PHOTO BY Nafiz ‘Fiz’ Ahmed/The Hoot

When renewable energy is produced, there are two parts of the product that can be sold; the energy itself, measured in Kilowatt-hours, 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 Cohen-Rosenthal ’03 said. “We can say we are helping humanity’s environmental 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.

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 20-year 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 solar-energy 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.

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 institutes, 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.

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.”

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 formula to calculate a student’s needs (potentially based on their race, Grade Point Average and high school performance) and set it against the university’s capacity for aid.

“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 “three-pronged 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 differing 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.

Round table: Speakers at the Crowne Center’s panel discuss Middle Eastern relations.
PHOTO BY Ingrid Schulte/The Hoot

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 Shai 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 themselves in the middle of the Middle East.” Walker still “ remains optimistic” and believes that Turkey likes to stay on the line between the west and the east.

Building off Walker’s perspective on Turkey’s emerging power in the Middle East, Habibi said that “2009 was a bad year for every country … But now Turkey seems to rise as the Dubai of the Middle East.”

At the end of the panel, Feldman, Director of the Crown Center said the Obama administration should handle the Palestine-Israel negotiation. “ Both countries have weak leaders 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 who listened to the discussion.

“It was really cool and nice to hear about the whole region. It addressed a lot of issues that I study,” Mark Grinberg ’11 said.

While Grinberg came to the event for educational purposes, Jen Wang ’14 came to stay connected with international issues. “Since coming to Brandeis I’ve been out of touch with the media. It was nice to just know what was going on around the world,” Wang said.

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 two-week 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 experiential learning aspect was integral to the program’s success. “Nothing makes you feel like you really know what you’re talking about like going to an international court, such as the ICC, and being able to follow what is going on,” she said.

Gaskins was instrumental in the organization of the trip, from arranging for guest speakers and field visits to planning and teaching two Brandeis in The Hague courses, “The Spirit of International Law” and “Advocacy in the International Criminal Court.”

“The most successful part of the program was the students’ self-confidence with legal issues, which allowed them to explore the global impact of international law,” Gaskins said.

The Hague program was just one of four Justice Brandeis Semester (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.

“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 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 “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.

Meet the president Frederick Lawrence talks with students on Monday evening in Ridgewood Commons.
PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

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 students 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.

PHOTO BY Ingrid Schulte/The Hoot

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 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 Athletics 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.”

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

“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 move-in and Rosh Hashannah is the busiest time for facilities workers on campus. First-year 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 woes.

Karl’s friend, who used to work days, now has to work the midnight shift to ensure there is a TPH on staff 24-hours a day. Karl, who has worked at Brandeis since 1986, used to specialize in air-conditioning, but after the layoffs he became a TPH, a less specialized job. Now he works weekends instead of weeks.

“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 flooded toilet. That’s a real fast job.”

During the week when he’s not working, Karl is a bird-watcher, gardener and Belgian-beer aficionado. But, he’ll settle for good old American beer too.

“Do you guys want anything to drink, water?” Mayer asks.

“I’ll take a BudLight,” he jokes, before going into a description of the turkey-vultures that can be found at Brandeis by Spingold theater.

Karl, who has bright blond hair and tattoos on his arms to accompany his uniform-blue khaki pants and work-boots, also likes to lift weights. As a Brandeis staff-member he gets free access to the Gosman gym.

“Even though I got switched to week-ends, I get to lift weights here every morning,” he says. “We get four weeks off, 12 sick days and the kids are alright. You can’t complain, it’s too easy a place.”

Karl is confident that jobs will open up soon and he can get back to air-conditioning.

“They just finished building that science center and the Mandel center–someone’s got to work on those,” he said.

Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins did not respond to requests to comment on the layoffs, demotions or any other aspect of facilities at Brandeis.

Working in facilities does have its dangers. Karl has been out on workmen’s 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.

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 Admissions 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.

tIME IN THE GYM: Students work out in the weight room, located in the Gosman Gym.
PHOTO BY Nafiz Ahmed/The Hoot

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 can really add up if you make this a new practice in your daily routine. Walking 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 counter-intuitive, 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 regulate body temperature in this scary heat wave, alleviate constipation from Sherman food and flush toxins from our bodies. To calculate how much water you should drink per day, divide your weight in pounds in two and that value is the amount in ounces of water that your body demands per day. Not only is it essential for our health, but it is the new campus trend. My blue re-useable camelback with frog stickers keeps me hydrated, green and in-style as I fill up at the many water fountains or sinks around campus. Access to drinkable water on campus is abundant and free, and water bottles are given out at many campus events (like this past club fair) so drinking water can be a change to your daily life that is easy and beneficial.

Basically, all I have told you this article is to drink water and walk, but hopefully you now see how these two activities can be easily incorporated into your social lives and have great impact over your health. Stay tuned next week for more health tips and please send an e-mail to gkatz10@brandeis.edu if you have any health related questions or interests that you want featured in the column.

GRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

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-year-old high school graduate with very 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 pre-college 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 mid-January!

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 swatting 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 remember 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 interactions 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.

GRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

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.

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 atmosphere. 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 cheaper (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.

Dinner in Sherman.
Everything looks delicious.
Oh wait. It isn’t.

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.

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.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

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 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 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.

 

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.”

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 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 closed on Saturdays. Believe it or not, 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 fictitious 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.

 

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 Louisiana was beaten so badly that he 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 finding 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.

 

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–refraining 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 under-appreciated. 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.

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, fear-mongering 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.

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.

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.

Spike: Women’s volleyball dominates in their season opener, winning 3-1 against Babson.
PHOTO BY Alan Tran/The Hoot

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 (0-1) 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 team-high 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.

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.

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 deficit 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.”

ROSE: Artists cancelled their exhibits this summer, afraid that Brandeis will sell their art.
PHOTO Max Shay/The Hoot

Eric Fischl, April Gornik and Bill Viola’s works were originally set to be shown in September as part of the exhibit titled “Atmospheric Conditions.” While the state of the museum’s collection has been dubious since January 2009 when the board of trustees announced its intentions to sell art as a means of offsetting the university’s budget crisis, Gornik said in an interview with The Hoot that the artists had been under the impression that the university had since “legally committed to keeping the collection intact.”

“It is a result of my own ignorance of the status of the museum that we agreed to the exhibit,” Gornik said, adding that she had stipulated from the beginning that she would not show her art unless the Rose collection was not for sale. “When it gradually came to light that this is not a resolved issue, pulling out was a no-brainer.”

Before canceling, Gornik, Fischl and Viola asked the university for a legally binding agreement not to sell the art, which the university would not provide.

Currently, the university is being sued by three donors to the museum seeking a court order that the university not sell art. While the university announced this May that it had tabled the idea of selling the art and was looking toward “no-sale” options such as renting, the suit is in the discovery stage, and the university has made no legal agreement to not sell the art, Brandeis Senior Vice President of Communications Andrew Gully wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot.

“At one point [the university] sent us a positive sounding quote about The Rose that was printed in The Boston Globe,” Gornik said, “but if the university is sincere, it shouldn’t mind signing a contract.”

Of the artists consequential decision, Gully wrote “we were disappointed that the artists changed their minds and declined to show at the Rose. We thought their works would add a lot to the museum, our students, the entire Brandeis community, and the wider art community.”

Following “Atmospheric Conditions’’ cancelation, a solo exhibit by James Rosenquist was scheduled to replace it. After a fire at Rosenquist’s studio, however, he was forced to cancel his exhibit as well.

“[The fire] completely destroyed his house, office and studio. This backlash includes tax consequences, rebuilding headaches and multiple issues he continues to endure, making it difficult to show anywhere at this time,” Rosenquist’s spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot. “It has nothing to do with the Rose Museum’s internal affairs.”

This fall, the Rose Art Museum will show yet another exhibit from its permanent collection entitled “Water Ways,” which will feature works that utilize water as form, muse, metaphor and inspiration. “Water Ways” has been planned since May, and was originally set to show in one of the side galleries while “Atmospheric Conditions” was the main exhibit. It is currently unclear whether “Water Ways” will be expanded into the main galleries due to the changes.

Gornik said she, Fischl and Viola would “love” to show their exhibit at the museum in the future, but only once the legal battle is resolved.

“When Rosenquist agreed to do that exhibit, he said it was important to show support for the museum,” she said, “but the university is making it hard to do so.”

“The Liberal Arts Posse Program is coming back to the Brandeis campus, reuniting with its fellow program, the ongoing Science Posse Program,” Reinharz wrote. “This welcome return is due to the generosity of several donors who have stepped forward to reinstate this valuable program, which enriches campus life.”

The Posse program, as part of the nationwide Posse Foundation, “identifie[s], recruit[s] and train[s] public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential to become Posse Scholars.” These students, drawn from inner-city schools, are accepted to participating universities, like Brandeis, together in a “posse” after exhibiting “leadership, teamwork and communication skills,” according to Reinharz.

The liberal arts division of the program did not accept new students for the class of 2013 last fall because of budgetary constraints, and three arts posses are thus on campus now. The science posse has recurred without interruption since 2008, while the liberal arts classes have been on campus since 1998.

“I am thrilled and excited to have this posse reinstated,” the Dean of Academic Serivces Kim Godsoe said.

