I visited OccupyChicago for the first time this week, on Friday, October 7th when the movement had been active for exactly 2 weeks. I was lucky enough to meet up with esteemed former contributor Lev Hirschhorn ’11.

What stuck out to me the most:

The diversity of people: From what I’ve heard in the media and how I think of protests in general, I expected it to be mostly white, liberal college kids complaining about the government. Maybe that’s even how the movement started out, but that’s not how it is anymore. There were white, black, Hispanic, and people of all skin colors there. There were men, women and people who don’t subscribe to the binary. There were people who resembled stay at home mothers, businessmen, students, unemployed people and more. Young and old. Dressed nicely and not so nicely. All together.

The lack of police interaction: This is again a misconception that has been spreading in part due to the media. Nationwide, the OccupyWallSt movement gained popularity and notoriety after the NYPD arrested about 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ve all seen the mace videos. So it came as quite a surprise to see the police watching the protest from across the street, walking through the crowd of protesters at times, but not interacting in any way.

As you will see in some of my pictures, there are barricades up along the streets. However, I learned that these are NOT related to the protest, but in fact were put there for the Bank of America Marathon, which ran through that intersection on Sunday. I have not heard of any arrests or conflicts so far related to the Chicago protest, aside from the police directing protesters not to sleep on the streets and requiring them to continue moving their stores of food (which I don’t fully understand why they must do.)

My Experience:

On Friday, it was business as usual: a crowd of people standing in front of the Federal Reserve Bank building, at Jackson and LaSalle (231 N LaSalle Street). Although the protesters don’t have much space on these chosen blocks, unlike OccupyWallSt, in Liberty Plaza, their protest is situated at the intersection of the Bank of America Building, the Federal Reserve Bank Building.

How do the bankers feel about this bombardment? Well, story has it that, in response to the protesters’ oft-repeated refrain “We…are…the 99%!,” someone hung a sign in one of the Federal Reserve Building’s windows which read “We are the 1%”

To add some levity to the mood (at least I hope that’s why), one protester came adorned in a yacht club outfit with a similar sign.

But the mood was pretty enthusiastic anyway, what with the drumming, the chanting, and the sign-holding. People even ordered pizza and handed it out to protesters and passers-by.

These people are taking shifts, staking out the area 24/7. I was only there for an hour, but already was caught up in the enthusiasm and unity. Chanting can be really fun. It’s going to take me some more time to decide what I think about the protesters’ requests and how effective these demonstrations are, but I know I’ll be going back to find out more.

Read Shea’s e-mail below to find out more about what’s going on, why, and how to get involved:

Last weekend, 5 Brandeis students went down to NYC to join the Occupy Wall St. protestors. It was wonderful, awe-inspiring and empowering. This weekend, we want to bring even more students down: we will be joining an ever-growing movement, comprised of citizens from over 40 states, students from over 20 colleges, humans of all walks of life who have the courage to live the change they want to see in the world.

If you have any interest in coming along, or joining the new Boston occupation that will be starting this weekend, we will be holding TWO meetings to plan our trip and discuss anything related to the ongoing occupations: tonight, Monday the 26th, and tomorrow night, Tuesday the 27th. Both meetings will be held at 10PM in the Peace Room, located above lower Usdan, next to Levin Ballroom.

If you cant make either of these times, please email me (Shea Riester) at srie...@brandeis.edu or call me at 9176452444!

In the last week, the Occupy Wall St. protestors have been joined by Lupe Fiasco, Immortal Technique, Chris Hedges and Reverend Billy! To get a feel for the spirit of the occupation, here’s a report from last night in Liberty Square from occupywallst.org:

Drums blared for hours into the night when the Assembly wasn’t in session, until the time came for quiet. The drummers ended by reciting from the Principles of Solidarity we approved in Friday’s General Assembly, in the rain. Before the police lined along the Broadway side of the plaza, they cried together, “We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality.” And more. “Safety in numbers!” a sign by them says. “Join us.”

For more information:

occupywallst.org
occupytogether.org
adbusters.org

I’ll start with one of my stories: I’m the treasurer of the Brandeis Democrats, and we asked for $3289.12, divided up as follows:

• Bringing Keith McHenry (Food Not Bombs creator) to campus- Speaking Fee: $500, Subsidized Hotel/Lodging Fee: $50.
• 15 Tickets to See “Waiting For Superman,” a new movie about the DC public school system: $150.
• Bringing Comedy Central’s Jeff Kriesler to Campus: $2500
• Gas Money To Go Campaign for Paul Hodes in New Hampshire, 2 Cars: $89.12.

