the Twins and Rays

dash around the field, cap insignias playing host to the Stars and Stripes, I thought about the past month and a half.

In between baseball games, I had explored South Dakota’s Badlands and Mount Rushmore, driven through the Rocky Mountains in a hailstorm, stood on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and seen brilliant rock formations at Arches and Bryce Canyon National Parks in southern Utah.

And then, there I sat, at a brand new 545 million dollar stadium, a mark of American extravagance at its finest.

What’s not to love?

Interestingly enough, the six stadiums I attended this season include three of the league’s oldest and the three newest. The Yankees and Mets began play in their current stadiums last year, while 2010 is Target Field’s inaugural season. On the flipside, Fenway and Wrigley are Major League Baseball’s oldest ballparks, opened in 1912 and 1914, respectively. Oakland’s Coliseum, the fifth oldest stadium currently in use, saw its first game action in the fall of ’66.

Fenway cost $650,000 to build ($15 million in 2008 dollars), Yankee Stadium, $1.5 billion.

But more than finances distinguish the two.

While Fenway is much beloved to Red Sox Nation and Wrigley to those who bleed Cubbie blue, Oaklanders are dying to get out of the Coliseum. Yankees fans are seemingly unattached to their new ballpark, while (obstructed views aside) Citi and Target Fields are big hits with their faithful.

Then again, the original Yankee Stadium had a whole lot more going for it than the Metrodome, a venue that should never have been used for anything but football.

But take what I say with due caution. I really liked Oakland.

The Twins won there.

PHOTOS BY Kara Karter/The Hoot

ROADTRIPPING THE BASES: (Counter clockwise from top right): Target Field, Fenway Park, Wringley Field, Citi Field, Oakland-Alameda Country Coliseum and Yankee standium.

September 3, 2010

The Brandeis Hoot

SPORTS

19

Volleyball claims opening day victory

BY KARA KARTER Editor

The Brandeis University volleyball team won six of its first seven games in the 2009 season, including a season opening win against Babson College.

The Judges won the seasons first contest, a home match against Babson.

One can only hope the trend continues.

Brandeis defeated Babson (01) in Wednesday’s season opener, digging out of an early hole on route to a 3-1 victory.

Outside hitter Paige Blasco ’11 paced the Judges with 16 kills in 39 tries and three block assists.

Fellow Senior Nicole Smith ’11 racked up 14 kills in only 24 attempts for a .542 hitting percentage that was tops on the team.

A close first set went to Babson, with the Beavers clawing their way to a 25-21 advantage. However, the Judges bounced back, winning three straight sets in front of a home crowd at Red Auerbach Arena.

Susan Sun ’13 registered a match-high 16 digs. Blasco (13), Si-Si Hensley ’14 (11) and Lauren Berens ’13 (ten) also totaled double-digit digs for the Judges.

Yael Einhorn ’14 posted a teamhigh 24 assists in her Brandeis debut.

The Judges will be gunning for multiple wins this weekend as they head west for Springfield College’s annual invitational. Last year, the Judges went 3-1 in the tournament, defeating Roger Williams, Lasell and Westfield State before falling to host Springfield in the final.

PHOTO BY Anthony Losquadro/The Hoot

SPIKE: Women’s volleyball dominates in their season opener, winning 3-1 against Babson.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

PHOTO BY Alan Tran/The Hoot

Women’s soccer drops season opener to MIT

BY KARA KARTER Editor

The intensity on the field was matched only by the heat in the air Wednesday, as the Brandeis women’s soccer team kicked off its season at MIT’s Roberts Field. With temperatures reaching 90 degrees, the Judges fell to their intrastate rival in a 2-1 final. Tiffany Pacheco ’11 scored Brandeis’ lone goal while Lauren Hernley ’11 potted a pair for

MIT. The defeat marked the Judges’ first season opening loss to MIT in four years.

Brandeis’ first goal of the young campaign was scored at 18:04 of the first half. Off a pass from Madeline Stein ’14, a first-year from Mount Kisco, New York, Pacheco left-footed a shot that slid beyond the reach of MIT keeper Katy Olesnavage ’11. Last year, Pacheco finished second on the squad in goals scored (nine), and tied for the

team lead in points with 24.

Stein’s helper came in her first game in a Brandeis uniform.

MIT did not register its first shot of the game until more than 12 minutes later.

The Engineers’ most promising chance in the first half came at its very end. Brandeis keeper Francine Kofinas ’13 received a yellow card and MIT a penalty kick just before intermission.

The resultant shot was smothered by Kofinas, who was making her first start as the team’s

senior goalie.

Brandeis carried its one-goal lead until late in the second half.

In the 72nd minute, MIT’s Andrea Park ’13 landed a free kick in the box that Hernley headed past Leah Sax ’14–spelling Kofinas in net–for the equalizer.

Less than eight minutes passed before Brandeis seemed to retake the lead. However, the apparent score from Megan Kessler ’14 was called back after officials deemed the play out of bounds.

Seconds later, MIT jumped

ahead for good. A shot from Hernley took an odd bounce and grazed Sax’s fingers before going over her head and into the back of the net.

Brandeis outshot MIT by 11-10 overall, despite MIT registering eight shots on goal to Brandeis’ six. Kofinas made three saves and Sax two for Brandeis.

The Judges have two chances to earn their first win this weekend. They take on Babson (1-0) Saturday and William Paterson (0-1) Sunday as part of the Brandeis Invitational.

20 The Brandeis Hoot

HOOT SCOOPS

September 3, 2010

Changing of the guard Position: President Leaving: Jan. 1, 2011 Replaced by: Frederick Lawrence

Nancy Winship

Position: SVP Institutional Advancement

Adam Jaffe

Marty Krauss

Position: Provost Leaving: By June 2011 Replaced by: ?