As donors and sponsors fund the program, funds were needed to restore the program after a gap year.

“The real credit goes to President Reinharz for bringing this program back to Brandeis,” Godsoe, who personally oversees the program as Posse Liaison, said. In raising the money and will to be able to educate another group, “he was instrumental.”

As a merit-based scholarship, joining the group of 10 students is “very difficult, a huge honor, and there is a very competitive pool before one can be named a posse scholar,” Godsoe said.

She offered the statistics from a recent New York City group as an example, where about 3,500 scholars were nominated and 10 each were selected by a small number of participating schools. “These excellent students were chosen this fall, and for 2011 will be back on campus,” Godsoe said.

The new group will be from Atlanta, a new development in the program beyond New York that will be a step in the university effort to “expand its reputation” in the South, according to Reinharz’s e-mail, acknowledging the university’s comparatively less well known name in parts of the region.

While the science program strongly encourages its students to take up science at Brandeis University and attend a “science boot camp,” the liberal arts group may take anything and often include students taking sciences as well.

“As liaison, I serve as the representative between Posse and Brandeis,” Godsoe said. “Posse scholars really are leaders. The program highlights excellent students, and I believe it ties to the social justice mission at Brandeis: any excelling student can attend.”

PRESIDENTIAL PICK: Lawrence will serve as the next president.
PHOTO by Max Shay/The Hoot

The pick of Lawrence as president is the culmination of the seven-month long process which followed Reinharz’s resignation from the post last October. Lawrence will start as President Jan. 1, but will frequent the campus during the fall semester in order to become acquainted with the university and learn from Reinharz before his departure.

Lawrence, who has been dean of GW’s Law School since 2005, said in an interview with The Hoot that he did not apply for the position but was actually approached by the search committee just a few months ago.

Though this is not the first time Lawrence has been contacted by an undergraduate presidential search committee, Lawrence said he was attracted to Brandeis because it is a “research college” and “of course the social justice mission speaks to me personally and to my professional career.”

Indeed, Lawrence’s resume seems well-suited for a school that prides itself on a commitment to social justice.

Lawrence currently serves on the board of the Anti-Defamation League, and is the author of “Punishing Hate: Bias Crimes Under American Law.” Additionally, earlier in his career Lawrence was named an assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York where he became chief of the Civil Rights Unit. Lawrence also taught civil rights law at Boston University School of Law from 1988 through 1996 when he became the school’s associate dean for academic affairs.

Brandeis Chairman of the board of trustees Malcolm Sherman told The Hoot that Lawrence was recommended to the committee, which was impressed with Lawrence’s resume. Sherman did not remember who recommended Lawrence to the committee, saying that most people the committee considered were recommended and did not apply, but the search firm Storbeck/Pimentel did assist in the search process.

Former President of the Student Union Andy Hogan ’11, who was a non-voting member on the search committee, said Lawrence was “impressive first on paper and then in person.

“We were impressed with his work in relation to Brandeis’ social justice mission and then, when you meet him, he’s also an extremely nice guy in general,” Hogan said.

Hogan served as the student voice on the committee and attended meetings via conference call after school was out for the summer. Hogan also said he was flown into Brandeis from his home in San Diego, California when necessary in order to assure a student voice in the process.

Though Lawrence’s administrative experience lies solely in graduate school, he is confident he will be able to adapt to the undergraduate structure.

“The specifics are different. For example, at GW Law we didn’t have a large residence life program,” he said. “But the bigger picture of being a leader and what your leading style is doesn’t change.”

Lawrence said he would apply this leadership style to any conflict he encounters at Brandeis, including academic and budget cuts, the likes of which the university experienced just this spring.

“In any situation you have to understand all the sides of an issue and communicate. You can’t solve all problems with communication, but you can solve a lot of problems,” he said. “You won’t get everyone to agree with you, but they need to understand where you are coming from.”

One such conflict Lawrence may encounter while at Brandeis is that of The Rose Art Museum. Though the university announced in late May that it had tabled discussions of art sale and will instead concentrate on “non-sale options,” the lawsuit filed against the university is set to be tried this December.

When asked how he valued arts in education, Lawrence replied, “I am an amateur singer, the arts is part of my life and has been part of my education,” adding that his daughter has a Master’s of Fine Arts from University of Michigan.

Lawrence has no connection to the university and told The Hoot that he has not visited the university at all during the selection process. He did say, however, that he has long been a friend of the outgoing Reinharz and that while he was a professor at Boston University School of Law, he participated in a mock trial with Reinharz. At the trial, which took place around the Jewish holiday of Purim, Lawrence prosecuted Haman–who, according to Jewish teachings attempted to kill the Jews of Persia in 423 B.C.E.–while Reinharz played the role of Mordechai.

Malcolm Sherman, Chairman of the Brandeis Board of Trustees said Lawrence’s Judaism was “a consideration” at a school that self-identifies as a sectarian university with Jewish roots but “it was not an absolute necessity.

“Certainly [Lawrence’s religion] made him attractive to the Committee and we are happy that he is Jewish, but that was not the only factor,” Sherman said.

More important to the committee was Lawrence’s resume of social justice which, Sherman said, “at Brandeis is not just a cliche but something the university deeply believes in as a core value.”

As a lawyer, Lawrence said he has always admired Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the university’s namesake, even before he was considered for the position.

Indeed, in a more than nine-minute long interview on a YouTube talk show from last year, Lawrence quotes Justice Brandeis within the first two minutes.

“Not only did [Brandeis] have a commitment to social change, but he also had a wonderful career on the Supreme Court,” he said. “His rulings are still fresh. His thoughts on free speech, big business, all of that still speaks to us today.”

Referring to July’s confirmation hearings of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who would fill Justice Brandeis’ seat on the supreme court if confirmed, Lawrence said, “I guess there’s just a lot of Brandeis in the air right now.”

 

“Jehuda had a good number of syllables to it,” Massachi said, referring to the university’s current president, Jehuda Reinharz, “We have a few things to figure out with the new guy.”

The pick of Lawrence as president by the university’s board of trustees is the culmination of the seven-month long process which followed Reinharz’s resignation from the post last October. Lawrence will assume the post on Jan. 1, and until then, students are left to do little but wonder how his appointment might change things at the university, and, of course, give Lawrence a nickname.

“We don’t know anything about him yet but what the university has told us,” Leah Hartman ’12 said. “I want to do research on him and what sort of work he has done in the past, but it’s difficult to judge until you actually see him as president.”

Amanda Hoffman ’11 agreed, adding she did not know much about how much power a university president has, and therefore was “apathetic to the appointment.”

“I feel like having an opinion requires expertise on both how Brandeis works and about [Lawrence] that I don’t have, so I just have to wait and see,” she said.

Jon Sussman ’11 also said he knew little about Lawrence. “I don’t know what to think about him because I have never heard his name before now,” he said.

“His bio seems like a good fit,” he added, referencing Lawrence’s career as an expert on civil rights law. “I’m hoping he will find ways to be proactive and reach out to students and set a different tone of transparency, but we won’t know until he gets here.”

As former president of the Brandeis student union, Andy Hogan ’11 was the sole student on the presidential search committee this spring, which ultimately chose Lawrence. Hogan was the first Brandeis student to meet Lawrence, and said he believes Lawrence will live up to students’ expectations.

“Fred is impressive first on paper and then in person,” he said. “We were impressed with his work in relation to Brandeis’ social justice mission and then, when you meet him, he’s also an extremely nice guy in general.”

 

In the survey, 800 students checked that they would like the incoming President to have an “academic background.” Heddy Ben-Atar ’11, of the committee, wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot that Lawrence, as Dean of the George Washington University Law School, fits this characteristic.

“Together, the student voice was heard–our voice made the difference,” she wrote.

But Massachi, who was upset about what he called the “secretive presidential selection process”–which only included one student as a non-voting member of the presidential search committee–hopes Lawrence’s open personality translates into open policy as well.

“This university always throws around the words ‘social justice’ without discussing what it really means, but [Lawrence’s] past in social justice gives me hope that we can actually apply that term to the university itself,” he said. “I hope that he takes this great opportunity to rally the Brandeis community together, not just the faculty and staff, but the whole community.”

“He’s still an unknown quantity, so he’s going to have to try a lot of things to include everyone,” Massachi said. And, trying something himself, he added “Hopefully Prez Fred can figure it out.”

PHOTO by Max Shay/The Hoot

The new Mandel Center for the Humanities building was completed during the university’s summer break, while the renovation of the former science center space is progressing.

“The [Mandel Center] was completed on schedule this summer, and [the university has] received permission from the City of Waltham to occupy the new building,” according to a joint e-mail from Vice President for Capital Projects Dan Feldman and Mark Collins, in his new expanded role as senior vice president for administration. “Move-in took place in the third week of August, as planned,” they wrote.

The project was a fully-recognized gift to the university, principally by Mort and Barbara Mandel, and the related Mandel Foundation. Other gifted funds allowed for the relocation of the Schusterman Foundation for Israel Studies, which will now have a new home in the center. The humanities building will house classes this semester.

“Classes are scheduled to be held this semester in the four new classrooms,” Feldman and Collins wrote.