At first, we only got $150 dollars for the semester. Not even a general grant of $150, but $150 to be specifically allocated for the movie tickets. This was bothersome to me for a number of reasons. First, as they mention in a comment on our request, F-Board claims that “We don’t fund campaigns for politicians, only issues,” meaning that they were not inclined to grant us money to campaign for a Democrat. That’s fine assuming that the same standards are shown to other clubs, but that still leaves us with $3200.
Next, Jeff Kriesler was one of our most successful events of the last year, in the sense that we not only filled a large classroom with members of the Dems, but we also drew in people from all over campus. It seems that as he hasn’t gotten any less funny, the event would promise to be as successful this year, but we weren’t given the chance to bring him back to prove this. Without this, we’re down to $700.

Keith McHenry created Food Not Bombs, a wonderful organization which shuns war and promotes giving free vegetarian meals to the homeless. Since when has poverty been a partisan issue that isn’t worth funding? Is Keith McHenry too radical? SEA, SDS, DFA, and the Waltham Group didn’t seem to think so when they each expressed interest in the event.

That leaves us with the $150 we got for the movie tickets. First of all, this was the one item we did not expect them to cover, as it is expected that college students will be able to afford to go to the movies because they already do so on a weekly basis. We put this in there as a sort of “M&M” clause to make sure that the F-Board actually spent the time to read through our five requests. But clearly they gave it enough thought, and originally decided that it was the only thing worth funding for this semester. We’re a respected political organization on campus which hosts events year round to engage the entire community. In my time alone, we’ve brought Howard Dean to campus, worked a Deval Patrick campaign event which President Obama attended, phonebanked for Martha Coakley and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal, and ran a Haiti Benefit Concert, but all we were enabled to do was see a movie?

So what did we do? We appealed and waited. We asked for more money, and for the $150 already allocated to be converted into a general grant so that we could use it for more than only movie tickets. We got $400 more, most of which I’m betting will go to pay for a portion of Keith McHenry’s asking price. Yet the original request money to be converted to a general grant? Denied. So we take the good and the bad, as we attempt to maximize the potential of a club which this semester has more than doubled in size due to an influx of freshmen and other engaged students. But there are other clubs which didn’t appeal, and still find themselves in financial turmoil, unable to carry out events new and traditional. So I yield the floor to those people. Let’s talk together through our problems and see what comes of it?

A guiding question: Does anyone else feel slighted by fellow students whom we elected to aid our clubs, not restrict them?

If you read the Justice today, you’d know the board granted only about 42% of whatever funds organizations requested this semester. Last year, F-Board was able to grant 85% of requests on average, according to F-Board member Gabriel Weingrod-Nemzow (in the same article).

F-Board representatives told the Justice more clubs requesting more money, a dearth of rollover funds, and other changes forced their hand.

Though some of the chosen few- Student Events and BTV, for example- received close to everything they asked for, most campus clubs are now struggling to bridge their funding gaps. The F-Board singlehandedly determined your tuition money’s final destination: which events to support, and which causes to bolster. The Brandeis community needs ready access to more information describing how these decisions will affect them.

That’s why Innermost Parts will be detailing who’s getting how much, and for what. We’ll be talking to club members about how they feel about their funding, and how they plan to work with their budget. We’ll also pose some ideas about alternative methods for obtaining money.

Keep reading and refreshing Innermost Parts for additional coverage!

If you haven’t read Ariel Wittenberg’s piece on the Cultural Productions Masters’ program from the March 5th Hoot, check it out right now.  It’s a great piece of campus journalism, thoroughly researched and well-constructed, and the narrative is very important in understanding the administration’s relationship with the rest of the university.  Basically, Adam Jaffe, the Dean of Arts and Sciences and the chair of the Brandeis 2020 Committee, justified the decision to cut the program by saying “the overall costs of the program exceed the revenues” despite the fact that “the program generates revenue that exceeds its direct costs”.

