Innermost Parts » News Roundup

News Roundup: Justice 11/16

Morgan — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:37:52 +0000

The Brandeis Sustainability Fund releases the content of grant proposals.
The Justice on Chomsky
Student opposition to Israeli Occupation Awareness Week

News Roundup: Hoot 11/12

Morgan — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 17:52:52 +0000

Hope that your weekend is going well!

Two students were jumped in Waltham. One never reported it to Public Safety.
Chomsky.
The University has a whole buncha repairs to do. The board of trustees just published a request that administration perform these 170 million dollars of repairs. The Hoot investigates Brandeis’ plans to make crucial improvements to The Castle and the pool as well as a number of the other 54 buildings that are projected to need improvements.
New block schedule has been approved.
The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that will potentially impact 1.6 million dollars of The University’s operating budget.
Not news but some interesting opinion pieces: Mine, about the Chomsky walk out and Bret Matthew’s about campus activism and the rise of Greek life (really interesting!)

For more stories, check out The Hoot Website!

News Roundup: Justice 11/9

Morgan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:13:29 +0000

The faculty senate likes the proposed schedule change. It’s now up to the provost to make a decision as to whether it will go into effect next year.
Merit aid is on the decline as a part of the university’s effort to meet 100% of need.
Alumni giving has also dropped.
The 2011 Thomas Hunt Morgan medal is being presented to Professor James Haber.

For more stories, check out The Justice Website.

News Roundup: Hoot 11/5

Morgan — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:06:20 +0000

Sorry it’s a bit late.

The Brandeis Haiti Initiative is having a celebration to honor the efforts of an alum. awesome!
Student Halloween service projects
A schedule of and comments about Israeli Occupation Awareness Week. I feel like calling the opposing weeks an example of the “turf war” between Israel-minded groups on campus plays into the trend of arguments instead of discussions on campus, and devalues the important conversations that will be stirred up by this week’s events.
The budget is looking good!
Elections happened.

For more news, check out The Hoot website!

The Justice-11/2

Morgan — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:22:50 +0000

So much news.

The Justice takes a closer look at the Pachanga police violence incident. Students deny claims of violence and state that the police officer was aggressive. Both sides give their stories.
Drug and alcohol misuse will be examined by a new Brandeis committee.
The Board of Trustees meets to discuss potential improvements to student life and safety.
Another cage free article. The second Student Union poll is still up and the Union wants to make sure that students are actually supportive before any change is initiated. Super.
The Union will no longer be providing shuttles to Long Island. They will still be busing to Penn Station and Logan. They’re also considering adding another Bran Van.

For more stories, check out The Justice website!

News Roundup- Hoot 10/29

Morgan — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 14:30:43 +0000

All the news that’s fit to print.

Israel groups on campus engage in dialogue. Cool!
A judge from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda came to talk about the death penalty.

See the rest of The Hoot here!

News Roundup: The Justice 10/26

Morgan — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:24:27 +0000

Not a ton this week, but still:

Faculty is considering changing class blocks. The changes won’t go into effect until next year but take a look at the proposed plans
Pachanga was crazy. A police officer was bitten. What?

Check out The Justice website

News Roundup- Hoot 10/22

Morgan — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 17:55:42 +0000

Highlights from the October 22nd Hoot:

Thomas’ wife demands Hill apologize for confirmation charge
Details on Ginny Thomas’ bizarre phone call to Brandeis Professor Anita Hill, asking Hill to apologize for accusing Thomas’ husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, of sexually harassing Hill 19 years ago.
Financial crisis forced university to take more loans
Brandeis has increased in debt by forty-two million dollars this year, in part due to the financial crisis.
Horowitz blasts liberal nature of universities
A summary of a speaker on Israel, David Horowitz, hosted by the Brandeis Libertarian-Conservative Union. “He said the MSA is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group, and that the group Students for Justice in Palestine was a “fraternal jihadist organization.”” WTF?
Visiting teacher fears education is ‘losing its soul’
Professor Ellen Schrecker from Yeshiva University spoke about her fear of the effect of politics on American education and universities.
Town hall discusses admissions changes
Details on the 10/21 Town Hall meeting held by Student Union and Administration to discuss the admissions policy.
(and, just for fun) Bret Matthew’s and my opinion articles about cage free eggs.

For these articles and more, check out The Hoot website.

News Roundup-Mega Edition

Morgan — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:34:27 +0000

Here are a few of the highlights of The Hoot and Justice from the past two weeks with a short summary of each article.

