The Brandeis Hoot - 8-28-09

VOL 6, NO. 1

AUGUST 28, 2009

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

NEWS ANALYSIS

Outside attorney takes harsher tone on Rose Art

THEHOOT.NET

Rose benefactors sue university

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

See REILLY, p. 2

IN THIS ISSUE:

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

ROSE SUIT: Three benefactors of the Rose Art Museum filed a suit against the university on Jul. 27 to prevent the sale of artwork and closing of the museum.

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

Three benefactors of the Rose Art Museum filed a law suit on Jul. 27 to prevent Brandeis University from closing the museum, selling any part of its 7,183 piece collection or using any part of its endowment for other purposes.

The suit, filed by benefactors Jonathan Lee, Lois Foster and Meryl Rose, has been called “frivolous and without merit” in a statement by Thomas Reilly, outside council for the university.

The suit comes almost six months after university President Reinharz’s Jan. 26 announcement that the Board of Trustees had

voted to close the museum and sell its artwork in order to help offset the university’s projected $80 million budget gap over the next five years.

Reinharz later retracted that statement, saying the university planned to simply See ROSE SUIT, p. 2

FY2010 budget balanced, fundraising money to be used toward financial aid

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG

This “fundraising success” comes despite what Senior Vice President of Institutional Brandeis University’s Department of De- Advancement Nancy Winship called the velopment and Alumni Relations secured “hardest fundraising year in my 15 years at Brandeis.” $78.3 million in cash gifts in the 2009 As part of the budfiscal year. The money will be used get cuts, the uniprimarily to help students in versity susneed of financial aid, pended its and also helped procontriduce a balanced bution university budget to the for fiscal year r e VP of Communications Lorna Miles, Dean of Ad2010. tiremissions Gil Villanueva and VP of Financial Affairs Of the $78.3 Maureen Murphy, all members of the university’s senior million, administration, left the school over the summer. $11.6 million were given as While the university has not announced a hiring freeze for unrestricted members of the administration, it has not attempted to gifts, meanfill these positions, thus saving the university money in ing the monment yearly salary and contributions to retirement funds. ey can be used plans for any purpose of facThe university would not disclose the salary of within the uniulty and these three members of the administration versity. staff for and refused to call its hesitance to The university’s one year this hire a strategy. fundraising success July—a move makes FY09 the “fourth that closed $7.4 millargest year for cash gifts ever lion of the then projected $8.9 to Brandeis,” according to an e-mail message from university President Jehuda million budget gap.

The retirement fund cuts, coupled with Reinharz to the faculty over the summer.

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The university’s approach towards opponents of its reconfiguration of the Rose Art Museum has taken a turn from conciliatory to combative, most recently marked by the hiring of former Massachusetts State Attorney General Tom Reilly to serve as outside legal council in a lawsuit filled by three Rose Art Museum benefactors against the university.

After announcing on Jan. 26 that the Board of Trustees had decided to close the museum and sell off its art, university President Jehuda Reinharz insisted in a student press conference held on Feb. 6 that “the Board resolution never talked about selling the [Rose’s] collection.”

At the time, Reinharz’s comments marked the beginning of a change in the university’s public relations strategy, and the press conference came only one day after Reinharz issued a statement taking full responsibility for what he called a “misunderstanding” in the mainstream media about the fate of the Rose Art Museum.

“To quote President Obama,” the press release concluded, “ ‘I screwed up.’”

It seemed the university was taking a conciliatory route to mend ties broken by the media storm that followed Reinharz’s initial announcement.

But when, after four months of trying to work with the university to save the museum three Rose benefactors sued the university to stop the sale of artwork, the administration hired Reilly. In doing so, they once again changed their tactics.

In a July 28 statement released to the press, the newly hired Reilly called the lawsuit “frivolous and without merit,” a position he said the university “look[s] forward to aggressively defending...in court” —a far cry from the “regret” Reinharz expressed five months prior.

Reilly did not respond to requests to comment about his change in tone; however the administration’s decision to hire Reilly as outside council sheds light on the suit at hand.

Spokesperson for the university Dennis Nealon refused to comment on the university’s decision to hire outside council to handle the case in place of Judith Sizer, its in-house general council. Nealon did say, “Tom Reilly is an experienced trial lawyer. It is not uncommon for a university to seek outside staff when it is being sued.”

This feeling was echoed in an e-mail message from Sizer to The Hoot in which she wrote, “in-house university lawyers

A Brandesian Parisian wedding Features, page 12

A Look into ‘Deis Sports Sports, page 15

the reduction of 76 staff positions, and a better-than-expected endowment return, helped produce the balanced budget, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French wrote in an e-mail message to the Brandeis community.

The university had been bracing for an endowment return of -30 percent, however, the actual endowment return was -17.3 percent, French wrote in his e-mail.

The university also dipped into one million dollars from the university’s emergency reserve.

This year, the university’s Department of Development and Alumni Relations stressed the importance of donating toward financial aid when asking for gifts, Winship said.

Neither Winship’s office nor that of Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment knew exactly how much of the $78.3 million raised actually went towards students in need of financial aid.

Winship did say, however, “if we really were going to alleviate the need, we would need a $1 billion endowment to support financial aid.”

Though the university may have a balSee BUDGET, p. 2

AUDIO @ THEHOOT.NET Tech Talk: Snow Leopard, Window 7, and more Off the Beaten Path: Middling cuisine at the Middle East

2 The Hoot

August 28, 2009

N E W S

Univ. settles Kalman suit Rose benefactors sue univ. to halt museum closure

BY ARIEL WITTENBERG Editor

Brandeis University officials have reached a settlement with Sumner Kalman, who sued the university last May because it intended to demolish the 53-year-old science building named after his great uncle, Julius Kalman.

Sumner Kalman’s suit was dismissed in Suffolk County Probate Court on Wednesday after an agreement was reached between the two parties. Brandeis will name a research laboratory in the new Carl Shapiro Science Center after Julius Kalman.

The university also agreed to install a plaque in tribute to Julius Kalman on the ground floor of the new science center.

In addition to the plaque, another sign will note the old science center, and read “Two generations of Brandeis scientists were trained inside its walls for the betterment of humankind ... Brandeis University is deeply grateful to Julius Kalman, who had faith in the university in its earliest years.”

When Julius Kalman died in 1956, only six years after the university’s founding, he donated all of his residuary estate - a total of $1.8 million, now worth $14 million - to the university “for the purpose of erecting a building, buildings or a portion of the building, to be known as the Julius Kalman Memorial,” his nephew Sumner Kalman said.

University spokesman Dennis Nealon called the agreement “amicable” in a written statement. “The University has made it a priority to update and replace older facilities in an effort to provide students and faculty with an exceptional educational experience and learning environment,”

ROSE SUIT (from p. 1)

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

Nealon said in the statement. “Julius Kalman’s magnificent generosity to the University will be appropriately honored by the placement of plaques in the new science building on the Brandeis campus.”

When Sumner Kalman learned of the university’s plan to raze his uncle’s namesake, he decided to file for an injunction, saying the university was required to always have a portion of a building named after his uncle Julius because they had accepted his donation 56 years ago.