The problem is that someone forgot to tell the program’s head, Professor Mark Auslander:

When asked what the overall costs were, Jaffe wrote, “I prefer not to share those numbers.”

This secrecy is “dumbfounding” to Auslander, who said, “I’m baffled at what these ‘hidden costs’ could be.” Auslander also said that his knowledge of the program’s revenue comes from conversations with Jaffe himself.

“Up until they wanted to cut our program, the Dean has said we are revenue positive,” Auslander said. “To cut us would be foolhardy.”

While Jaffe wrote in his e-mail that “the ‘direct costs’ do not include the time of any faculty other than the director,” Auslander said the Cultural Productions Program does not employ any faculty other than him.

So Jaffe misled Auslander about his program’s cost, basically lied to the Hoot about the program’s faculty, and made absolutely no effort to justify cutting the whole program to its director, let alone to the Brandeis community.  Three days later, Marty Krauss released her report, and Jaffe was contradicted again:

I have heard the argument that this program produces net revenue for GSAS, and while that is true, I am convinced that the University would have to make additional fiscal commitments in the long run to ensure that this program  achieves and maintains a level of excellence that we would expect for any master’s program.

Is the program currently revenue-positive?  Everyone seems to think so but Adam Jaffe, and he doesn’t seem willing to share whatever facts he has.

Making these academic cuts is a very difficult process, and I appreciate the fact that the motivations for cutting the Cultural Productions Program might be more complex than a straightforward cost-benefit analysis.  However, any cuts that are made will be painful to a portion of the Brandeis community, and the faculty and students within the programs deserve an explanation.  Withholding information and offering lies and half-truths only increases their pain.  We need complete faith in our administration as Brandeis makes these tough decisions, and Dean Jaffe has harmed that trust.

In her response to the the Brandeis 2020 Committee proposals, Provost Marty Krauss lists the five groups tasked to work towards healing Brandeis’s long-term financial deficit.  They are:

• The 23 member Brandeis 2020 Committee, which identified reductions in Arts and Sciences.
• The professional school revenue committee, composed of 4 administrators and the Office of Budget and Planning.
• The 18 member Bold Ideas Group, which identifies new revenue streams.
• The 9 member Administrative Resource Review Committee, which identifies administrative efficiencies.
• The 7 member ad hoc committee on increasing revenue from the Centers and Institutes.

The most striking thing to me is that of these 61 committee members, exactly one is an undergraduate student (Jason Gray of the Brandeis 2020 Committee).  That means undergraduate students, the university’s primary reason for existing, make up 1.64% of the voices currently working to solve our biggest problems.  We are just as invested in the future of our university as anyone else, and we have unique perspectives that will otherwise go completely unheeded.  Why are we being so thoroughly excluded from these processes?

Marty Krauss has two important questions to answer.  First, do the students deserve a substantial voice in the university’s future?, and second, how will our voices be incorporated as the committees move forward?  However, I’m not confident that she will actually address these questions, and I’m even less confident that her answers will be satisfactory in establishing the student voice as a vital part of the process.  Therefore, the student body is left with a significant question of its own: How do we overcome our lack of direct involvement to make sure we too can help Brandeis succeed?

It’s a tough question, and we should start considering answers now.

I imagine that there are a lot of disappointed students and faculty members at Brandeis today, and I can completely understand why.  If you’ve devoted your life to a specific program, or if your job security is incumbent on a program’s existence, the last thing you want to hear is that the program has been deemed unworthy of the money that Brandeis has put into it.  Each of these 18 cuts will affect some future students or current faculty members in serious ways, and the ramifications could be felt sooner than we might expect.  Can we really trust the administration to properly prioritize departments they’ve already singled out for termination?

Still, I have to say that I support the decision that Provost Krauss released today.  The Committee recommendations are the result of a exhaustively researched and debated process that incorporated a wide range of Brandeis community members.  The Committee took every effort to understand completely the ramifications of each of its proposals.  Yes, all of these cuts hurt, but Brandeis has already cut all of the easy stuff, and we’re truly out of options.  I find it stunning that Brandeis 2020 was able to reach its financial goals while leaving almost the entire undergraduate experience intact and preserving so much that is central to the Brandeis mission.  Faced with a bunch of bad options, I feel that the Committee members did the best job they could possibly do.