Lorna Miles Position: SVP Communications Left: June 2009 Replaced by: Andrew Gully

Jean Eddy

Position: Dean of Heller School

Position:EVP/COO Left: Dec. 2009 Replaced by: Jeff Apfel, who left in June 2010.

No replacement of EVP/ COO is planned.

Position: SVP Students and Enrollment Leaving: By September 2010 Replaced by: ?

Position: Dean of Arts and Sciences

Lisa Lynch

Peter B. French

Judith Sizer

Position: SVP and General Counsel

Bruce Magid

Position: Dean of IBS

John Hose

Position: Executive Assistant to the President

Graphic by Ariel Wittenberg

Jehuda Reinharz

GONE FOR GOOD: The above 11 people were designated as ‘senior leadership’ on the Brandeis Administration website in January 2009. Since that time, five of those administrators have announced their resignations from their positions.. Those administrators are: President Jehuda Reinharz, Provost Marty Krauss, Senior Vice President of Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy, former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter B. French and former Senior Vice President for Communications Lorna Miles. Miles has since been replaced by Andrew Gully, and French was replaced by Jeff Apfel, who himself left the university this summer, with no replacement. Krauss and Eddy have each resigned within the past two weeks.

By Nathan Koskella, Editor Last month, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy announced she would be gone by the end of this one. On Tuesday, Provost Marty Krauss announced she is stepping down.

Eddy and Krauss’ resignations make them the latest in a growing number of senior administrators to leave their university posts since January 2009. This trend was kicked off when Senior Vice President for Communications Lorna Miles left Brandeis in the summer of 2009, with Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French and President Jehuda Reinharz falling closely behind her last fall.

The recent decisions mean that four of the most critical day-to-day administrative posts at the university, the president and those in charge of monetary, academic and enrollment policy, will soon change hands. The finance and administration post of the EVP/COO, will, instead of being replaced, be split. Two former vice presidents, Frances Drolette and Mark Collins, will now be more senior leaders and report to the president directly.

With these changes, the university will literally have a new face in nearly every top office by the end of the year, coinciding with the first term of future President Frederick Lawrence.

But it is Lawrence’s arrival that makes these departures less alarming than an opportunity for change in the university looking forward.

In order to understand the meaning of the past year and a half ’s exodus, it is important to recognize that each administrator left for different reasons.

Miles left the university before Reinharz announced his resignation in September 2009, and the post was filled by Andrew Gully soon after Reinharz’s announcement. Unlike the other positions, this transition was completed before Lawrence’s appointment.

French retired after his more than 12-year career, and followed by his staying on as an adviser to the president. His replacement by Apfel, with his own resignation, may have been jarring on the department in news reports, but Apfel himself left to continue a Ph.D. elsewhere.

Krauss, too, is leaving for educational reasons. She’s going back to teaching: at Brandeis, with the Heller School faculty.

Eddy’s story may relate somewhat to other departures,

but only in that both she and Reinharz have been here for more than a decade, all the while serving together. Eddy explained that she wants the future president to have the same opportunities.

“When a new president comes to campus, it’s a wonderful opportunity for new things,” she said. “I think every president pulls together a team that surrounds himself or herself. I was a part of [Reinharz’s] team, and I have incredible loyalty to him.”

It is this idea, that Lawrence will be able to pick his senior leadership, that comforts Fischer.

“We will see a new team emerge with the new president and I see that as a source of strength, that there is a continuous process,” said Fischer, who began his career at Brandeis in 1962 and has taught under every single Brandeis president.

“I subscribe to the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian idea of rotation in office.”

Eddy also said that even she is excited about Brandeis’ future.

“I feel the time I was meant to be here was ended,” she said, and nervous observers “have absolutely no reason to worry.”

That nervousness could only be Brandeis’ situation going forward, with the budget defi-

cit and lingering financial concerns after the Rose Art Museum controversy and without its top staff. But the line of the administrators, even those leaving, is that they’ll be quickly and easily replaced.

“What you see is what is going on: there is no conspiracy, no hidden story,” Krauss said.

“There’s a very smooth transition going on—President Lawrence has been all over campus, and everyone’s been fully briefed.”

Lawrence will have to make these major hiring decisions that will start off his career at Brandeis. Until then, the university may appear to be running with a very reduced level of experience.

But, “there are fabulous people, fabulous deans, enough wonderful people to run this place until these positions are filled,” Eddy said. She explained that the posts should be quickly filled and that Lawrence and the team will adjust to the challenge. Krauss, meanwhile, is here for the entire academic year, and other replacements may well be named before she leaves.

Lawrence himself framed the issue as one that could be expected, and even celebrated.

“I think people familiar with higher education know transitions are opportunities to grow

and redefine and are normal for a top-tier university,” he said. “I’m very optimistic— Brandeis has had a great past, but has an even more exciting future.”

Fischer described the transition of the senior leadership as “part of the natural ebb and flow of Brandeis.”

“Every time the president changes there is a moment of transition and it is always awkward and things always end up differently and a considerable amount of people come and go,” he explained.

Reinharz, meanwhile, either knew or hired all of the people listed—including his successor.

“Provosts never have long terms, and Marty has gone above and beyond,” Reinharz said, “and Jean has taken a new position when she arrived and done an incredible job.”

On the subject of the future, Reinharz said that “Brandeis is in better shape today than it has ever been in its entire history. We have been through some difficult years, but we are doing very well. We have a clear path for the future.”

His longtime colleague and the one leaving most immediately agreed.

“If I thought that that [hope for the future] were not true, I would not be leaving. Period,” Eddy said. “I’m too invested.”