Sumner Kalman, a resident of Plaistow, N.H., said while he wishes the dispute could have been settled out of court, he is happy with the result of the settlement.

“I was hoping that we could get folks together and broker an honest deal in everyone’s best interest without litigation, but we had exhausted all other options of getting the university to listen,” he said. “But I believe this was resolved within the perimeter of the intent of my great uncle’s will so I’m glad we were able to work out a deal.”

Outside attorney marks change in approach to Rose supporters REILLY (from p. 1)

generally do not handle litigation in the trial courts.”

Sizer also added that she would be aiding Reilly in his work defending the university.

The university did not, however, hire outside council when Sumner Kalman, greatnephew of Brandeis benefactor Julius Kalman, sued in May. That suit was settled just last week outside of court, with Sizer’s assistance.

The university’s decision to hire Reilly, therefore, could indicate a fear that the Rose plaintiffs are less likely to settle than Sumner Kalman, who told The Hoot he was not interested in a long legal battle.

It could also indicate that the university believes any negotiation with the Rose plaintiffs would be more complicated, and would require a lawyer who knows the ins and outs of Massachusetts State laws, such as a former attorney general.

Nealon would not answer questions about whether Reilly’s role as a former attorney general or as mentor to current Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakly, who is also named in the lawsuit, had anything to do with the decision to hire Reilly.

The university could also feel pressured by the national media attention to the fate of the Rose Art Museum and want more experienced hands to handle the suit, regardless of whether it sees the inside of a court room.

Whatever reason Reilly was hired, his employment has shifted the conversation about the museum.

While in April Provost Marty Krauss formed a Committee for the Future of the Rose—a seemingly conciliatory step that

would allow for community input in decisions about the Rose—Reilly’s July 28 statement takes a more combative tone.

“The debate here does highlight a difference between Brandeis and these three Rose overseers,” he wrote. “That is, that the University has a responsibility to provide the very best education and faculty to fulfill its higher educational agenda. Apparently, these three overseers are oblivious to the Brandeis mission.”

Reinharz’s comments at the student press conference in February coincided with the administration’s hiring of the Bostonbased public relations firm Rasky Baerlein to help with the handling of the press in the aftermath of Reinharz’ initial announcement that the museum would close.

The university’s contract with Rasky Baerlein ended in May, but Nealon would not say whether this change in tone could be attributed to the end of that contract.

When asked about this change in approach, however, he responded, “of course, we didn’t have the suit back then.”

In her e-mail to The Hoot, Sizer wrote that the “apparent change in ‘tone’ in statements from the University” can be attributed to the fact that “the Rose plaintiffs have chosen to file a lawsuit against Brandeis, which makes some very serious allegations.”

“The University’s counsel is engaged to defend the institution, and can be expected to respond to these allegations actively,” she wrote.

Nealon refused to provide The Hoot with information about Reilly’s compensation from the university. University President Reinharz refused to comment on any of the issues raised in this article.

convert the museum into an educational arts center for students and faculty, and later, university Provost Marty Krauss announced the formation of a Future of the Rose Committee to decide the museum’s fate.

President of the museum’s board of overseers Jonathan Lee and plaintiff in the case summarized the suit’s intended message in just five words: “It’s not theirs to sell.”

The plaintiffs originally asked the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent the university from closing the museum or selling its work while the suit is argued in court, but the suit was transfered to the Suffolk Probate Court on Aug. 5.

If the court finds in favor of the plaintiffs, it would issue a court order making the preliminary injunction permanent.

The complainants also hope the court will “order Brandeis to turn over the artwork and endowment funds to [an] appropriate organization” that would manage the museum and act in the Rose’s interest as opposed to that of the university.

The complaint argues that such an order should be issued on the grounds that any and all donations to the museum since its inception in 1961 were made with the reasonable assumption that they would forever be a part of “a public art museum.”

One key factual discrepancy between the complaint and the statement issued by Reilly, the university’s council, is who funds the Rose.

Reilly wrote in his statement that “The Rose Art Museum is a part of Brandeis University and represents four tenths of one percent of the University budget. Their endowment is part of the Brandeis endowment.” The plaintiffs argue that the Rose is entirely self-sufficient.

Lee said in a phone interview that he fears Reilly’s statements mean the university “has been pulling from the Rose endowment and using it towards other purposes.”

The outcome of the case could hinge on the court’s understanding of the relationship between the Rose and the university. If the court finds that the museum is indeed part of Brandeis, and that the university is responsible for managing the Rose, the plaintiff ’s case that the art is not Brandeis’ to sell could be severely damaged.

A

The suit comes just one week after the university reopened the Rose building of the museum with the exhibit “Numbers, colors and texts: Works from the collection.”

However, Meryl Rose, member of the museum’s board of overseers and plaintiff in the suit, said that this exhibit is “a sham,” citing the museum’s halved staff (it now operates with only three staff members).

“People say that everything’s going to be okay, that everything’s going to be fine because the university backed off and has an exhibit up,” Rose said in a phone interview. “But they really haven’t. This exhibit is irrelevant. They have so destroyed this museum. We are all so heart broken and devastated.”

Reilly, who is former Massachusetts Attorney general and who will be representing the university in lieu of its in house general council Judith Sizer, wrote in his statement that the university’s primary responsibility when it comes to funding is toward providing its students with a quality education.

“Apparently,” he wrote, “These three overseers are oblivious to the Brandeis mission.”

Reilly concluded his statement saying that the university “look[s] forward to aggressively defending our position in court.”

This lawsuit is the second suit of the summer against the university.

On May 7, Sumner Kalman, nephew of Brandies donor Julius Kalman, filed for a court injunction against the university that would prevent the demolition of the Julius Kalman Science Center. The suit was settled last week after the university agreed to name a science laboratory after Julius Kalman and place two plaques in the new Shapiro Science Center.

Initially, the Kalman Science Center was scheduled to be demolished this June in order to make way for a new science building, which in conjunction with the newly built Carl Shapiro Science Center would complete plans for a new science facility.

No donor has been secured for that project.

In May, Kalman told The Hoot that he did not believe his suit was related to any potential suit involving the Rose Art Museum; however, he did say “there just seems to be a general disconnect between the university and its donors.”

pparently, these three overseers are oblivious to the Brandeis mission - Tom Reilly, outside counsel to the University

Univ. fundraising focused on financial aid is successful BUDGET (from p. 1)

anced budget for FY10, it has not been balanced without cutbacks.

“The university still has a deficit,” Winship said. “There are many things that can’t be funded by this, and lots of cuts will be made.”

Winship said she is concerned about how the university will get gifts for next year from donors who “were already asked to stretch their gifts for us this year,” Winship

said.

Additionally, while Brandeis relies on alumnae to donate money to the university, Brandeis is automatically at a disadvantage because it is a young university.

“We don’t have those 90 year old alumni who are getting ready to give money away,” Winship said, “Our alums are young, still working and have families to feed and mortgages to pay. So in tough economic times, it’s hard to compete with those needs.”

