The Brandeis Hoot

Provost approves academic cuts

University Provost Marty Krauss has approved all 17 of the Brandeis 2020 Committee’s proposals to suspend or restructure academic programs in order to save the university $3.8 million annually beginning in 2012. Krauss also altered the Committee’s original proposal to…

Senate approves Constitutional Review Committee proposals

The Constitutional Review Committee Sunday night released its proposals to amend the Student Union Constitution, which include a complete overhaul of the Union Senate’s structure. The proposals were approved by the Senate directly following their release and will now…

Tech Talk

Castle ceiling caves

The ceiling and wall of a Schwartz Hall dorm room on Castle Quad caved in Saturday scattering metal, drywall and concrete. The room’s resident Kiernan Bagge ’12 was not injured by the damage because he spent the night in a…

Profitable program at risk

Despite its charge to alleviate the university’s budget crisis, the Brandeis 2020 Committee has proposed to indefinitely suspend the revenue-positive Cultural Productions Masters’ program.

The program, which was created in 2006 for the purpose of providing the university with additional…

Shapiro may need to return Madoff money

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that a federal judge’s decision in the Bernard Madoff bankruptcy case could force Brandeis donor Carl Shapiro to return a portion of the $1 billion in profit from investments with Madoff. United States Bankruptcy Judge…

Upcoming Howard Dean visit sparks controversy

Campus and national politics collided this week when the Student Union executive office decided to help pay for Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean’s upcoming visit and angered Brandeis Republicans. The union accepted a request by sponsors of the April…

BADASS team hosts debate tournament

The Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society (BADASS) held their annual tournament last weekend, hosting more than 20 schools, including Yale, Columbia and the University of Maryland. A pair from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won overall after competing against…

Harvard prof. asks ‘What is justice?’

Harvard professor and Brandeis alumnus Michael Sandel said that intense political debates should encourage, not neglect, the incorporation of moral arguments at an interactive forum with students on Monday evening.

Sandel ’75, a Rhodes Scholar and former Brandeis trustee, engaged…

Seligman wins Mr. Brandeis competition

After an hour of thrilling competition at the Mr. Brandeis 2010 pageant, Jonah Seligman ’10 walked away with the title, a crown, a sash and a stuffed Dalmatian. Marc Eder ’11 and Ari Tretin ’12 were first and second runners…

Feminist Gera discusses Israel Women’s Network

Ella Gera spoke at Brandeis Wednesday about the state of women in Israel. The event, held at the Women’s Studies Research Center, was sponsored by the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and other groups to commence Women’s History Month.

Gera, an economist…

‘Food, Inc.’ director condemns food industry

Director of the documentary “Food, Inc.” Robert Kenner visited Brandeis on Sunday to talk about his film, which he described as just one piece of a much larger crusade against the food industry.

This crusade began when people began to…

Meal or points?

Last semester, Adrienne Karlovsky ’12 ran out of points. Over the semester, she would stock up on various snacks while still paying for meals with points; as Karlovsky explains it, “I was trying to double up.”

By the end…

Track and field faces challenging opponents at Open New England Championships

The men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams competed last weekend in the Open New England Championships, each managing to score points in the prestigious meet.

Held this year at Boston University, the meet features athletes from colleges…

Men’s basketball ’10 earns 80th victory, NCAA berth and UAA honors

Over the past week, Terrell Hollins ’10 and classmate Kenny Small have shown that the best of their team’s season is yet to come.

After the senior class scored their 80th victory last Saturday, beating UAA rival NYU…

After last big win, hoops seniors reflect, reminisce on four years at Brandeis

Entering Saturday’s regular season finale against New York University (14-12, 5-9), the Brandeis women’s basketball team needed a win–and lots of help–to qualify for the NCAA Division III tournament. They got the win, but did not make the tournament. Still,…

Swimming and diving set three school records

There was something special in the water for the Brandeis swimming and diving teams during last Sunday’s Eastern College Athletic Conference Open Championships. The Judges took the pressure of competing against the top schools on the East Coast and turned…

VOCAL 2010 brings emotional relief

POETRY SLAM: Jamele Adams, associate dean of Student Life, hosted Vocal’s poetry slam, infusing the event with energy and charisma.
PHOTO BY Nafiz “Fizz” R. Ahmed/The Hoot

VOCAL, a club combining poetry and activism, hosted their annual 2010 poetry slam concert,…

March Madness 2.0: video game edition

For many of you, March Madness evokes thoughts of the NCAA basketball tournament—the brackets and the betting pools, after all, are a thoroughly engrained part of our mainstream culture. When I think of this March, however, I think of something…

YouTube offers music-philes aural nirvana

Imagine being a music lover ten years ago.

Seeking out recorded live performances by your favorite artists must have been nerve-wracking. Searching vainly for out-of-print videotapes and trolling the bootlegs in record stores would only yield the occasional gem.…

Video and the radio star, now both dead

Since MTV pioneered the broadcasting of music videos with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the medium has seen a few excellent highlights. The White Stripes used Legos. Prison inmates and Jennifer Garner have both performed the choreography from “Thriller.” There’s…

Comic

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NBC makes bad call with ‘Marriage Ref’

There are many things on which I would defer to Jerry Seinfeld. Comedy and how to make millions, for example, are things on which Seinfeld has an authority. Marriage advice, however, is not one of them.

Unfortunately, NBC disagrees and…

Once was ‘Lost’ but now am (hopefully) found

No television show in the past decade has captured the American imagination quite in the same way as ABC’s “Lost,” the enigmatic program that recently embarked on its sixth and final season. With its seemingly infinite meanings, the show now…

Non-cents

You may be wondering why a university committee charged with saving the university money would want to cut a program that is revenue-positive by $100,000. We’re wondering the same thing.