The strongest reaction against the Brandeis 2020 recommendations came from the Theater community in protest against the proposed phasing out of the Graduate School Theater Design program.  Their organization was quick and effective, and their Facebook group currently has over 2,000 members.  This decision was much closer to me than most others; I’ve worked on a Department show before, and I had an opportunity to interview two students from the Design program for a Brandeis Hoot podcast.  I think they have some very strong arguments for preserving their program, and it’s sad to think that the resources that led to the amazing design of the recent Funnyhouse of a Negro production will no longer be available.  But I also think that the Committee knew what it was doing when it recommended scaling back on this very expensive program.  One of the signatories of the Brandeis 2020 report is Theater Arts Department Chair Susan Dibble; do you really think she would have put her name on a report that unfairly and irreparably weakened her department?

The members of the Brandeis 2020 Committee should be recognized for work they put in over the past two months.  Every one of them had to bite the bullet on a very personal sacrifice, and they know they face condemnation for the cuts they made but no commendation for the programs they saved.  In the upcoming years, Brandeis will have to tighten its belt to the point of discomfort, but we will be left with a university finally able to see beyond its darkest hour to a future with its core principles firmly intact.

Oh, and the even more succinct summary: http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2010/february/2020report.html

To oversimplify, the report was designed to suggest feasible changes Brandeis could implement over the next decade in order to save money. Many of the 18 suggestions proposed involve immediately, or within the next year, terminating masters and PhD programs. Also, a large portion of money would come from limiting arts programs, particularly the MFA program in theater design, and greatly reducing the Brandeis Theater Company’s budget.

Another point of interest is the proposal that the Hebrew Language and Literature major should no longer be offered, nor the undergraduate minor in Yiddish and East European Jewish Culture. Might this speak to the new direction the University is taking, in terms of our Jewish scholarship?

Budget cuts have to be made, but of course any of us who came to this school hoping to pursure a specific degree are going to be upset to see our department, major, or even passion cut down. I’m not sure yet what I think of the report, what do you all think?

Anyway, today  is also the day that the University is to release the recommendations of the Brandeis 2020/ CARS II Committee to the student body.   While, it’s definitely possible that there are “unforeseen circumstances” that make such a rare date with Jehuda impossible to hold, it simply seems too fortuitous to be simply coincidental.  It saddens me that one of the few channels for student access to the administration (and thus access to the decision-makers who affect our lives) was canceled without substantive explanation, particularly on such an important date in a time of crises and distrust.

In case you had forgotten about the steps University officials are quietly making in preparation to sell art from the Rose,Koplow told the faculty that “some of the solution will come from realizing value ultimately from some of the art at the Rose [Art Museum].” No whitewashing there.

In regards to academic cuts, Jaffe explained: “the board has essentially told us that we need to make reductions in our academic commitments;” to achieve these reductions, Jaffe has suggested that the University “eliminate the Music Composition graduate program, the Linguistics major and the teaching of ancient Greek, as well as [make] a reduction in the number of faculty in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Physics departments.” Koplow expressed the same sentiment: “if that means we can’t spend money on programs where we don’t do as well, that’s what it means.”

Just be sure not to forget – the Administration and Board still have every intention of cutting some departments entirely, and selling art from the Rose’s collection. As an alternative solution, Brandeis could draw from its endowment principle to make up shortcomings over the next few years (admittedly somewhat slowing our recovery) due to UPMIFA, a recent revision to MA law designed to help non-profit institutions deal with the recession. Last year, I wrote about this possibility of drawing down the endowment as an alternative to faculty cuts or art sales. The argument still applies.

On a more hopeful front, or perhaps to assuage the discontent of any Art-worshipping, Linguistics-studying activists listening, Koplow has also said that “a major pillar of this university is the mission of social justice, and this could be pushed more to the forefront and integrated into many of the programs.” I’d like to see some specifics on that.

But I think we need to look a little further. From all signs, it seems that the University is still planning to sell some artwork in the future, or at least keeping the option open. At Thursday’s faculty meeting, new VP Jeffrey Apfel said the University was considering “monetizing assets,” according to the Justice. He told the paper, “to some extent, that’s a reference to the Rose.” The University has hired a high profile defense attorney, Thomas Reilly, to defend itself against the suit brought by the Museum’s board of overseers to prevent any sale of the art. And if you read the Hoot a little while ago, you learned that this suit hinges on the financial independence of the museum from the University.