August 28, 2009

NEWS

The Hoot 3

INFOGRAPHIC BY Alex Schneider/The Hoot PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot

4 The Hoot

August 28, 2009

E D I TO R I A L Established 2005 "To acquire wisdom, one must observe."

Alison Channon Editor in Chief Ariel Wittenberg News Editor Bret Matthew Impressions Editor Chrissy Callahan Features Editor Hannah Vickers Sports Editor Alex Schneider Layout Editor Jodi Elkin Layout Editor Max Shay Photography Editor Leon Markovitz Business Editor Vanessa Kerr Business Editor Danielle Gewurz Copy Editor Max Price Diverse City Editor Samantha Shokin Diverse City Editor Senior Editors Sri Kuehnlenz, Kathleen Fischmann

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.

O

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you

ver the course of one summer, Brandeis has managed to be sued by two different sets of donors. The Rose Art Museum lawsuit is still pending but thankfully a suit filed by Sumner Kalman, great nephew of a Brandeis donor and building namesake, has been settled. His great uncle Julius Kalman donated his residuary estate to the university in 1956 – eight years after the university’s founding.

The younger Kalman filed an injunction against the university when his uncle’s building was scheduled for demolition as the result of the construction of the new science center.

Understandably, Kalman was miffed.

He believed the university was required to maintain some sort of honorarium to his uncle in perpetuity. Kalman’s demands were not unreasonable and as the settlement shows, he was quite easy to please.

The original Kalman building will be torn down and the new science center will feature a named laboratory and a plaque honoring Julius Kalman’s contribution to the university in its early days.

Regardless of the veracity of Kalman’s initial injunction claim, it goes without saying that keeping donors and their relatives happy is integral to the success of any university.

It is even more important at Brandeis, which has a comparatively small donor base that has been particularly affected by the now life-sentenced Bernard Madoff.

And as the settlement with Kalman shows, problems can be avoided through simple communication.

It may seem silly to have to tip-toe around those with deep pockets but it is important to remember that the goodwill of those who supported Brandeis in its infancy is responsible for the university’s remarkable growth. And while it is the mission of any institution to progress, a solid future cannot be built upon a forgotten past.

Campus facelift good for the collective soul

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his fall returning students were greeted with a surprise.

Instead of a bottomless pit where the old admissions building once stood, there is now a near completed building. Many thought the new admissions building was a waste of money, though the university could not use the funds for any other purpose. And while Carl and Ruth Shapiro’s donation could have greatly benefited other areas of the university, their generosity has done much to alleviate our campus’s aesthetic challenges.

The building is actually attractive – which cannot be said of the majority of structures on this campus. Further, the new admissions building along with the new science center and Ridgewood residence halls finally brings some architectural cohesion to lower campus. Now, instead of looking entirely out of place, the Shapiro Campus Center matches its surroundings. If a visitor never ventured above the campus center, the site of the new science center, new admissions building, and Ridgewood and Village residence halls might actually make said

visitor think this campus is modern in the best sense of the word.

Our campus’s architecture and aesthetic appeal may seem trivial – as just another attempt to woo prospective students while diverting funds from necessary if less glamorous projects. And to a certain extent that is true. Nonetheless, after a semester of upheaval in which our morale plummeted along with our endowment, it is heartening to come back to tangible proof that our university still stands and there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Hoot 5

August 28, 2009

IMPRESSIONS

The cartoons that shook the publisher

BY DANIEL ORTNER Staff

The infirmity of free speech became abundantly clear when Prof.

Jytte Klausen (POL) became the latest victim of the politically correct assault on academic freedom and discourse. Klausen is a leading expert on the growing Islamic population in Europe, and her latest book, “The Cartoons That Shook the World,” focuses on the Muhammad cartoon controversy—arguing that rather than represent a truly deep seeded cultural animosity, the explosion of violence that followed the cartoons’ publication was incited by radicals looking to score political victories.

Thus, one would expect that the book would allow the reader to view images of the cartoons themselves as well as historic artistic representations of the Prophet Muhammad central to the author’s argument. However, Yale University Press, one of the supposedly most reputable academic presses in the world, bowed to fear and potential controversy when it exercised deplorable self-censorship. The press stipulated that if the book were to be published, all images of the Muslim prophet would have to be removed.

One of the arguments John Donatich, the director of Yale University Press, used to justify his lack of integrity was shockingly inane. He argued that because “The cartoons are freely available on the Internet and can be accurately described in words, reprinting them could be interpreted easily as gratuitous.” Today, anything can be accessed by the click of a track pad.

If all controversial images accessible online were to be removed from books, we’d have few

left. Biology textbooks would be relieved of images of evolutionary descent because some creationists might get angry and cause mischief. Health texts would not be able to show visual representations of fertilization, because the “sexist” nature of these images might offend some diehard feminists (as was argued at length in an idiotic text I was assigned in a Women in the Health Care System class). Should international relations texts not feature images of the slaughter of Armenians by the Turks, in fear of offending Turkish national identity?

Is this really the path that Yale University Press wants to see us go down as a culture? Does the threat of violence justify the compromise of standards, when so many “controversial” images are already in print? The answer in this case is emphatically no!

We cannot have a marketplace of ideas if it is held ransom to every threat of violence Even more absurd is the fact that Yale was responding to an imaginary threat of controversy. There had been no reported threats and no actual confrontation over the publication of this book. It has already been several years since the publication of the cartoons. If the images are as widely disseminated as Donatich suggests, then what harm could their publication cause? Indeed, the images have been widely reprinted and many scholars have lectured extensively on the topic.

Several years later, their publication and the violent reaction which followed should be treated as a matter of historical fact deserving analysis. Moreover, that a written analysis would be published without the images shows cowardice based on an obsessive desire not to offend.

PHOTO from internet source

CARTOON CONTROVERSY: Muslims protest the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in Paris in February 2006.

What’s even more frightening is that this wave of censorship is not just being extended to new images such as the Danish cartoons from 2005. The book was not allowed to be published with historical images of the Prophet that have been published without fanfare for hundreds of years, including a 19th-century sketch by artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell. The scene has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dalí. Thus, the nebulous web of censorship extends not just to new discourse, but to already existing works.

Our obsession with not offending has led to schools banning the teaching of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” It is this same culture of intolerant tolerance that led to a student at Purdue University being punished for racial harassment for reading a book celebrating the historic defeat of the

KKK. When censors come and attempt to enforce tolerance, they are not just going to try to limit what can be said or written in the future, they will also want to turn to the past and limit access to ideas that are viewed as unseemly in the present. To have past images of the Prophet Muhammad censored, when one of the very purposes of this book is to point out hypocrisy by contrasting historical publication of the image of Muhammad with current reactions, is mind blowing and proves Klausen’s point more strongly.

The academic press and universities at large are supposed to be the bastions of freedom.

They are supposed to defend free speech even when ideas are unpopular. Instead, when it comes to controversial matters, specifically in regard to Islam, it seems that such principles are conveniently ignored. In this culture,

is it any surprise that the editors of a conservative paper at Tufts were found guilty of harassment for printing factually true statements about Islam, or that at San Francisco State University, students were nearly disciplined, were it not for the intervention of the Foundation For Individual Rights In Education, for stepping on flags of Hamas and Hezbollah?