The dedication ceremony for the new Mandel Center for the Humanities will be held Oct. 26.

Construction to use the remaining space from where science buildings Friedland and Kalman stood has also progressed throughout the summer and is nearing completion.

“The final element of Phase 1 of the Science Complex Renewal Project includes creating a temporary landscape and hardscape on the site where Friedland and Kalman used to stand,” they wrote in the e-mail. “The concepts considered for this included using part of the space for planted areas and/or using part for outdoor recreation—volleyball courts.”

As was previously reported in The Hoot, a poll was taken on an administration website for whether students would like the space to house either planted gardens, the sand volleyball courts or both.

“The poll made clear that there was strong support for green space … and while there was considerable support for volleyball, too, we also needed to take into account other important requirements and needs articulated by the community,” Feldman and Collins wrote.

These other needs include parking and other mobility concerns that the administration will address with the space. A lack of parking for visitors to the entire science complex, specifically, will need to be dealt with.

“There was a significant shortage of handicap parking and parking for people who may be having a difficult time walking more than a short distance,” Feldman and Collins wrote. “[We will] include an attractive entrance garden adjacent to the stairs, handicap and ‘close-access’ parking, as well as parking reserved for science visitors. Each of these two areas will be clearly marked, and each is framed by additional planted areas.”

The project’s guidelines remain the same as previous updates have noted, including balancing the ad-hoc student vote and the university’s interest in an attractive and conducive campus, but alongside these new realities in terms of money and space.

“The plan for the space in question balances these needs and desires,” the administrators wrote.

Renovation of the Charles River Residence was completed on schedule, however living and dining room furniture was not delivered to the dorms until Tuesday, five days after early arrival students moved in last Friday.

A Rose is a Rose: Art from the Rose Art Museum may be safe from sale for now as the university considers non-sale options like renting or lending the art out to other organizations.
PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

While members of the university administration said they did not know what these “non-sale” agreements would look like, university President Jehuda Reinharz said “some sort of leasing the art or lending it for compensation is not off the table.”

Reinharz added that while actual sale of the art has “not been taken off the table,” discussions about selling The Rose’s art have been tabled until all non-sale options have been considered.

“This is not a sale by another name,” Reinharz said. “This is our art and we are not selling our art.”

Reinharz said the idea of a non-sale option has been under consideration since the board of trustees voted in January 2009 to authorize the “sale or other disposition of works from the university’s [art] collection” in order to alleviate what is now an annual $25 million budget shortfall.

Though the university has been considering this option for over a year and while there is no current concrete plan, Reinharz said the university chose to make its announcement now because “we are comfortable with Sotheby’s and believe they can find some value.”

“The deal could be anything,” Reinharz said. “We do not have a deal at this point so I cannot tell you how long it will be for, what it is, what the value is that we would get out of it. But we are at the point where we think it is realistic that a deal can be made.”

Reinharz said that a portion of potential revenue from the lending agreement would go to “directly benefit The Rose” but that revenue would also be used for the university as a whole.

The question of who receives revenue from potential art deals hits a question at the heart of the current lawsuit filed against the university by three donors to the museum, who hope to stop the sale of the museum’s art.

In motions pertaining to the suit, which will go to trial Dec. 12 and 13, the university has argued that the museum is part of the university and that any profit to come from its art would also benefit the university at large. The plaintiffs have argued that the museum’s board of overseers alone can make decisions about the art and that because the museum has its own endowment, any profits that result from art deals would have to be put back into the museum.

The Hoot was given advanced information pertaining to the board’s new strategy regarding The Rose Wednesday under the condition that the newspaper not release the information until midnight of Friday night, and that it only contact certain members of the Brandeis community. Therefore, The Hoot could not contact any plaintiffs in the suit for comment.

Persons affiliated with The Rose were informed of this change in strategy Thursday.

In a broad interview about museum lending practices, Senior Manager of Media Relations for the American Association of Museums Dewey Blanton said that while most museums lend art to other institutions relatively free of charge, “lending for compensation is not unheard of.”

In fact, collection-sharing arrangements have been practiced by a variety of other museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Louvre and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Dewey said that museums usually lend their pieces for only the charge of shipping and insurance of the pieces, but that in tough economic times lending for compensation “can be a win-win situation for the lender, who gets money, and the borrower, who gets access to new art.”

“It’s not common, but when museums ask for compensation it’s usually a sign of the economic reality rearing it’s ugly head,” he said.

CHESS MASTER: Sam Shankland '14 comes to Brandeis after taking a year off to play chess professionally. A California native, Shankland won 21 chess tournaments in a row in 2007 and 2008, something he described as "the single best year any American ever had."
PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

After traveling the world as a teenager to compete in chess tournaments, Shankland is looking forward to living a normal college life.

Following high school, Shankland spent a year as a chess professional, competing in tournaments, giving lessons and writing about chess, all of which enabled him to earn a living and manage his own finances.

“I’ve just been at Brandeis for a few days now, and I can already tell it’s going to be a better life,” Shankland said.

As an 11-year-old, Shankland says he entered the competitive chess world far later than most other players. According to Shankland, nearly all of the best players in the world have been playing chess since age three or four.

A native of California, Shankland, who is an international master, tied for fourth place in the K-6th grade state championship, but quickly claimed prestigious victories, including the U.S. Junior Championships. He says his biggest accomplishment was tying for first place in the under-18 world championship in Vietnam in October 2008.

Shankland attributes his unprecedented improvement to what he believes is “the sharpest rating curve in American [chess] history, meaning I learned the fastest, I improved the fastest, I think of any American of all time.”

While most players improve their FIDE (World Chess Federation) rating by about 60-70 points aperyear, according to Shankland, he did that in just one month.

Although Shankland admitted he does not know for certain how his improvement compares to all other players, he said it was a quicker improvement rate than many of the best in history, including Bobby Fisher.

Shankland described a streak of 21 tournaments from August 2007 to October 2008 as “the single best year any American ever had.”

As part of that learning curve, Shankland has learned how to deal with losing in a much different manner than most other players.

“If you lost, there is a legitimate reason you lost,” Shankland said.

“I learned quickly how to analyze my own losses and try to correct my mistakes rather than sort of being in denial.”

But beyond the glory of being a chess champion, Shankland said that there is much of his old lifestyle that he will not miss. After the under-18 world championships in Vietnam, a tournament in which Shankland lost eight pounds due to the stress of competition and 12 hours of chess every day, he says that he thought about retiring.

“I worked myself way too hard. But I mean, OK there’s still nothing compared to the feeling of success I had at the end.”

After two months of spending no time on chess senior year of high school, Shankland decided to take a year off from school to play chess professionally.

In addition to playing and studying chess on the computer, a typical week for Shankland during his gap year included 20 hours of teaching per week and daily physical workouts to stay in shape.

At the highest levels, however, “at some point it’s very hard to figure out how to improve your game,” Shankland said, explaining that the improvements after you become a “98 percent perfect player” are so small, that any mistake can ruin a game.

Shankland explained the “politics” of chess have bothered him during his career. He is not a grandmaster because of “technicalities” he called “ludicrous.”

“I’m definitely glad I’ve gone as far as I have. I’m not sure I would do it again,” he said.

In order to become a grandmaster, a player must earn a rating of 2500 and three “norms.”

Shankland’s rating is currently 2513 and he has four norms, but one of his norms was not accepted by FIDE because an opponent he played, who recently defected from Cuba, was rejected by Cuba’s federation and also not considered an American. As a result, his game against her was not counted and he did not receive the norm. Another norm was not counted due to technicalities in a “semi-acceptable way,” he said.

After his appeal letter was rejected by FIDE, Shankland said that considering those politics, he was “getting increasingly sick of being discriminated against for being an American, for being male.”

“It was just driving me nuts, and I wasn’t very happy.”

Although Shankland said he “may come back to chess some day,” this year he will play in the U.S. Chess League as the top player on the New England Team.

As he finishes his first week here at Brandeis, Shankland said that he values the broadening experiences chess has taught him.

“Chess has also sort of made me learn to fight adversity a little bit better.” As a child and even during the beginning of high school, Shankland said he was “ruthlessly made fun of.”

“It definitely taught me to keep on fighting even if other people are making fun of you or whatever. Just believe in myself.”

Given all his accomplishments, Shankland admitted “I have a lot to learn about modesty. I’m not as modest as I’d like to be. It’s one of my big problems in life I guess or one of the problems with my character.”

He explained that it is hard not to tell people about his career if chess comes up in a conversation.

The world of competitive chess and college life may not have much in common but that doesn’t seem to bother Shankland.

He hopes that people will realize chess players are “just completely normal people who happen to be really good at this game.”

“Certainly [Lawrence’s religion] made him attractive to the committee and we are happy that he is Jewish,” Sherman said.

It is no surprise to any member of the Brandeis community that religion played a part in the board’s choice of a new president. Since it’s inception in 1948, Brandeis has been in an identity crisis, struggling to realize itself as a secular university with Jewish roots.

While this editorial board recognizes that religion was not the only factor in choosing Lawrence, we have to question whether religion should be a factor at all.

The most prolific and reasonable argument for having a Jewish president is to aid in fundraising for the university. We are in tough economic times and, we have been told on countless occasions, that many donors donate to Brandeis precisely because of the university’s Jewish roots, and that a Jewish president can more aptly connect with donors and solicit gifts.