So to me, this new allocation, when we’re even more strapped for cash than we thought, seems a bit like a Trojan horse. By allocating so much additional money to the Rose, the University may be trying to build its case that the museum is not independent, in order to win the lawsuit. It will then be able to sell artwork for a quite a bit more than $200,000. This new “gift” to the Rose could be nothing of the kind. Of course, I don’t know how much merit this strategy holds, considering the allocation was made now, not before the suit was filed. So perhaps I’m stabbing at shadows, but I don’t think so.

Hooray, I guess. Can we save the Rose now?

*I won’t consider the Rose saved until the University drops its ridiculous lawsuit and hires a new director for the Rose.

Brandeis has decided, after considering some apparently rather unpleasant options, to suspend payments to its faculty and staff retirement accounts for FY 2010, a move it expects to save $7.4 million in an effort to make up a projected budget deficit of $8.9 million. Generally, the University matches individual donations (up to a certain percentage) to private retirement accounts, much as all employers are required to do with Social Security. Such benefits are standard at universities and in most of the nonprofit sector. Alas, no more. Read the detailed Justice article about it.

The NY Times has also picked up the story, and both esteemed publications are ambivalent to the merits of such a move.

From the Justice’s characterization, the faculty seem to be reluctantly accepting the decision, seeing it as a progressively fair way to deal with the problem, as the lowest paid staff members are generally not members of the retirement fund. From a human psychology point of view, losing theoretical future money is probably easier to cope with than losing money due to a pay cut, say, next year. The timing of the announcement – right after the onset of summer, when students and faculty are no longer naturally organized in one place – is also quite fortuitous. Probably, this one will slide by without major incident. Good thing for Peter French and his merry band of budgeteers those aren’t union contracts!

The report, which was released to the entire Brandeis community last Thursday, is just a preliminary document detailing the progress the committee has made towards compiling its final report, which will be released in early fall.  I recommend reading the whole thing, as there’s a lot to chew over (everyone with a Brandeis e-mail address should have received it on Thursday; if you didn’t get it/already deleted it, we’ll have it uploaded as soon as I can figure out how to use our media library you can find it here in PDF form).  The following are just some quick thoughts on points I found particularly important:

• Legally, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t continue to operate a public museum even after sales of art work.  Why was there so much misinformation about this?  Why did I hear so often that keeping the Rose open was impossible if we sold even part of the collection?  Why didn’t the University immediately correct these statements?  They must have done some research into the legal issues involved, right?  It’s a testament to utter failure of the message control over the Rose that not only was our course of action completely incorrect as initially announced, but that we couldn’t even get simple, critical facts like this correct.
• That being said, selling art for any reason other than to purchase other art is a huge taboo in the museum and art communities.  Of course, we already knew this.  However, now that we have clarified that the Rose itself isn’t going anywhere, it’s time for the art world to meet Brandeis halfway here.  Our message now is actually refreshingly frank and fair.  The facts are simple: the University as a whole is more important than the Rose; if the University fails, the Rose goes down with it; we are doing everything we possibly can to avoid selling any artwork; but if worst comes to worst, we will do as we must to maintain the Brandeis we know and love.  If the members of art community tries to dispute any of this, they are leaving their area of expertise, which is art, and trying to outdo university administrators at university administration.  If they instead approach us as allies with a vested interest in how we survive our time of crisis, we can come together to find the least damaging and most acceptable solution, and the lessons we learn and the bonds we form will keep a situation like this from ever occurring again.  Until the dogma of “art sales are bad, period” is abandoned, we are losing our only chance to make the best of this situation.
• The Future of the Rose Committee is remaining neutral on the core matter of selling art to raise funds, and I couldn’t applaud them any more for it.  Their stance will disappoint some people.  However, they are not avoiding this important debate; they are merely ensuring that it occurs in its proper setting, among the entire Brandeis community.  By ceding the chance to become partisans with the platform they were given, they are strengthening their position as unbiased researchers,  and the debate which will occur will be more informed for it.

Overall, the report is a great summary of what we know so far, and it will be a valuable tool to counter the negative propaganda which is still hounding us.  My personal thumbs up goes out to the Committee, and I look forward to reading the final report.