At its core, we have our notions of academic freedom in place specifically to protect those writing about controversial content. Prof.

Klausen should be commended for tackling such an important and controversial topic. Her writing should be treated as sacrosanct precisely because individuals are willing to use violent force to take away a privilege we have fought so hard for. Instead, the very institutions that we expect to protect our rights have cowardly betrayed them.

Book of Matthew

Health care reform is a bipartisan shipwreck

BY BRET MATTHEW Editor

I worry about the future of bipartisanship in America.

If our republic was perfect, no bill would become law without undergoing a rigorous process including, but not limited to, extensive research and rational, intelligent discourse on the part of our elected officials. From the introduction to the final floor vote, lawmakers would work together to formulate good legislation that would benefit the nation as a whole, balancing conflicting ideologies with pragmatism.

If what I have just described sounds like fantasy, that’s because our republic is far from perfect. We all know this. The legislative process is not always effective, and our two-party system can sometimes create an ideologically triggered deadlock. Often, good legislation is weakened or even killed when the opposing sides of a debate fail to come to a consensus. But most Americans—aware as we are of our political system’s failings—still hope that the men and women they elected to office will put aside their petty differences and do what it takes

to serve their constituents. In short, most Americans support bipartisanship in government.

Not long ago, many of our leaders were failing to live up to this dream. As a nation we were saddled with the unpopular presidency of the failed George W. Bush, who himself was surrounded by a small but loyal group of Republican leaders. Opposing them were the Democrats who, flush with newfound support, pledged to oppose the President’s attempts at forwarding a conservative agenda at all costs.

It was a perfect recipe for conflict, made even more potent by a mass of media coverage that for the most part consisted of television show hosts and partisan strategists shouting at each other, as if the loudest voice would win the debate at hand.

Then, just in time, the election of 2008 rolled around, and straight from the land of Lincoln arrived a young, oddly hopeful rising star politician named Barack Obama.

Suddenly, the promise of change filled the air. Obama promised more than the usual platforms of the average Democratic presidential candidate. He offered his vision of

a post-partisan nation, in which leaders would put aside their petty squabbles and end what he called, “the smallness of our politics.” It invoked an image rarely seen in American politics today—that of two Senators or Congressmen from opposing parties sitting down with each other after a hard days legislating and enjoying a steak dinner and some small talk.

How could America refuse a leader who promised to end the divisiveness that had caused so many of us to lose faith in our system? We couldn’t. On Election Day, we sent Obama to the Oval Office with as much hope as we could muster. Not to mention good-sized Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

To his credit, Obama tried to usher in his “new era of bipartisanship” the second he began working on his agenda. While he mostly appointed Democrats to top positions, he also included some Republicans, including Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, and most famously, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. When it came time for Congress to pass the stimulus package, he encouraged legislators to work together

and build a bipartisan consensus, thereby creating a bill that members of both parties could support. And when Congress began working on health care—the cornerstone of Obama’s agenda—legislators immediately made bipartisanship a major goal of the process.

This, however, is where the problems started. While Obama seems confident in his core belief—that Democrats and Republicans need only sit down together and talk in order to discover that they have more in common than they care to admit— events in Congress have proven otherwise.

The stimulus package was designed to boost the ailing economy through a combination of tax cuts and spending increases, and was worth $787 billion when signed

by President Obama. Originally, the House version of the bill was worth $820 billion, and a version drafted by Senate Democrats was worth $827 billion. But these numbers were cut down in the final bill when Democrats accepted certain Republican amendments, which increased tax cuts See SHIPWRECK, p. 7

6 The Hoot

IMPRESSIONS

August 28, 2009

Borde-nough

Shopping for Truth

Debating healthcare

BY CHRIS BORDELON Columnist

Books for classes: Less is more

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

BY CHRISSY CALLAHAN Editor

By now, most of you have probably gone to at least the majority of your classes. You’ve been handed your syllabi, scoured them for what torture your professors have in store for you and looked over the book lists. Some of you have already bought all of your books; some of you might be waiting until the end of the shopping period to do so.

Book buying is a reality that all college students face and can sympathize with. Every semester you pay tons of money for books that, in reality, you’re never going to read again. And if we’re completely honest, some of you probably won’t even read them for class, but that will be our little secret, right?

There are, of course, many ways to get your books – buy them online; borrow them from a friend in a class; get them on reserve in the library; or, most people’s last resort, buy them from the very convenient, yet extremely expensive university bookstore.

Now before you think this is an attack on the bookstore, it’s not.

It’s not only our bookstore that’s notorious for being too expensive; it’s all college bookstores. And I’ve encountered some very friendly employees in the bookstore, so this isn’t an attack on them.

What it is instead is a study of book buying habits and how we can improve them, because in case it isn’t quite obvious, college students have a lot on their plates – both work-wise and moneywise – without having to worry about paying for books. For students paying so much money for tuition, it doesn’t seem right that they should pay hundreds of extra dollars for their books too.

Add a bad economy to this reality, and the monetary strain only gets worse.

Thus, following are three major annoyances of book buying and some suggestions for how our university can improve on them.

I don’t know about all of you, but I usually go to the bookstore’s website before the start of the semester and look up the book

lists for my classes. More often than not, I sigh as I read all of the books I need to buy. Ten books for one class? Really?

Don’t get me wrong, I love reading and realize that the books we read are important to the subjects we study. It’s the amount of books, and thus the monetary total, that often seems unfair. And this is the first annoyance of book buying.

Personally, I’ve been lucky so far with my book buying. I look ahead and find the titles of the books I need, and then I see if they have it in a library somewhere. If I think the book will be a good investment or the type of reference book I’ll use in the future, I’ll certainly buy it. As a last resort, and for those obscure titles I can’t find anywhere else, I’ll buy it in the bookstore.

Because unless I hope to start my own used bookstore with my dusty collection of partially used books, it’s not worth buying every book. Realistically, I’m not ever going to use most of these books again, and it seems like a waste of money to buy them all, especially when most classes only discuss them for a few days, then move on to the next one.

So perhaps professors should really consider if they need all of those books, or if one or two fewer would suffice. After all, won’t students absorb more information if they read a few fewer books and focus more on them rather than speed racing through a packed syllabus?

Moving on to the next major annoyance of book buying, let’s consider books on reserve. Fortunately, some professors help us in our quest to find all of our required books. Many Brandeis professors are considerate and put their books on reserve in the library, realizing that students can’t buy several books per class and hope to have any money left afterward.

But some classes simply don’t have books posted to reserves, or the class is so big that it’s like a little kid in a large family hoping for some one-on-one time with their parents – you can’t hope to get it. To solve this little dilemma, it should be a requirement for all professors to put books on reserve

for students who don’t want to or can’t purchase all of their textbooks.

Last, but not least, there are those rare instances when a class says it requires no textbook.