But a presidential pick should be chosen for his or her resume, personality, ability to connect with students and commitment to social justice. We are confident that any candidate who lives up to Brandeis’ standards in these areas would be a good fit, regardless of religion.

Brandeis’ Jewish roots are not something we would change. We embrace our history. But Brandeis was also founded on pluralism. Requiring the Brandeis President to be Jewish because our university was founded on Jewish values would be akin to requiring the American president to be Protestant because our nation was founded in the Protestant work-ethic.

Just as John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, was able to lead the nation, we are confident that any non-Jewish president could lead the university and connect with donors, even if they happen to be Jewish.

We have nothing against the choice of Lawrence as president, and we look forward to seeing what he can bring to campus. We do, however, object to having a candidate’s faith be subject to scrutiny.

When it comes to picking a president, celebrating Rosh Hashannah shouldn’t be required on the resume.

The novel’s main character, Richard Rossi, specializes in hearing other people’s problems. As a human resources representative at Connectrix, a quirky software company that capitalizes on the fact that no one is quite sure what it does, he listens to his co-workers’ petty dramas. When he isn’t at work, he’s exercising at an exclusive gym where he listens avidly to his trainer talk about his soap operatic love affair. Richard is able to provide a sympathetic ear because these people are on his periphery, what he terms as “insignificant others.” Yet, when he confuses the personal with the professional at his job and his affair with a married man complicates his long-term relationship, Richard must, for once, take a closer look at his own problems and decide what matters most to him

McCauley is the author of several novels, his last effort, “Alternatives to Sex,” was published in 2004 and received positive reviews.

McCauley answered several questions for The Brandeis Hoot via email.

The Brandeis Hoot How do you balance the roles of being a Brandeis professor and a writer? Is it difficult to find time to write? How does teaching affect your writing and vice versa?

Stephen McCauley: I’m not especially adept at multi-tasking, so I have to divide my time carefully. Last fall, I had a large writing project to finish and was teaching two classes and working with three thesis students. I devoted four days each week to teaching. At the end of the fourth day, I’d lock my school papers in the trunk of my car. I spent the next three days writing. At the end of the third day, I’d lock my laptop and notebooks in the trunk of my car. And so on. The system doesn’t leave much time for a social life. Probably a good thing in my case since I have social anxiety.

BH: How would you describe your writing process?

SM: I write everything in notebooks, usually illegibly. When I transfer it to the computer, I rarely look closely at what I’ve written. Most of it I can’t read anyway. Then I go through many drafts in the computer. I try to make the prose sound as conversational as possible, which turns out to take a long time. Also, when you write in a mode that’s intended to be comic, the timing of the sentences is important, and choosing the right words is sometimes a process of elimination.

BH: Your books have short, titled chapters—does that reflect your writing process? Do you write in chronological order, or skip around?

SM: I like to digress in my novels—give background information on the characters’ lives or comment on their behavior or some political trend. I began breaking up scenes into short sections so the digressions would have their own life and equal weight rather than coming off as parenthetical interruptions. At the same time, it’s important to me that the novel appear as a running narrative and rather than having numbered chapters.

I break up the book into sections late in the process, not while I’m writing the first few drafts. Usually I write chronologically, but in the most recent novel I did so much rewriting, I probably ended up skipping around a lot.

BH: “Insignificant Others” and a few of your other works take place in the Boston or Cambridge area. What is it about that area that inspires you? How do you think it influences your stories?

SM: Boston’s a city full of contradictions—politically liberal, but socially and culturally conservative; filled with students from all over the world, yet very traditional. There’s always a lot of conflict and comedy to be found in contradictory attitudes and behavior.

BH: Why does the book take place during the Bush administration? What is it about that time period that interests you?

SM: I wanted to set the book at that moment in the second Bush term when people were still doing well but had a sense that

At only 24-years-old, Monae is a relative newcomer, but she’s already built up an impressive resumé. She delivered blazing performances on two songs from OutKast’s 2006 effort “Idlewild,” and her 2007 EP “Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase)” garnered strong reviews and a Grammy nomination for the single “Many Moons.” “The ArchAndroid” picks up where “Metropolis” left off, providing the next two installments of a four-suite series telling the story of a messianic robot in a dystopian future society.

What makes “The ArchAndroid” particularly effective is the marriage of consistent sci-fi sounds and themes with a broad stylistic range. The album moves from lush dream pop (“Sir Greendown”) to wailing soul (“Oh, Maker”), from goofy bubblegum (“Wondaland”) to psychedelic space rock (“57821”). Monae has one of the most dynamic voices I’ve ever heard; she’s comfortable with pulsating alto rap, throaty vocal attacks, or beautiful balladeering. The eight-minute long “BabopbyeYa” begins with an Ella Fitzgerald-esque jazz crooning section, one of the highlights of the album.

Monae also brings some friends into the studio, yielding several successful collaborations. Big Boi, one of the best MCs in the business, joins her on the lead-off single “Tightrope” to deliver a thumping rap amidst an energetic funk song. “Make the Bus” is effectively an of Montreal song; the band performs on it, and Kevin Barnes wrote it and takes lead vocals. It bears all the hallmarks of recent of Montreal releases—electronic, danceable, androgynous vocals, and catchy if you can get over Barnes’ tendency towards overcomplexity.

“The ArchAndroid” isn’t a perfect album, and considering its length and ambition and Monae’s inexperience, there are several predictable clunkers. “Neon Gumbo” is a sound collage featuring backtracked vocals that would’ve sounded dated in the ’70s, and “Say You’ll Go,” the second-longest song on the album, never really does anything interesting. The fact remains, however, that Janelle Monae is the most exciting and visionary talent to emerge in quite a while, and “The ArchAndroid” has got to be the front-runner for the best album of the year. Monae is bringing her live show to Boston on Sept. 16, opening up for of Montreal at the House of Blues. Go see her now, because I’m sure this is the last chance you’ll get to see her as anything other than a headliner.

This experience has come particularly early for me. At 20, I’m one of about two dozen cousins between the ages of 18 and 30. At family events, like weddings, we would all sit at what we would call the cousins’ table. It was a fun time to bond, it made the wedding into the celebration it’s supposed to be rather than the excruciatingly awkward thing I recently attended.

My closest cousin got married in April. I was one of her bridesmaids, and everything was lovely untill the reception started and I found my seat. What used to be the cousins table no longer existed. Everyone had gotten married or entered a serious relationship and now there were several family tables with everyone paired off. I was alone at a full table that felt very empty.

I looked around at all the good-looking guys in there 20s in their various expensive suits sitting around the table and had a small panic attack at the realization that I was on my own miniature version of “The Bachelorette,” except all the guys were wearing yarmulkes. Thankfully the table was coincidentally placed directly next to the open bar.

Even my younger cousin had abandoned me for a date. How could this happen? I asked myself.

It felt as if everyone’s eyes were on this table, on me. While the liquid courage station was aiding me through the introductions with every young man at the table and the countless repeating of the same questions from every extended family member, “So how’s Brandeis … have you met any nice boys?” “What’s your major?” I would respond, “Brandeis is great, no I haven’t met anyone and Journalism.”

The shock on everyone’s faces was, to say the least, priceless. While it amused me, it also sent me into a whirlwind of emotions. I know they only ask because they care. They want the best for me, but that doesn’t make me any less angry with them for judging me. My family is very religious and while I love them and wish I could please them, I never have. They’re all under the assumption that I came to Brandeis to, yes, get an education, but firstly meet a nice boy and get married.

So the conversation would end with them saying, “Journalism, that’s tough, are your sure you want to do that? That’s not a good career for a nice girl like you. How are you going to have a family?” This is where I would sip my drink and say, “I’ll take that into consideration,” and then I would ask one of the boys at the table to dance with me. Which would also cause major shock to whoever was trying to inform me of my wrongdoing in choice of life path. Not only do nice girls not dance with boys that they’re not in a relationship with, especially at religious weddings, but they sure as heck don’t ask the boy to dance themselves.

As the evening was dying down, I sat on the stage and one of the nicer boys that had been sitting at the table sat down next to me and said, “Just tell them you have a boy you’re interested in and you’re going to be a writer, that sounds better.” I looked up shocked and said “Why? Why should I do that?” He said, “It’ll just make your life easier.”

I went back to my seat at the table, saw more family as they stood in line at the bar and went through the same old routine with them, refusing to make it easier. Yet, now I realized that yes, this is irritating, and yes, I sometimes wish I had someone that made me and my family happy, life doesn’t always follow a path and when you try to force it too you’re just settling.

My married cousins have all gotten married before 25 and they’re all reasonably happy, so it seems, but I’m not OK with reasonably happy or with doing something just because it’s expected of me. So I take the path less traveled by, so I given a hard time at family occasions. At least I take my path; at least I take control of my life.

GRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

And I was, until six months later when another Ariel made her debut on Nov. 17, this time on the silver screen. Now, with a name like Ariel, I am automatically assumed to be a mermaid.

On any given day, I am likely to be asked if my best friend is a fish, if I date boys named Eric and if I comb my hair with a fork.