While The Hoot editorial board would like to give Dean…

Questioning activist ideals and attracting attention

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about activism. She told me how much she disliked the fact that she was having fun at school.

That’s actually just an overstatement of what she said to get…

Brandeis’ green monster, and other observations

It’s a process that I imagine most prospective students go through on their first visit to Brandeis.

You drive under the bridge and through the main gate, excited to see the place that could become your home for the next…

Stand with the Pomona dining hall workers

At Pomona College in Claremont, California, 90 percent of dining hall workers have signed petitions demanding a card-check neutrality agreement from the school’s administration. The agreement would mean that workers could freely form a union by signing union cards, without…

Book of Matthew: Trying to eat gluten-free on a college campus

Complaining about the poor quality of dining hall food is an integral part of attending Brandeis. Everybody does it. With every passing dining survey, the results are about the same: Students want better food, a greater selection and longer hours. …

Borde-nough: Bunning vs. the Senate: What’s the score?

Political scorekeepers spent much of the last two weeks charging Hall of Fame pitcher and United States Senator Jim Bunning with a terrible error for delaying an important piece of legislation. But in politics, as in baseball, there’s a lot…

The single-payer failure

Last Thursday, President Obama and leaders from both parties deliberated for seven hours to espouse their talking points and delve into the intricacies of health care policy. They discussed a multitude of topics, ranging from health savings accounts to medical…

Keeping it simple

The first time with a new guy is always awkward, no matter how amazing it ends up. This becomes even more important to think about considering that in college, a lot of hook-ups only happen once or twice and may…

After shock: Students react to Chilean earthquake

The reverberations of last week’s 8.8 earth quake in Chile are being felt at Brandeis. The earthquake, one of the largest to ever hit the South American country, hit in the early morning hours and killed close to three hundred…

The Hoot Report

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The Brandeis Watch

Open Call

The halls are alive with the sounds of … Brandeis

Footsteps. Laughter. A girl on her cell phone. A stereo blasting Lady Gaga. A bongo.

As anyone living in a dorm can attest, you’re likely to hear all of these on any given day, blending in with a plethora of…

Why I love the Olympics or how I spent my February break

NORDIC COMBINED: Crossing the finish line during the cross country legacy event.
PHOTO BY Sarah Bloomberg/The Hoot

Ever since I was a little kid I have loved sports. I played over half a dozen at one point in time or another…

A not so artful decision

When the university announced Jan. 22 that the impending academic cuts were to be decided by a Committee, this editorial board thought the powers that be had finally learned their lesson.

After all, many of the university’s public relations blunders…

Book of Matthew: You can’t choose your abortion facts

The girl in the pamphlet stared off into the corner of the picture frame. She looked like a lead female role in a low-budget 50s horror movie—covered in shadow and looking fearfully at some unseen enemy.

“The Deadly After-Effect…

Great minds … compose at Brandeis

Brandeis University opened its doors to its first student in the fall of 1948. Less than three years later, Arnold Schoenberg passed away at the age of 76. Schoenberg is often considered the last great composer of the art…

Approaching American decline

Within the next fifty years, China will probably overtake the United States as the world’s dominant hegemonic power. When this happens, historians will ask “when was the turning point?” Indeed, at what point did America begin to decline? The answer…

A plan for resource-rich countries

Most countries that are rich with natural resources, such as petroleum, gas and minerals have a large percentage of poor citizens. This is the reason many oil-rich countries have called oil a blessing and curse at the same time. …

Remembering the significance of planet earth

The new “it” thing these days is to go green. People around the world find delight in being able to say things such as, “My new Toyota Prius is environmentally friendly,” or “My dorm has been green certified.” But the…

Borde-nough: Creating jobs in all the wrong places

If the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index has as much to say about a president’s political health as it has in the past, President Barack Obama needs emergency care. The Index stands at 46, a drop of more than ten…

The Self Shelf: Celebrity apologies: A damaging waste of time

The celebrity stands behind the podium, a solitary figure surrounded by a sea of media.

His crimes have been laid out before the court of public opinion for months.

This is his penance. Stoic and robotic, he reads…

Sexcapades: The importance of pillow talk

In an ideal world, a first date (or maybe three) would come before sex. Unless, of course, all you want is the sex. In that ideal world, the sex would come easily, with no strings attached and no conversation needed.…

Four-year cup of fun

It’s 11:30 on a Thursday night and the campus coffee shop is bustling. At college, the coffee shop is an experience (no matter why) everyone seems to gather here.

You notice the freshmen right away. They huddle in the corner…

‘Island’ makes audiences shudder

Just hearing the names Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio in the same sentence is a giveaway that whatever movie it’s referring to is a force to be reckoned with. And “Shutter Island,” the newest collaboration from this Hollywood director-actor power…

Getting lost in Brandeis spaces

A peripheral scan of the room: Brandeisians hunched over computers, one bopping to a silent tune, another swilling coffee while jabbing at his keyboard chopsticks-style, others lounging on overstuffed chairs, limbs akimbo with laptops perched precariously on knees—thinking. I walk…

‘Funnyhouse’ built on unstable foundation

Let there be no doubt about it: “Funnyhouse of a Negro” is the most spectacular production I have ever seen on the Brandeis campus.

The acting was very strong. The actors seemed to burst from the stage with precise, crackling…

Grad gets a long overdue face-lift

When we were sophomores, you know, a million (ok, two) years ago, there were plans of renovating Grad. But they never materialized. And so, bright eyed and eager, we moved into our five-person abode in the fall of 2008. For…

Track and field have mixed day at New England Division III Championships

Last Saturday, the men’s and women’s track and field teams travelled to the University of Southern Maine for the New England Division III Championships, and though the teams managed only a mixed record, a pair of stellar individual performances helped…