When I’m researching my books, sometimes I find myself smiling at the screen when the site tells me that my course requires no books. You see, many classes I’ve taken at Brandeis post readings/ articles on LATTE, so I think that maybe this particular class is going the LATTE route.

But then there’s always that annoyance when I go to the first class and the professor announces that we all have to buy a course packet. Ah, the dreaded course packet. This, to me, is one of the most annoying aspects of bookbuying.

Sure, they’re convenient. And yes, these course packets might help you to save money for a certain class in one way. Rather than having to buy 20-30 books, the professor has consolidated the best of each author into a comprehensive course packet. However, course packets are often an attempt to fundraise for a particular department at the cost of the students.

In an ideal world, professors wouldn’t require so many books, or would at least make sure to put the books on reserve in the library for those students who don’t want to buy them. In an ideal world, professors wouldn’t compile department-made course packets then sell them off to students at spiked prices they wouldn’t pay online. In an ideal world, we would all value the books we read even more because we didn’t have to buy so many of them.

Surely there are several more pressing problems facing the university at this time and books are by far the least important. But it’s often the least important problems that linger for a long time and never get fixed because we become too complacent.

Maybe I’m just waxing lyrical,;maybe what should be a reality will always be a flawed reality. But maybe, just maybe, it makes a little sense. And maybe when it comes to books for classes, less can really be more.

As Americans engage in what passes for a debate on the future of health care, attention has come to focus on the question of whether any changes will include a socalled “public option” for health insurance coverage. Given the size of the Democrats’ Congressional majorities, it is hard to explain why President Barack Obama’s health care proposals - which until recently consistently included a public plan - have stalled in Congress unless at least some Democrats disagree with him.

But one may wonder whether unbridgeable policy differences really exist, or whether, alternatively, a lack of bridge-building enthusiasm is the real problem.

With his election a memory and his reelection still well over the horizon, Obama seems to be engaging in a form of political opportunism with respect to his universal health insurance promises that reflects poorly on him.

A clue as to the nature of this opportunism emerged two weeks ago, when Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius revealed that the “public option” was “not an essential element” of the president’s health care plans. CNN and other commentators recognized Sebelius’s statement as newsworthy, but spun the retreat from Obama’s earlier promises as an essential compromise, a “necessity for any legislation to pass” in Congress.

That analysis misleadingly minimized the extent of the president’s leverage over the legislative process in this instance. Obama won a large victory at the polls less than a year ago. He heads a party that controls big majorities in both houses. At a time when government employment looks unusually attractive to job-seekers, and when state governments cannot finance projects, Obama commands more public jobs and dollars than anyone. The president does not control Congress, but the idea that he was forced to drop a key part of his plans conceals behind the language of necessity a judgment that achieving universal care is not worth the political cost.

Candidate Obama let it be known in no uncertain terms that he wanted coverage that would reach the country’s 45 million uninsured and millions of underinsured persons. President Obama has until recently been adamant that (as he put it in a speech to the American Medical Association on June 15) there “needs to be a public option” for an “affordable, basic package” of health insurance “that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market.”

Presumably, nothing that has happened since June has eliminated these concerns. What has changed is the administration’s calculation of the political benefit to be realized from pulling the strings and calling in the favors necessary to make universal coverage a reality. Now that the flesh of detail must be attached to the bones of the universal care pro-

posal, the president has sensed that there’s no longer easy political capital to be gained from simply smiling for the cameras and declaring himself in favor of some benign, vague idea with the uplifting name of “universal health care.”

Obama has stopped leading the push for universal insurance from the front and taken cover behind bet-hedging statements like Sebelius’s. He once endorsed government intervention to offset market forces that were leaving tens of millions of Americans to rely on the existing health care “public option,” that of waiting until they have a serious enough condition to go to a hospital and seek the emergency care mandated under existing federal law. While people differ heatedly on the details, the idea of a legal right to coverage is popular. It probably won Obama many votes in 2008, not least from those whose only coverage is of the get-sick-enough-for-anemergency-but-try-not-to-die variety.

What is unpopular is the idea that Americans with adequate insurance will see the quality of their health care decline, or the health insurance component of their pay from employers taxed, or that they will lose their coverage altogether as employers seize upon the new public option as an easy justification for dropping their own plans. Universal insurance legislation need not cause these problems. Funding for a plan for covering the uninsured does not necessarily have to be diverted from resources now allocated to health care for others.

Candidate Obama rightly assured Americans that this was so, and attacked his opponent’s plan to tax employer contributions to employee health benefits.

But after Sebelius’s statement, President Obama appears content to offer no public plan, and instead to rely upon nonprofit cooperative insurance trusts. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs demonstrated how far the president has retreated from his campaign promises by asserting that “the bottom line is, do individuals looking for health insurance in the private market have choice and competition?” The administration has yet to explain why the proposed trusts would voluntarily wade into the highrisk pool of the currently uninsured and offer affordable coverage options that someone without a forked tongue might say reflect “choice and competition.”

Anyone could have predicted that universal health care would face serious opposition if the proposal’s enemies succeeded in convincing the wider public that universal coverage could come only at the expense of the health coverage currently enjoyed by other Americans. Obama needed to make clear that this would not happen by crafting his plans in such a way that they did not penalize insured Americans. Such sources do exist.

Parts of the federal budget unrelated to health care could be used.

See HEALTH CARE, p. 7

IMPRESSIONS

August 28, 2009

The Hoot 7

Bipartisanship is the new Titanic n President io n U t n e d tu S From the productive and Dear Brandeis, ur summer was

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The third and d Deans of Stud ts and responsi an gh ri ce d ffi an O e s, es th oc ith ary pr t conduct collaboration w mp the studen ts, the disciplin va gh ri re t y el en et ud pl st m at d co (applicaBrandeis looks ar to observe an and Advocacy s ye ht re ig ti R en t e en th ud ng rtunity of St We will be taki join the Office This is our oppo . se ed ea er pl , id ed ns lv co vo be in process. To get l). All ideas will eryone. at works for ev Thursday’s emai th in n on ti hout the ve lu gi so as a w tion n to find l of you throug io al at tr ith is w in ng m ki ad or e w to work with th ok forward to much and I lo ry ve u yo k an Th ar. course of this ye Thanks, 1 Andy Hogan ‘1 President Student Union

Congress’s healthcarelessness

HEALTH CARE (from p. 6)

Provisions to discourage employers from dropping existing plans could be enacted, and taxes could be raised so as not to specifically penalize Americans with employer coverage.

Maybe he foolishly planned to fund his program from one of these unpopular sources, and must now rethink. But the president is smarter than that, and he knows that universal health care is a sure loser if the public thinks that it would hurt the majority who do have health insurance.

Similarly, maybe when Obama used to speak of a public option, he really meant non-profit trusts. Certainly he’d like the public to think that: on Aug. 20, he claimed that Sebelius’s statement about dropping the public option was nothing new, but that “she’d been saying this all along.” But that also seems unlikely.

