Comments on: Why can’t Brandeis students do this?

By: Gideon

Gideon — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:50:52 +0000

It also may be relevant that New Jersey (Chicago, too) is know for scumbag politicians. If generally nice folks run the government in Waltham, there should be little need to overthrow them. That said, I agree with both a) this can’t happen out of the blue and b) we need to become more a part of Waltham in general, not specifically to overthrow their government. I think of this both as the general manager of WBRS (more listeners, more possible hosts, more community-related shows, etc.) and as a member of a greater university community (UChicago).

By: Sahar

Sahar — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:41:11 +0000

Allie, I totally agree with everything you’re saying.

You didn’t address this, but I’m changing the title of this this post from “Why can’t Brandeis students do this?” to “Hey let’s try this” to better fit the tone of the post.

As for re: Brandeis & Waltham: yeah, storming the gates of the Waltham establishment is the exact opposite of what I’m advocating here. The idea is more like: Waltham is here, and we can help. Many of us do, but in an atomized sort of way, and mostly through service rather than organizing.

We should use a more organzing lens. To organize you gotta be accepted by the community. To do that you need to be mroe integrated and respectful of that community.

tl;dr: Yeah, I think we’re saying the same thing in different ways, though you’re more eloquent at expressing the core of my argument than I am.

By: Allie Morse

Allie Morse — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:18:44 +0000

Brandeis really needs to up it’s reputation with the town before that could be successful. The demographics of Rutgers versus Brandeis is key here. The majority of Brandeis students live in dorms and really do not contribute much to Waltham’s tax base. Many students never even go into town, save a few trips to Moody Street every once and a while. Rutgers is a large school with more local students who tend to be more invested financially with the local community. Brandeis students tend to be much more invested with Boston than Waltham.

We should start small. I intern in the municipal government and regularly go to a couple of committee meetings all around environmental issues. I would really like to see more Brandeis students engaging with the local government in ways like interning, doing research for committees (since we cannot generally be full committee members) or government offices, and building a stronger partnership between the students and the government. It’s not just a service issue, but a way of showing the town that Brandeis students are really interested in what goes on here. If a bunch of students suddenly start trying to put pressure on the system out of the blue, I can guarantee it will not go well. Even possible supporters would not be likely to accept what they might perceive as a bunch of “upstarts”.

Brandeis is IN Waltham but not OF Waltham. That needs to change before the residents would accept a bunch of “radicals” trying to change the entrenched political system.