You would think my brown hair and lack of fins would be enough for the general population to distinguish between me and the Disney princess, but apparently not.

I was first introduced to the harsh reality of my name at the age of three when, despite my being dressed as Trini, the Yellow Power Ranger, the Green Ranger confused me for Ariel at a birthday party. How he could have seen my red hair, purple shell bra and tail through the full-body suit is beyond me, but it was far from the first incident of its kind.

In third grade, my teacher would confuse me with my best friend because she had long red hair. In sixth grade, my music teacher made me audition for the solo to “Part of Your World” just for kicks even though it was a soprano part and I was an alto. In 12th grade, my science teacher was surprised I opted to take anatomy instead of marine biology, assuming I was infatuated with life “under the sea.”

I often wonder if girls named Jasmine or Mulan share my problem. If upon hearing their names people try to fit them into the two-dimensional images of their respective Disney princesses.

My roommate Madeline is often asked if she read the Madeline books as a child, but she has never been asked if she grew up in an old house in Paris all covered in vines.

I, on the other hand, have been asked if I was named after a mermaid.

It might seem strange, my arch-nemesis being a doe-eyed cartoon character teaching children that a voice is a powerful thing, but this is personal.

The mermaid pronounces our name Aerial, but I am Ariel. That her pronunciation of our name is not phonetic escapes people as they read my name aloud, opting instead to follow the broken record of King Triton playing in their head. Even when I introduce myself and say my name first, they assume I am the mistaken one, as if somehow the Disney imagineers’ choice for one mermaid should apply to us all.

And because Ariel is such a rare name, their decisions do. Often when I meet people, the only Ariel they know is the mermaid, so the association comes easy. It’s like having an older sibling who got to high school first—the teachers expect you to follow in her fin-prints.

The fact is, I love my name. My mom tells me she chose it because it is both strong and beautiful. In hebrew, it means “lioness of God”—a far-cry from the shell-bra-wearing, love-sick adolescent the film portrays.

Had my mother known of the soon-to-come association, she might have chosen to name me something more generic and less risky, like Sarah or Allison.

Then again, it could be worse. At least she didn’t name me Ursula.

Shakespeare on the Common starred Assistant Professor of Theater Arts Adrianne Krstanky as Emilia and alumna Marianna Bassham ’02 as Desdemona. Krstanksy described how “Othello” allowed a diverse range of people to come into contact with Boston’s thriving theater culture in an interview with The Hoot.

“Audience members would talk back to characters onstage, we were acting with helicopters flying overhead, sirens in the background, etc … people could eat, drink, get up, walk around, talk during the performance,” she said. “I think the event is alive in a theatrical sense and getting people to see theater who never do so otherwise.”

In recent years, the size and variety of Boston theater productions has grown and the theater culture has developed a character that is unique to the city. Krstansky explained, “The Boston theater scene is in the midst of a huge expansion and on the cusp of coming into its own identity. For years iftfeels as if Boston considered itself in second place to New York City, but what is happening now is more and more smaller and midsize companies are not only achieving a higher profile in the community but really honing in on their own place in Boston.”

One of these budding production companies, CoLab Theatre, was set up by Brandeis alumni Kenny Fuentes ’08 and Erika Geller ’09 and Boston local Mary-Liz Murray during the summer of 2009. CoLab joined the ranks of Boston’s numerous small theater companies that were also founded in recent past years such as Holland Productions and 11:11. Brandeis alumna Sierra Kagen ’09 starred in CoLab’s first show “Play” which premiered Tuesday night. “I’m just beginning to scratch the surface of this subgroup, and I’m finding a vivaciousness and passion for the art that can only be described as refreshing” Kagen said.

CoLab’s motto is “We focus on the how, not the what. The process, not the product.” Fuentes, the Founding Artistic Director explained that he wanted to start an “actor-centric” company, one where the “director should inspire creativity instead of impose vision.”

“Play” featured experimental plays including “Growing up,” an ensemble piece in which the actors were involved with the scriptwriting and directing of the play. Kagen starred in “Growing up” directed by Geller and the more traditional “The Real Family” directed by Fuentes. “Kenny has done a great job of working with us and guiding rather than dictating where the piece needed to go. But in the end, when we perform our scenes, it still feels like someone else’s work. It’s still the author’s play, and the men and women merely players. Erika’s piece is so much our own, that it’s hard to feel any real sense of ownership in the scenes.”

The Brandeis community has established a reputation for itself in the Boston theater scene. Both Krstansky and Fuentes believe that it is a positive one. “We’re creative, extremely agreeable to experiments and on board to put in work and believe in what we’re doing.”

GRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

But if the world might benefit from such a demonstration, the reputations of Brandeis and other major universities would be badly harmed. By establishing a link between cash payments and students’ letter grades, Ultrinsic and its competitors threaten to create both real impropriety and an appearance of it that are beneath the dignity of higher education.

Ultrinsic, which markets its services through the website ultrinsic.com, provides undergraduates with ways to bet money on the grades they’ll receive. A student must first register with the company, providing Ultrinsic with information about his or her academic history and current class schedule. That gives Ultrinsic the data it uses to calculate the odds of a student achieving a particular grade or set of grades.

Students then choose one of two ways in which to risk their money. One possibility is Ultrinsic’s “Rewards” program. Students may bet on either a course grade or a semester grade.

A gambler who makes the grades wins a sum specified at the time of the wager. Ultrinsic makes money when students don’t make the grades they bet on. Wager options available through the “Rewards” program are characterized as “incentives.”

For less motivated, less capable or incredibly foolhardy students, Ultrinsic offers “Grade Insurance.” Purchasers bet that they will get a poor grade or set of grades. Ultrinsic pays a specified sum if the insured’s grades are bad enough; it makes money if the insured scores well.

Ultrinsic began operations last year at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. This year, it plans to operate at 34 new schools, including Brandeis.

The institutions at which the company will market its services include most of the best schools in the country. That’s by design.

Ultrinsic relies on these schools’ statistically confirmed reputation for maintaining a meaningful distribution of grades. They aren’t schools where everybody gets an A.

Students at Ultrinsic’s target schools are used to competing for high grades and running the risk of failure. This competition, which doesn’t exist at all American colleges, gives Ultrinsic’s bookmakers something to work with.

Legal issues surrounding Ultrinsic’s activities have the potential to seriously limit the scope of its business. With respect to both gambling and the sale of insurance, what’s legal varies from state to state. Ultrinsic will likely be challenged by state attorneys general and gaming or insurance regulators.

But for Brandeis and other schools, what matters is not whether Ultrinsic is legal, but whether it is a desirable thing to have on campus. It isn’t.

The company’s effort to portray itself as a purveyor of “incentives” and “motivation” for undergraduates is self-serving and misleading. If that were Ultrinsic’s aim, it would not offer “grade insurance,” which rewards failure.

Moreover, if financial incentives encourage better student performance, then the massive burden of paying for college, whether borne by a student or imposed on his or her family, would surely count for much more than a bet in the tens or hundreds of dollars of the sort that Ultrinsic contemplates. The same could be said of the weak job market, or the trend toward outsourcing the white-collar jobs that graduates covet to low-wage American contractors and foreigners.

But even if Ultrinsic motivates some students to do better, it is incompatible with the maintenance of high academic standards at schools like Brandeis.

Unlike students’ existing financial inducements to hard work, with Ultrinsic, the specific grade awarded to a student determines whether money changes hands. A school’s whole system for evaluating student work will then be compromised by the appearance of impropriety.

Students at prestigious schools may often disagree with an awarded grade, but they generally have no basis on which to conclude that grades were awarded unfairly. Ultrinsic will change that.

Few professors or teaching assistants will stoop to the level of accepting students’ kickbacks for grades that will ensure a payout from Ultrinsic. But Ultrinsic places more leverage in the hands of bribe-givers, creating a greater opportunity for wrongdoing.

The appearance of impropriety thus created will be compounded immeasurably if even one venal student bettor pays an impecunious grader and receives a mark unfairly.

If just one grade is revealed to have been sold in this way, a school’s whole grading system will be compromised. The ones who get caught will seem to be just that—merely the ones who got caught, the tip of the iceberg. Ultrinsic’s money increases the likelihood of such a scandal.

Brandeis and its peers shouldn’t allow Ultrinsic to jeopardize their reputations. Grade-gambling companies’ books are perhaps the only kind that shouldn’t be welcome at a university.

For it was one summer ago that I was scrambling to move everything into my room, pick up my WhoCard, and figure out exactly what I was doing. During my first night at Brandeis, I discovered exactly how difficult it was to accommodate two separate sleep schedules in the same room and just how valuable air conditioning was. From there, I found myself engulfed in a whirlwind of cookouts and icebreakers as I slowly accustomed myself to college life. Yet I had my share of problems.

At first, I was trying to meet anyone and everyone–trying to figure out where my friends were in the crowd. The main fault I found with orientation was that, with the deluge of icebreakers, one would meet someone one night, and then they would be gone once the event was over. For example, at an ice cream social, I hung out with a group of people and by the time I had learned their names, the social was over, and I would never see them again.