The distinguishing feature of the proposed public option is not that it will be non-profit. Many health plans are already organized that way. What’s important is that it would be, in a sense, non-market: it would provide insurance to people that the existing insurance market has let down. The proposed trusts will be much more exposed than the public option to the market forces that currently leave many people uncovered.

With years separating him from his reelection bid, Obama can safely assume that his supporters will settle for less than universal health coverage, or at least forget by 2012 what they can’t forgive. Even his party’s Congressmen have a year to spare before facing the voters. Rather than push for universal health care, Obama may substitute an insubstantial policy change that he can sell to the public as an achievement. Presidential concern for maintaining a winning image is nothing new - consider “Mission Accomplished” and the George W. Bush’s adminis-

tration’s other war rhetoric (and cross your fingers and hope that Obama’s hasty August 20 judgment that “a successful election” took place that day in Afghanistan was not similarly wide of the mark despite low turnout in much of the country, fraud, votebuying, and intimidation). But an incumbent who enticed voters by stressing that he would be different should not display such continuities, or renege on a promise that more effort could fulfill.

Indeed, now that he faces opposition to his domestic plans, Obama seems to be taking additional cues from his immediate predecessor in office. Pouring Cash for Clunkers into the auto market and encouraging banks to resume taking bad mortgage risks look great as long as the money lasts, but will do no more to promote sustained economic growth than, say, handing taxes back to the rich no-stringsattached, or brutally destroying Muslim countries to make work for contractors. And Obama, like Bush, has discovered both the distraction of overseas adventures and the convenience of minimizing his own responsibility for them. “We must never forget,” he told an ex-military audience on August 17, that Afghanistan “is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.”

Just as CNN and other commentators have indulged the president by claiming to see the “necessity” of dropping the public option, Obama himself now claims absolution from responsibility for the Afghan War from a public that must pay to give him the resources and powers of a “war president.” If the best that our centuries-old democracy has been able to do in its most recent presidential polls is to reelect a wannabe tyrant and then replace him with a photogenic demagogue, the president’s assessment of the Afghan election may be quite accurate.

SHIPWRECK (from p. 5)

and cut spending. To the Obama Administration and his Congressional allies, this appeared to be a good way to garnish Republican support and to prove, once and for all, that American politics can be a bipartisan affair in a time of great need.

But when the votes were tallied, it didn’t quite work out that way. Not a single Republican in the House, and only three in the Senate, voted in favor of the final, weaker package. Efforts to reach across the aisle had been wasted, and foolishly so. All Democrats had done was allow Republicans to weaken a bill that they never wanted to support anyway.

Unfortunately, it seems that what should have been a valuable lesson for President Obama and Democratic leaders has instead been dismissed as a minor setback. As the debate over health care reform heats up to the boiling point, Democrats are following the same bipartisan strategy— and giving Republicans far more power over the process than one would expect a minority party to have. Republicans, of course, are taking advantage of it.

Compare the recent statements of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.

When asked at a morning briefing if the White House planned to give up on working with Republicans, Gibbs responded, “Absolutely not…we continue to be hopeful that we can get bipartisan support and will continue to work with those that are interested in doing that.”

On the other hand, when Senator Grassley was asked at a town hall meeting in Iowa about certain end-of-life counseling provisions in the House version of the health care bill, he told constituents that they should fear that the government might “pull the plug on grandma.” In a few short words, a United States Senator, part of a Committee made up of three Democrats and three Republicans tasked with designing a serious health care reform bill, had endorsed a radical, unsubstantiated conspiracy theory.

Grassley is not alone in Congress. Many, if not most, of his Republican colleagues join him in opposing any sort of meaningful reform that threatens the status quo of for-profit insurance companies preying on average Americans. Emboldened by the support they have received from a small group of loud conservatives—who apparently live in fear of “government takeovers,” “death panels,”

and “fascism”—Republicans have taken a strong stand against many of President Obama’s provisions.

In many cases, it has worked.

The end-of-life counseling provisions that Grassley attacked were stripped from the House version of the bill, despite posing no actual danger to grandma, or for that matter, grandpa. Even the “public option,” which Obama proudly toted on the campaign trail, may very well be reconsidered by Democrats who don’t want to scare away their Republican counterparts with anything that even resembles government intervention in the health care industry. As time goes on and the debate continues, it appears that health care reform can only get more conservative.

In a sense, the Republican Party has become the black hole of the United States government. It may be small, but it is impossible to ignore, and it insists on sucking up everything that comes into its path without any thought of giving back. And while a spaceship full of Democrats can try to be bipartisan with a black hole, and try to find some common ground, one way or another that spaceship is going to be crushed into subatomic particles. Or perhaps, sent off to the parallel universe where Sarah Palin lives.

I hope President Obama realizes that he will never be able to keep his promise for reform unless he learns to use his majorities and ignore radical Republican demands. In bipartisanship, just as in life, it takes two to tango, and the Republican Party is currently sulking in the corner away from the dance floor.

Yet still I worry. Because even though that is a short-term solution, albeit a good one, it still doesn’t solve our long-term problem of government. Progressive Democrats may present President Obama with a good health care bill that actually fixes the system and helps millions, but this is only one bill out of many more that are sure to come. And in the future, Democrats may not have their overwhelming majorities with which to work. We may have to ask Republicans to dance, and I have a feeling that we don’t know the same steps.

How can bipartisanship ever hope to work if one side is so stubborn that the other is forced to choose between working on its own or going down with the ship?

This is the question that I have pondered since the very beginning of Obama’s term, and one that more of us should consider as it continues.

The Hoot accepts submissions to the Impressions section on any topic of consequence to any member of the campus community. Our mission is to give every community member a voice. The views expressed in the Impressions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hoot's editorial board.

12 The Hoot

August 28, 2009

FEATURES

Something Brandeis, something bleu

BY CHRISSY CALLAHAN Editor

The sun flooded through the stained glass windows of Saint Pierre de Montmartre early that July morning. The weather – cool and sunny – was perfect. The church – picturesque. The backdrop – ideal.

Outside, classical Romanesque architecture supported the famous church and tourists gathered to catch a glimpse of the happy couple inside, hoping to capture a piece of this picture-perfect moment in time.

Inside, the bride walked down the aisle in a dress made of Chantilly lace – bought in France for the occasion, and sewn into a gown by the groom’s mother.

The couple’s friends and loved ones had traveled a long way to witness the marriage of Associate Director in the Office of Donor Relations, Erin Warnke and her fiance, Matthew Slattery. They came from Great Britain, Scotland, the United States, France, Serbia and Hong Kong.

The priest, too, had come PHOTO COURTESY OF the Matt and Erin Slattery a long way from his usual NEWLY WEDS: Pictured are Erin and Matt Slattery along with Father Walter Cuenin, who officiated at the couple’s wedding. parish – Brandeis.

As the couple exchanged Matt Slattery made do couple had been there torings and vows, Brandeis’ wedding proposal. Iniwith his girlfriend’s gether before and loved it; own Rev. Walter Cuenin tially planning to prorequest and proposed and of course, there was gathered the 40 wedding pose to his girlfriend at the location of that that romantic engagement guests in a circle around the in front of the very day’s outing. to consider. As for choosalter. As Brandeis’ Catholic church they She said ing a venue for the Mass, it chaplain, Cuenin was accus- e v e nt u a l l y yes, and didn’t hurt that there was a tomed to celebrating Mass, married in, the plan- beautiful medieval church – and had even been a guest Matt Slattery ning be- Saint Pierre de Montmartre at the weddings of various was forced to improvise when an unsuspecting gan.

– the couple had fallen in Brandeis employees.

When the time love with while there.

This, however, was his Erin Slattery requested came to choose a “Of all the places where first wedding ceremony in to spend the day at the Arc de Triomphe location for the you can picture yourself Paris. wedding, Paris getting married, when I picThe Slatterys married July in Paris’ Montmartre came easily as a tured myself in that church, 18 in the City of Lights in a neighborhood.

“We had just flown top choice. Af- it just seemed right and it Roman Catholic ceremony ter all, Paris held was right for [Matt] too,” performed by Cuenin. For in and I wanted a s p e c i a l Erin Slattery said.

Erin Slattery, an employee full day at meanNow that the idea had of Brandeis’ Office of Do- M o n t i n g been settled, all that was nor Relations, the wedding m a r t r e , for the left was the planning. So had Brandeis connections not just c o u - the couple wrote a letter to all over, not ending with the aftern o o n ,” ple – the church to look into a Cuenin’s involvement.

M a t t possible ceremony there.

So how did the newlyweds Erin SlatS l a t t e r y Conversational enough in and Cuenin find themselves tery said.

Since Paris s t u d i e d French to get by, but not in this fairy tale moment? It a b r o a d completely fluent, Erin right away and got the good Slattery asked for help with begins with Valentine’s Day is filled with romantic t h e r e ; Slattery asked Prof. Hollie news – they could marry in paperwork from another 2008. t h e Harder, head of Brandeis’ the church. familiar Brandeisian – Rev. Erin and Matt Slattery s p o t s , French department, to help But then came the dilem- Cuenin. “I’d seen Father were introduced when she translate her letter. ma – who would marry the Cuenin around campus and moved to Boston for graduAfter the letter was signed, couple? After all, what’s a he’s this great guy…so nice. ate school. The couple had sealed and delivered, all that Catholic ceremony without So I contacted him and said been dating for five years was left was the wait. After a a priest?

‘Can you help me? I’m a when they left for a trip to few weeks and still no reMatt Slattery had a Scot- little overwhelmed with this Paris in February 2008. sponse, the couple de- tish relative who would’ve process.’”

Though the location for cided to write another helped, but he was going It turned out Cuenin, who their February vacation letter, this time en- to be in the United States had lived in Paris for a few to the City of Lights listing the help of the weekend the couple years, knew the church very was already romana friend in Paris had chosen to wed. And well and had performed tic enough, Matt to hand de- it turned out the church’s Mass there before. Out of Slattery had seliver the letter priest was going to be out interest, Cuenin asked who cret plans for to the church. of town that same weekend, was going to perform the something a A SMALL WORLD: Matt and Erin Slattery were wed in Paris at a ceremony officiated by Father Cuenin, bit more ro- who happens to share a birthday with Matt. Prof. Harder of the French department helped translate a This time they too.

See WEDDING, p. 13 heard back Back at Brandeis, Erin mantic – a letter that enabled the couple to wed at the church in Paris. The couple even ran into Prof. Jankowski on the plane to Paris.

F E AT U R E S

August 28, 2009

WEDDING (from p. 12)

ceremony. Out came the bride’s confession – she really didn’t know yet, and would Cuenin have any suggestions? Any colleagues in Paris or friends who might consider a ceremony in English for the couple?

It just so happened Cuenin was going to be in Paris the same weekend, on vacation with his sister

and brother-in-law, and was happy to help.

For Cuenin, who had presided over the weddings of three Brandeis employees this year alone, the choice was a natural one. The Catholic chaplain once performed over 100 ceremonies a year as a priest in Newton and had even wed a couple at St. Peter’s in the Vatican.

This one, however, would be his first in France.

Performing this ceremony and getting to know the couple over the course of the preparations was a delight for Cuenin. “As I got to know them in preparation for the wedding, just knowing them as a couple made it joyful for me to be there as well,” he said.

“She’s a very bright, very interesting young woman and he is as well, and I felt happy to be a part of that re-

lationship.”

Cuenin also became a part of the wedding plans because, even in a digital age, planning a wedding from across county is bound to pose certain obstacles. For Erin Slattery, though, the opposite rang true for two reasons, one being Cuenin.

From that initial meeting, he proved an invaluable confidant for the couple, easing them through the

The Hoot 13

process and even recommending locations for their reception.

“He’s been really helpful,” Erin Slattery said. “He made [the paperwork] very easy and he actually was able to help us out with recommendations. He’s just given us personal advice and talked to us and [the process has] been really smooth.”

The French locals, too, were more than happy to assist the couple. “You’d be surprised, planning a wedding in Europe is probably easier than planning a wedding here,” she said. “I think it’s just because there’s only so much you can do from here.”

Call it travel barriers or typical French “laissez faire,” but Erin Slattery’s laid-back attitude fit that famous French ease. The locals she dealt with in planning exhibited the same laid-back attitude, too.

And when in Paris, do as the Parisians do. In keeping with their surroundings, the couple mixed certain French themes into the wedding and reception from the invitations to the music and food.

At Les Noces de Jeanette, guests dined a la French style on champagne, pâté, filet mignon, chocolates, wine and wedding cake at a “banquet that never ended,” Cuenin said.

In keeping with the French theme, Erin Slattery’s colleagues even threw her a French-themed bridal shower complete with French décor, deserts,

cheese and bread before she left for Paris.

So how does one top a wedding in Paris? And where did the newlyweds choose to honeymoon?

Since so many of their family members and friends had already made the trip to Paris, the couple made sure they got their money’s worth. The couple spent the weekend with guests, taking in the city, cruising down the Seine River and dancing the night away at a jazz club.

After spending a few days with family and friends in Paris, the couple headed to Provence, where they ate good food, enjoyed the beautiful countryside and took in the famous Tour de France.

It was a seemingly seamless wedding, and a big part of that was due to those Brandeis connections Erin Slattery had.

“I just want to emphasize how great it has been to be at Brandeis while this is happening,” Erin Slattery said.

“Prof. Harder and Father Cuenin have been wonderful in offering personal, emotional and professional guidance through this somewhat complex and delicate process.”

“I can honestly say that if I were not at Brandeis and had access to such a wonderful community of people, this process would have been much more frustrating and challenging - and, honestly, I think the Paris wedding may not have been possible.”

ADVER TISEMENT

LOUIS BRANDEIS WAS ONE OF AMERICA’S FOREMOST DEFENDERS OF FREE SPEECH. MAYBE SOMEONE SHOULD TELL JEHUDA REINHARZ. LEARN HOW BRANDEIS HAS REJECTED THE LEGACY OF ITS NAMESAKE: WWW.THEFIRE.ORG/BRANDEIS

The Hoot 15

August 28, 2009

SPORTS

Fall Sports Preview Looking to score: Women’s soccer

BY HANNAH VICKERS Editor

After ending the 2008 season on a very high note with a victory in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III New England championship, the Brandeis women’s soccer team is looking to continue their success. Forward Melissa Gorenkoff ’10, the tournament MVP, will share the duties of captain this year with goalkeeper Hillary Rosenzweig ’10.