Perhaps that was more of my fault than anything else, but either way, my first few days at Brandeis were fraught with fear and self-doubt. Fortunately, however, my floor was a collection of the friendliest people I have ever met. I found that by simply leaving my door open, I had made a number of friends who lived only a few feet from me. My fears of finding myself isolated in my new surroundings slowly subsided.

If I could only give one piece of advice to the incoming first-years, it would be to leave your door open both literally and figuratively. Make no mistake, your friends are here. It is just a matter of finding them. Openness is the best possible strategy.

Meanwhile, I signed up for about ten clubs. I had no comprehension of the disastrous time commitments I was getting into nor did I realize that I would only stay with half of the clubs I joined. My overpowering urge to get involved in activities at Brandeis unavailible to me in high school spurred me to indulge my every interest.

Within a few weeks of the activities fair, I would shed half of these, and I have continued pruning ever since due to the strenuous input required for each club. I slowly realized that there was always something going on at college and that artificially filling up the hours was not only unnecessary but eventually harmful.

Nonetheless, the clubs I have participated in have provided me with some of the best times I have had at Brandeis and I would strongly urge any incoming first-year to get involved. Just don’t join eight of them and expect to have any time … ever.

The first day of classes was a wakeup call for everyone. The atmosphere beforehand had been one of a summer camp but it quickly morphed into one closer to school. It was difficult to settle down but the first homework assignments brought everyone back to Earth. For me, however, college still had a somewhat playful atmosphere even after classes had begun and to some extent, it never lost it. It seemed that everyone was managing to have fun even as they were getting their work done.

Nonetheless, the first month was rather hard on me due to the unexpected difficulties of living on your own. These obstacles included stress, homesickness, procrastination and, of course, cleaning duties. Yet I persevered and eventually settled into the insane schedule that would characterize my time at Brandeis.

A typical day included waking up at 8:30 in the morning to go to breakfast with a friend (this also conveniently made sure we were both awake and on time for class), and then going to class for much of the day. After this, I would eat dinner with friends and, if it was a weekday other than Friday, go to a club meeting of some sort. Then, I would sit in my lounge procrastinating for a while or hang out in a friend’s room before starting my homework, usually well after midnight. I would then repeat my schedule the next day and this would take place four days a week. Let’s just say sleep was not a huge priority.

Interestingly enough, although my work habits eventually got better, my sleep habits did not and it would not be unusual to find me awake at three in the morning even when I did not have to be simply out of force of habit. Nevertheless, I was able to settle into a routine (as strange as it was) and the year began to fly by. Before I knew it, it was winter break. Shortly thereafter, or so it seemed, I was saying my goodbyes and heading home for the summer.

Now I find myself back at Brandeis, and it is all so methodical. I arrived and met up with friends for dinner before unpacking and writing this article. There was none of the scrambling, panic or adversity that I had faced a year ago. A new year has begun and yet it feels like a continuation of last year–as if I have only been on a short break and moved to a different locale.

Perhaps the passing of time will dawn on me more heavily in the weeks to come, but for now I reflect back on my first day at Brandeis as if it were yesterday. My only fear now is that I will be walking across the stage in a tasseled cap and gown tomorrow.

Some on the left may say that the cause of this is the “occupation”—that the growing Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria make a Palestinian state impossible to create. However, this reasoning ignores the fact that both at Camp David in 2000 and at Annapolis in 2007, the Israelis offered to end settlement growth past the green line and to give the Arabs upwards of 90 percent of Judea and Samaria and all of Gaza.

Additionally, the Netanyahu government recently issued a settlement moratorium, closed check points and took down road blocks in the territories, illustrating its flexibility on this issue. At the same time, Israel is rightly wary of making additional unilateral concessions that, based on prior disengagements such as the ones in Southern Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, will weaken its security and diplomatic position, dramatically worsen the lives of the settlers and empower its Arab foes.

Instead, the primary obstacles to culminating direct talks lie elsewhere. First, the 1949 armistice lines, or the 1967 borders, are indefensible and leave Israel lacking for strategic depth. Indeed, in some areas, only approximately 10 miles separate the Mediterranean Sea and Judea and Samaria, making Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, among other cities, easy targets for Palestinian rocket fire.

Second, the Palestinians refuse to demilitarize, or to at least agree to measures that can guarantee Israeli security and decrease the potential of militants and extremists to access arms that can be used for offensive purposes.

Third, the Palestinian Authority indoctrinates its citizens with Anti-Zionist, Anti-Semitic propaganda that incites them to violence and terrorism and makes them psychologically unable to peacefully coexist with their Jewish neighbors. This is not to mention Hamas, which takes this despicable behavior to an even further extreme.

Fourth, the Palestinians refuse to grant Israel the legitimacy it seeks by acknowledging its role as the Jewish state. In this sense, they deny thousands of years of history and tradition and the need for Jewish self-determination. Also, this complements their demand for a “right of return,” in which thousands of Palestinian refugees would swarm into Israel and destroy it through demographic means.

Fifth, Israel lacks legitimate partners to negotiate with. Mahmoud Abbas’ term of office expired nearly two years ago, and he lacks a popular mandate. Additionally, while his party, Fatah, rules over Judea and Samaria, Hamas runs Gaza, and ir has turned it into a virtual terrorist state and Tehran proxy on the Mediterranean.

Therefore, Abbas cannot serve as an adequate representative for the Palestinians, and Hamas refuses to negotiate with Israel, does not accept its right to exist and is adamantly opposed to any peace agreement that legitimizes the Jewish state.

Sixth, the Iranian nuclear program, Syria and Hezbollah serve as major distracting concerns for Israel, and they collectively make its leaders very cautious about making land and security concessions to the Palestinians.

And finally, what will the nature of a Palestinian state be? Will it be led by a truly moderate government, as supposedly advertised by Abbas and Salam Fayyad? Or will it, like Gaza, be taken over by terrorists and used as a launching pad for missiles and rockets into Israel? Without the Israeli military presence in Judea and Samaria, will there be enough security forces present to prevent this from happening? These questions are, at the moment, impossible to answer.

Instead of a two state solution, I advocate that Jordan incorporate the Arab portions of Judea and Samaria, while Egypt takes over Gaza. Jordan and Egypt are reasonable states that have signed peace treaties with Israel and have a proven track record of competence, stability, cooperation and moderation.

Yes, the Palestinians have nationalist ambitions. However, in my view, the well-being and security of Israel is infinitely more important than creating the 23rd Arab State. Furthermore, the Palestinian identity is primarily an Arab fabrication and a propaganda tool that has been used against Israel since the 1960s. Therefore, instead of holding direct bilateral talks between Netanyahu and Abbas, the U.S. should invite Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan to negotiate a trilateral solution to this century-old conflict.

Despite being bombarded with the word “freedom” ever since I began reading newspapers, I have only recently thought about how ludicrous it is to use that word to justify acts of war.

During the past nine years, the United States, the “leader of the free world,” has engaged in operations with appealing titles such as Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Not only do they make us feel self-righteous and just, they help silence criticism because no one wants to argue against liberty and human rights. What this freedom actually means, though, remains unclear. One could argue, as the United States does, that our international missions aim to secure freedom and democracy where it doesn’t exist.

But is it freedom if a foreign power invades, asserts control, and stages an election? If we support the idea of a free market and Iraq just so happens to have oil, what kind of freedom are we actually seeking, and for whom?

The goal of freedom has become a deceptively nasty way of masking both the horrors of war and dangerous policies at home. When our government constantly reminds the American people that our troops are “fighting for your freedom,” it becomes much easier to justify unilateral military action, invasions, civilian deaths, weapons of mass destruction and the deaths of the poor soldiers themselves.

First, the government convinces us that we want this vague and undefined freedom; then, it convinces us that the best way to achieve it is by waging war against our enemies abroad, but also against our civil liberties at home. Astoundingly, Americans can accept legislation like the PATRIOT Act or show support for racial profiling in the name of freedom, even though both directly infringe upon our constitutional rights. The government’s motive for using those kinds of terms is obvious, of course. It’s much easier to drum up support for any policy as long as the voting public believes it is just, free and American.

The unbelievable part is how incredibly detached some people have become from the true meanings of the words they casually throw around. It is completely commonplace to see conservatives protesting against gay marriage, government health care and the idea of a Muslim president, while they are simultaneously supporting the Iraq War, the use of corporate money in elections and Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant laws, all in the name of freedom.

People who use that word to back up their political positions tend to implicitly mean that freedom is good, but only as long as they are personally OK with its usage. That means they celebrate religious freedom for Christians, but denounce Muslims’ rights to build mosques; support freedom of political association, but vilify “socialists;” push for free markets, but seek to prevent free movement of labor across borders; glorify personal freedom, but attempt to limit the rights of women to get abortions, gays to get married or workers to join unions. That kind of “freedom” means nothing, and yet it has become a justification for much of our national and foreign policy.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush famously asked the question, “Why do [the terrorists] hate us?” His answer? “…Because they hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and disagree with each other.” No, Mr. Bush, terrorists do not hate us for our supposed freedom.

They hate us because of the disrespect, cruelty and indifference we’ve shown for so many years in the Middle East. They hate us for failing to withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, the holiest of Muslim countries, after the Gulf War; for asserting a unilateral right to intervention; for pursuing harsh sanctions against Iraq that directly led to the starvation of thousands of children; for allowing Palestinians to suffer in the name of support for Israel; for our discriminatory treatment of Muslims in our own country and for attempting to police the world when there is no one to police us. Drumming up support for the war by preying on the public’s sympathy for freedom distorts political will and weakens the ability of the public to express a clear and informed opinion, especially about our foreign policy. After years of struggles, failures and deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we appear to be no better off, either abroad or at home, for our government’s attempt to justify its undemocratic, and certainly not free, approach to war.

We would at least be better off if we began to question the word freedom, which we hear so often without really hearing it at all. Then maybe we would start to wonder if war makes the American people more free or less free, or if the families of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan feel more free or less free, or if the post-9/11 world regards the United States as more free or less free. If we think more about this term that can mean so much, but also nothing at all, we might reach a better definition worthy of respect.

It has been all over the news for years now that the newspaper business is dying. The Boston Globe, still one of the 25 most- read papers, was inches away from shutting down in 2009, and lay-offs are increasing at newspapers all around the country.

“The newspaper as we know it will not be alive in twenty years,” Alan Murray, executive editor of The Wall Street Journal, said last spring. Ironically, he was speaking to a room full of the brightest student journalists from across the country.

I happened to be one of the journalists in that room, so you would assume if the head of the only newspaper with increasing readership tells me that the business is dying, I would change career paths while I could. But it’s not that easy. Journalism is not just a job or a profession or whatever word you want to use to describe what someone does for a living (not that journalists are making a living nowadays).

If you manage to get a job as a reporter, probably in a metropolitan area, your starting base salary is about $35,000 per year (my college tuition is $53,000 per year). Luckily for me I don’t plan on doing this for the money; I do it because I love it, because I didn’t choose journalism—it chose me.

When I tell people that, they react in different degrees of horror. There’s the “well honey, you do know that’s not really a career anymore,” the “oh, why don’t you go to law school, same skills but you actually do something,” and my favorite “so you really haven’t figured things out yet and decided this fits ‘unil you do?”

Sorry to burst your bubbles, folks, but really, I promise I’m sure. But, I’m all set on what I’m doing with my life, thanks.

In my first year of high school, my English teacher, Mrs. Clark, asked the class to write their obituaries. I didn’t do very well on that assignment; I didn’t know what to write. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Senior year she asked me again and this time I had an answer, “I want to make a difference and create change in a lot of people’s lives. I want people to remember who I am on more than just the day they read my obituary and for generations,” to which she said “how do you plan to do that?” “I’m going to be a writer,” I told her.

I don’t expect masses of people to remember me, or that I will cause huge change. I want the remembrance that comes with reading a newspaper clipping on a piece of microfiche in the library from 1887, or the story that touches one person and makes them think just a little bit differently about something they were so sure about. I want to leave those sorts of marks on the world.

News tells the story of the people. It records time in a way that still makes sense hundreds of years later. It is simple and precise, yet influential and effective. It is a marker of change from the printing press to the television, from the television to the Internet and to whatever comes next. News is the way information is conveyed to the masses.

Whether it’s the story of the marine who died fighting for his country, the high school football star’s draft offer or the politician who scammed his town out of money, thesestories come from people like me. The news comes from the storytellers, the journalists.

So you tell me newspapers are dying; the news isn’t. You tell me I’m not going to make money; you ask me where am I going to find a job.

There’s always somewhere to tell a story. Whether the masses are reading, listening or seeing the news, it needs to get out somehow. Just who do you think gets it there? Computers can do a lot of things but they can’t talk yet, they can’t walk, and they can’t get you a story.

So the news may not be read at the breakfast table anymore, it may not pay all the bills, but it’s not about that, it’s about a calling. It’s about wanting to know your doing something people care about. Its about loving what you do.

Yes, the journalism industry is changing but the people that go into are not. It’s not a job like the rest. It’s an adventure, every moment of every day, it’s a lifestyle.

Some people will jump on me for this. After all, it’s not always a choice. You might get here, meet someone and pine after them for four years with little or no result or you might get here and marry the first person you meet. However, it’s certainly a question that deserves some consideration, and one that will garner different answers from different people.

As an incoming first-year, I planned to start the year off single, despite having dated someone from home for about three months. A junior at another school, he agreed with me: I deserved the full college experience, and that meant starting my first-year year off, well, fresh. Orientation hadn’t even ended before I decided that pursuing our budding relationship was more important to me than potentially meeting a Brandeis guy.

But, most people I know who began college in relationships were single within a couple of months. This is not to say all relationships end–a close friend of mine is still dating the same guy she was dating in 10th grade–but most do. The factors of location, maturity and making new friends all change the dynamic in a relationship when it’s carried over from high school into college.

Additionally, when I look back, if I had been single that first semester, I would have made more friends, sooner, and I would have had an easier time hanging out with the guys that I later tried to do something with. None of these things are necessarily preferable (I didn’t really figure out what I wanted from a guy, or my friends, until I was a junior), but it is something I think about.

College is about having experiences, meeting people and making choices. By senior year, of course it’s easy to look back and say, “I should have done that differently,” but in the moment, you don’t know. You can’t know. In sex and relationships, you can never know for sure. And you have to give things a chance, just in case.

Of course, there are benefits to being single–when my ex surprises me by flying out from Colorado, he doesn’t have to sleep on the couch, and if my best friend and I stay up until 5 a.m. talking, I can crash at his place without worrying about what my boyfriend would think.

But maybe these perks of single-dom are exactly WHY I’m single.

Any new guy in my life might think of my best friend or my litany of exes as something to contend with or worry about, without realising that the people in my life would rather see me happily hooked up than be able to visit me.

The choices you make about sex and relationships in college should be the ones that make you happy.

Even if your roommate, or your friends, think you’re making the wrong choices, it’s up to you to know what is okay for you.

And they don’t have to be the same choices you make for the rest of your life, or even just for the rest of the year.

Some people think they want to be in a relationship, and spend all of college single, whereas others think they want to be single and spend all of college in one relationship or another. You just have to find people who are out to make the most of what they’re given.

In order for this process to work, hundreds of trucks, ships, and planes need to burn thousands of tons of fossil fuels, polluting our atmosphere with even more unnecessary carbon dioxide. On top of that, food growers resort to a number of sketchy means of keeping their fruits and vegetables fresh for long periods: sometimes they are heavily processed in factories or irradiated; other times they are picked while unripe and later ripened artificially with gas.

Doesn’t sound very healthy, does it?

It gets even worse when you consider the state of the world. As you read this, chemical runoff from giant, corporate-run farms are poisoning our waters and killing marine life just as effectively as the BP oil spill. And the planet is in pain already: beginning to feel the early effects of global climate change, which most scientists say will get much worse.

There was a time when most of the general public remained blissfully ignorant, content to wander into the grocery store and pick out whatever foods looked the tastiest and easiest on the wallet. Luckily (and hopefully not too late) public opinion is shifting and more people are steadily turning to locally grown food. Many of the benefits are obvious. When you buy your groceries from the farm stand down the street instead of the supermarket across town, you not only reduce the amount of fuel you ultimately consume, but you also strengthen the local economy by keeping more money within your community—and less in the pockets of agribusiness owners. And yes, the food is much fresher.

Brandeis students can do our part as well. Of course, we don’t have much in the way of local farm stands, and those of us who cook our own meals have in the past been limited to Hannaford for most of our produce needs. But times are changing, at least during the fall semester, when students will be able to sign up for a program called Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

A CSA is a “farm share” program, in which customers purchase a share of a local farm in return for a portion of that farm’s produce. In order to bring such a program to campus, Brandeis partnered with Warner Farm, a nearly 300-year-old family farm in Sunderland, MA. For $200 split between us ($25 per week for eight weeks), my roommate and I will receive a weekly delivery of produce that will feed between two and three people, according to Brandeis Sustainability Coordinator Janna Cohen-Rosenthal.

Financially, it’s not a bad deal, and a safe investment. Cohen-Rosenthal said that Warner Farm would be able to contract out to other local farms in the event of a crop failure so that the farm will still be able to supply its shareholders. Plus, since we won’t be allowed to choose what kind of produce we will receive, we’ll have an excuse to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables that we might not have thought of otherwise. And the best part is that we’ll be able to pick up our food deliveries right here on campus, without having to drive anywhere.

I look forward to firing up my stovetop and oven to cook these fresh ingredients. While I eat, I plan to use further installations of this series to take a closer look at the need for more local food and the possibilities of making change happen.

Meanwhile, if you live in a housing unit with a kitchen, I strongly encourage you to find a friend and sign up for the Warner Farm CSA. The deadline for sending in the money is Aug 30, and the link to the sign-up form can be found at:

http://www.thebrandeishoot.com/links/CSA

“The coaching staff works hard and the guys work hard, so I think it’s really a tribute to everybody,” Lamanna told The Hoot.

For the Judges, who finished at 9-10 last season, their national merit likely derives from a come-from-behind victory against the University of Chicago in April’s UAA tournament. Brandeis defeated Chicago, the 15th-ranked team in the country, by a 5-4 margin.

The record-breaking 2009-2010 roster returned only four of 12 players from the year before. Three rookies–Steven Milo ’13, Dave Yovanoff ’13, and Fred Rozenshteyn ’13–started for the Judges.