Coach Denise Dallamora, who started the women’s soccer program at Brandeis in 1980, will be joining the team for her 30th season as head coach. Kerry O’Malley will help Dallamora as assistant coach for the third year in a row. The team will be striving for their seventh straight postseason spot and their third straight ECAC title.

Forward Tiffany Pacheco and defender Taryn Martiniello, both ’11, are two players to keep an eye on this season. Last year Pacheco had eight goals and four assists and Martiniello was a critical piece of the championship team.

Mimi, a midfielder, Ali, a midfielder and forward, and Theodore ’12 combined last year to make five goals and two assists and are ready to kick off their second year on the team. Midfielder/ defender Alanna Torre, defender Allison Maresca, and defender/midfielder Francesca Shin, all also ’12, are three other players expected to show great improvement since last season. Coach Dallamora is very excited for rookies Stevie Phillips, Meagan Bautist, and Brooke Gruman to be joining the squad as well.

The women’s soccer team will be kicking off their season at home next Tuesday against MIT at 7:30 PM. MIT was 7-9-2 last year, while Brandeis was 13-7-2.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

LEADING THE WAY: Tiffany Pacheco ‘11 forcing herway down the field in 2008. Coach Dallamora says Pacheco is a player to watch this season.

Men’s Cross Country

Men’s Soccer

BY HANNAH VICKERS Editor

BY HANNAH VICKERS Editor

Coach John Evans will be leading the team for his sixth season this year. The men finished 20th at Nationals in 2008 and are hoping to do even better this season. In addition to six of the seven from that national level team returning this year, Devin Holgate ’11 will be joining the team. While Holgate was not on the Cross Country team last season, he ran an impressive 4.14 mile indoors.

Coach Evans is also excited to welcome Alex Kramer ’13 to Brandeis this year. In addition to being the New England indoor mile champion, Kramer was

also runner up in the Massachusetts State 2-mile with a time of 9.17 and seventh at the Nike Indoor Nationals in the 500m.

Holgate and Kramer should certainly help round out an already impressive team. In the NCAA pre-season poll the men’s team was ranked 13th overall but hope to be “much higher than that by the end of the season” according to Coach Evans.

“We are really looking forward to this year and have some big goals,” he added.

Their first meet is against Bentley at Weston High School Friday September 4 at 3 PM. Bentley finished sixth in the NCAA Division II Regionals in 2008.

The men’s soccer team finished last season at 8-9-2 overall and are looking to improve their stats this season. Joining the men as head coach will be Coach Michael Coven, entering his 37th year in that position. He is the only current Brandeis coach to have lead a team to a national championship. Assistant coach Gabe Margolis will also be rejoining the team for his fourth year.

Midfielder/forward Adam Guttman will be reprising his role of captain again this season and will share the duties with midfielder Corey Bradley ’10. The program certainly has some spots to fill as the two other captains from last year, Ben Premo,

Women’s Cross Country

BY HANNAH VICKERS Editor

The women’s Cross Country team, like the men’s, will be coached by John Evans.

“The women will really surprise people this year,” Coach Evans predicted.

“While unranked in the pre-season poll, I think we have the potential to qualify for nationals and be a top 10 team in the country.”

Marie Lemay and Grayce Selig, both ‘11, whose depth should help the team reach their goal of a national ranking, will lead

the team. Selig and Lemay were two of the most consistent competitors last year, including finishing one-two against Bentley in the season opener. Lemay also finished 41st out of 313th at the New England Division III Championships last fall, allowing the team to finish 13th out of 39.

The women will start their season Friday September 4 against Bentley at Weston High School at 3 PM. Bentley finished fourth in the NCAA Division II Regionals in 2008 and had one athlete, Melissa Nash ’09, compete in Nationals where she finished 63rd.

and Kevin Murphy, graduated Brandeis in May. Premo holds a particular place of honor in Brandeis soccer with having the fifth most goals scored (38) and points (98) in school history. The Hoot will be talking to Coach Coven later this week to discuss how the team plans to adapt to these changes and move towards and even more productive future.

The men will start off their season September 5-6 in the Adidas Kick-Off Classic at Wheaton. Saturday they will face Rutgers-Newark who finished the 2008 season at 10-9-2. Sunday will bring a match against the University of Southern Maine who went 12-9-1 last season.

Brandeis did not face either team last year.

Tennis

BY HANNAH VICKERS Editor

Both the men’s and women’s tennis teams had their first practice Thursday afternoon.

Coach Ben Lamanna is in charge of both squads and has been at Brandeis for the past five seasons. Alexis Accomando will serve as assistant coach for the men’s and women’s team this year. The teams

are, “already hard at work” according to Coach Lamanna.

The men will be lead by Steven Nieman ’11 and Seth Rogers ’10. Their first home match of the season will take place September 16 at 3 PM against Bentley.

Ariana Sanai and Emily Weisberger, both ’10, will captain the women’s squad.

They will face Bowdoin at home September 12 at 2:30pm.

16 The Hoot

August 28, 2009

WEEKEND FUN Spotlight on Boston

Saint Anthony's Feast

MFA Community Day Friday, Aug. 28, 10:00 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.

465 Huntington Ave.

Friday to Sunday, Aug. 28-30 North End What better way to experienece the heart of Italian Boston than through a street festival? Aside from a religious procession, the event also offers food, cooking demos, carnival games and a little shopping.

Check out all the Museum of Fine Arts has to offer. For one day, the museum is waiving all general admissions fees, which, for students means saving $15 www.mfa.org

What's going on at Brandeis?

Boston Bound

Friday, Aug. 28, 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

Levin Ballroom

Fright Feast Friday, Aug. 28, 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.

Shapiro Atrium

Can't make it to any of the events above? Get a taste of Boston without leaving campus by sampling cannolis and learning about upcoming shows in Beantown.

Farmer's Market:

Sunday, Aug. 30, 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Athletics Parking Lot Looking for a more homemade flavor on campus? Check out this market for local produce, jams and jellies, lotions, soaps, baked goods, etc.

Unless otherwise noted, photos are from Google images.

Hoot Comic Strips

laughingwarlock

Sleazy

Come eat away those beginning-of-thesemester jitters at this Student Eventshosted nosh-fest! Consider this a prequel to the usual Midnight Buffet kick-off to Finals Week.

Editor's Pick: Campus Carnival

Saturday, Aug. 29, 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.

Great Lawn Classes may have started, but summer fun is still here! Indulge in carnival food and follow it up with a try at the giant inflatable Twister board.

By Ian Price

By Matt Kupfer

Humor is Dead

By Xander Bernstein

Think you could do better? Stop by the Hoot table at the Activities Fair and see how you can be a comics writer!