For their play as a doubles pair, Milo and Yovanoff were given second team All-UAA honors.

With minimal roster turnover and the continued improvement of his players, Lamanna–in his sixth year as head coach–doesn’t feel that his team has reached its peak.

“I’ve stressed personal development, individual improvement over the summer. Maybe putting on muscle, maybe taking off weight … I saw those improvements … since the guys have come back so I’m pretty optimistic about this year.”

The team will be led by senior Simon Miller, winner of the tiebreaking third set in the tournament match against Chicago. Playing primary at second singles, Miller went 17-10 last season.

With seven weeks of “tough” tennis against accomplished opponents in the fall portion of the season (starting Sept. 10th with the Middlebury Invitational), Lamanna is looking for his team to get some good work in.

“It’s mostly a developmental seven weeks … [Middlebury] won the national championship last year.”

A week later, the Judges head down to Providence to take part in the Brown Invitational. They will be the only Division III team to play in the tournament.

Unintimidated, Lamanna has faith in his roster.

“[Last year] we set a culture, set a foundation for the program in a way. These guys know what it’s like and they know what it takes … [they] are ready to perform at the top level of D-III.”

“One of the biggest things that hurt us towards the end of [last] year was a lack of depth,” head coach Ben Lamanna told The Hoot.

After senior starter Emily Weisberger ’10 went down with a torn ACL, “we lost some of our depth and it was tough to recover from that,” explained Lamanna, who, along with assistant coach Payum Payman, earned University Athletic Association (UAA) Coaching Staff of the Year honors for his work with the men’s team.

The Judges were left with only six players–including Ariana Sanai ’10, who played hurt for the second half of the spring season–on the active roster.

Skip to today. With a nine-woman roster–five returnees and four first-years–the team is much deeper than last year. The depth exists not only in quantity, but also in the roster’s playing ability.

“Things are looking good. Over the course of my six years with the women’s program we get a step better every year … and this year’s no exception to that.”

Sophomore Faith Broderick is coming off an impressive first-year campaign in which she went 9-3 at second singles and 14-10 overall.

Rachel Rosman returns for her senior season as one of the winningest players in team history. Rosman owns a career record of 50-23 in singles, including a stellar sophomore season in which she played to a 15-4 record. She is 33-34 for her career in doubles competition and earned a pair of UAA Athlete of the Week nods last season.

Rosman’s co-captain, Mackenzie Gallegos ’11 is “a great doubles player,” and “a real rock for [the team].”

The veteran pair will be expected to set both a pace and a culture for the rest of the squad. Per the six-year head coach, the team is in good hands.

“Rachel and Mackenzie set a great tone. They’re always in tip top shape and they work really hard. I’m excited to have them mold the new group of four girls coming in. [They] should shed positive influence on the team’s younger players.”

The Judges were ranked as high as 26th last season before falling out of the national rankings at the end of the year. Lamanna believes he has the roster to get Brandeis back to where it was before injuries took their toll.

“Now’s the time to develop and see what we can do in some of these tournaments, to develop good doubles and depth. That’s what it takes to be good in DIII. 2 D’s. Depth and doubles.”

The objective? Simple.

“We gotta get back into the national rankings.”

The Judges begin their quest to do so when they host Wheaton (MA) College on September 15. The match begins at 3:30 p.m.

Michael Coven, now entering his 38th year as the team’s head coach, wasn’t looking to make excuses.

“We want to improve… last year wasn’t a good year. We definitely have the ability to be a much better team. We’re just looking for improvement.”

The Judges will be primed for a turnaround in 2010. And Coven believes he has the roster to get it done.

“Central defenders Ari Silver and David McCoy solidify the defense. They both started for a couple years and are very very solid.”

Both Silver ’11 and McCoy ’11 earned University Athletic Association honorable mention last season

Last season’s freshman of the year, midfielder Sam Ocel ’13, will be resigned to the sidelines for with a torn meniscus in his knee. Coven is hopeful that Ocel–who is scheduled to have surgery on Sept. 1–will be available by midseason. However, with the full severity of the injury unknown, it is clear that other players will need to step up to fill the void. Coven highlighted midfielders Lee Russo ’13 and Joe Eisenbies ’13 as players he’ll be looking at to pick up their play.

“They’re both very hard, dedicated workers. I’m sure they’re going to be two of our better players.”

And, of course, if Ocel is able to return “that would be a huge boost,” said Coven.

The addition of central midfielder Theo Terris ’12, a transfer from Boston University, is expected to further boost the team.

“He’s a wonderful player, one of the top players we’ve brought in over the past six, seven, eight, nine years. He is special.”

In 2007, a year after leading Concord-Carlisle High School to the state title, Terris was named the Boston Globe’s All-Scholastic Player of the Year.

Equally impressive is Brandeis’ forward corps. Alexander Farr ’12 led the Judges with seven goals last season while Matt Peabody ’13 netted four in his freshman campaign. Steve Keuchkarian ’11, who has had “moments of brilliance,” in limited minutes, will have time to shine.

“We’re looking for him to score our goals” said Coven.

Nick George ’14 and Ben Applefield ’14 are part of a “very good” freshman class. George was named high school All-American and Applefield All-New England at forward and midfield, respectively.

With three capable starting goaltenders: 2009 starter Matt Lynch ’11, 2008 starter Taylor Bracken ’11 (who missed last season due to injury) and improving Blake Minchoff ’13, there is plenty of skill in net.

And plenty of reason to believe that 2010 will bear fruit to a revival.

“This is a good group. A young group–so I think they’ll make some mistakes as young teams do–but there’s a lot of enthusiasm. The talent is pretty darn good. [There are] some good good soccer players here.”

The team kicks off its season against Rutgers-Camden as part of the Adidas Kickoff Classic at Wheaton on Sept 4. For those who can’t wait that long to see the Judges in action, there will be a preseason game against Framingham State on Friday, August 27 at 7 p.m.

“We hope to challenge for [a] regional title and be one of the top teams in the country in 2010” head coach John Evans wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot.

All seven members of the squad which competed at nationals remain at Brandeis; the team boasts much the same lineup as that which finished last season ranked 24th in the nation. Co-captains Paul Norton ’11 and Dan Anastos ’11, as well as Devon Holgate ’11, Ben Bray ’11, Kerwin Vega ’11, Zack Schwartz ’11, and Sam Donovan ’11 make up a “very strong senior group.” In 2009, Norton proved one of the top cross country runners in the nation, placing third in regionals and seventh in nationals while earning All-American honors along the way. The Amherst native is Brandeis’s first cross country All-American since 1999.

Juniors Chris Brown and Marc Boutin were All-New England in 2009 and are expected to be “major contributors” to the team’s success. At last year’s regionals, the pair finished 18th and 32nd, respectively.

Freshman additions Ed Colvin and Taylor Dundas are “worth looking out for,” as is Alex Kramer ’13, who did not run cross country his rookie year.

The quest to earn Brandeis’ first regional title since 1991 begins Sept. 3, as the Judges start their season with an alumni meet at Weston High School.

The key to the team’s success may be Grayce Selig ’11, a two-time All-American. Running as an individual, Selig–the first Brandeis woman to reach nationals since 2003–placed 26th in regionals and 172nd in nationals last fall. Selig, along with Alyssa Pisarik ’12, was named All-New England in 2009.

Marie Lemay ’11, Hannah Lindholm ’11, and Emily Owen ’11, and juniors Kate Warwick ’12, Erin Bisceglia ’12, and Monique Girard ’12 are returning runners who could have a positive impact.

At last year’s regionals, Pisarik was 32nd to cross the line, while Lemay finished 43rd and Warwick 57th.

Seventh-year head coach John Evans cited Ali Kirsch ’14, Amelia Lundkvist ’14, and Victoria ’14 Sanford as freshman “to look out for.”

The ladies begin their season against Southern Maine on September 3 at Weston High School.

After a successful 2009 in which the squad went 10-6-5 overall (3-3-1 in conference play) and earned its third consecutive berth in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Finals, there is optimism that 2010 will be even brighter.

“[We] are going to be awesome this year,” head coach Denise Dallamora wrote in an e-mail to The Hoot.

Despite the departure of All-Americans Melissa Gorenkoff ’10 and Hilary Rosenzweig ’10, Dallamora believes that the “very strong” firs-year class will help the returning veterans achieve a new level of success–and perhaps a trip to the NCAA tournament.

“Doing well in our conference and in our regional competition [will help us qualify],” explained the 31-year head coach.

Senior forwards Sofia Vallone and Tiffany Pacheco are expected to direct the offensive attack for the Judges. Last season, Pacheco led the University Athletic Association in shots taken while potting nine goals and six assists. Vallone scored six times and added three helpers for Brandeis.

The defensive line will be anchored by Taryn Martiniello ’11, Ali Maresca ’12 and Fran Shin ’12, “solid players and great leaders,” wrote Dallamora.

Francine Kofinas ’13 as well as newcomers Katie Weil and Leah Sax will be looking to justly replace Rosenzweig with great play between the pipes.

The Judges play the first game of the 2010 season at MIT (12-6-2 in 2009) Sept. 1 at 4 p.m. Brandeis has defeated MIT in the season opener in each of the last three years.