Check them out!

The Justice, 10/12

Students for a Just and Stable Future organizes sleep out to promote clean electricity
The Justice re-caps a sleep-out held last week by Students for a Just and Stable Future to promote clean electricity.

Brandeis and Harvard chair Middle Eastern talk series
Professor Shai Feldman, the director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, and a board member from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University are working jointly on series of lectures regarding the Middle East entitled the “Crown-Belfer Middle East Seminar series.” This act of cooperation is in the interest of creating “a long-term forum and “permanent meeting place” where experts on the Middle East in the Boston area can join and provide information to each other.”

The Hoot 10/15

Brandeis in the running for top vegan-friendly school, PETA2 polling students
Brandeis has been put on a short list of the most vegan-friendly schools in the country!

The Justice 10/19

University endowment returns rise 13.8 percent
After significant fundraising efforts, the University endowment has increased significantly!

Sustainability fund receives eight proposals
The Brandeis Sustainability fund, in its first year of existence, has garnered eight applications for their sustainability grants which will fund a number of student generated initiatives over the course of this year. Very cool!

For all of these articles and more, check out at The Justice and The Hoot websites!

The News

Sahar — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:52:10 +0000

The latest news that matters from The Justice and The Hoot:

The University is ditching need-blind admissions. The Hoot’s take. The Justice’s take. My take: Not much to say about this, really, except “this sucks”. I think it’s kind of annoying that we have money to landscape outside of Bernstein-Marcus, but not enough money to give more people a chance to go to college. But I understand. I don’t think anyone likes this decision, but if the University says that it’s necessary we don’t really have much choice but to take them at their word.
Professor Chad Bown is off to the Council of Economic Advisors. The timing suggests that he’s filling the vacancy created by Christina Romer’s resignation as chair of the CEA, and Austan Goolsbee’s promotion to her place. No one really expects him to come back after his tenure as CEA, according to the Justice.
There’s almost an entirely new administration in place due to resignations or term limits. I was going to blog/remark on this sooner, but Nathan Koskella beat me to the punch. His piece is worth reading – solid work. We were playing a parlor game the other day – what’s the highest ranking administrator still in place from my freshman year? Kim Godsoe? Rick Sawyer? Elaine Wong? This game makes me happy – I like all of those people.
Marty Krauss is leaving.
NIH gave us money.
We gave Seyyed Hossein Nasr $25,000 for outstanding and lasting contributions to racial, ethnic and religious relations.”.
Chapels renovated.
OK GO IS COMING

The Hoot is good today.

Sahar — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:58:30 +0000

Check it out.

Article on Reinharz leaving for Mandel Foundation (and why did the Hoot quote him bragging about getting 7 job offers? I bet there’s a story behind this)
Our new (union) President looks good in white.
Like, no one showed up for the open forum last Monday. Not sure who to blame, but it definitely wasn’t advertised well.
The Hoot approves of Instant Runoff Voting. You’re welcome!
Brandeis’ self-image hasn’t caught up to its budget problems
A bunch of people organized and forced Aramark to not pay the people who pick their tomatoes quite to terribly. This is a good thing. Bret advises sending a letter to Aramark honchoes saying “good work!” This is probably a good idea.

News Roundup

Sahar — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:22:11 +0000

The latest news from the Justice and the Hoot:
Hoot:

The Presidential search progresses. As usual, the process might be technically transparent, but really, as a concerned student, I don’t where to startWho do I talk to? if I write a letter to the search committee, what topics should I address? It’s all so disempowering. I’m thinking of writing an open letter to the Presidential Search committee outlining what Brandeis students are feeling and what sort of President they want. Maybe it’ll start with “we want Brandeis to start trying to be Brandeis, and to stop trying to be Harvard?” Would you sign/help write such a letter?
President Jehuda has proposed a way for people making under $150,000 at Brandeis to get raises. This is good, yes?
Aramark food is legitimately unhealthy and crappy. But of course you already new that. More on this later.
The Hoot also talks about our community response to the MSA vandalism, of course.

The Justice:

The IBS, Heller, and Rabb school are going to get bigger. As much as I like the idea of Brandeis as a small liberal arts college, I think this could turn out well (beyond the obvious financial benefits). Heller School students are cool people! IBS students are cool people! etc. More cool people on campus would be a good thing. Though a lot of work must be put in to make sure that there’s more integration between graduate and undergraduate students.
There’s going to be a new German major perhaps.
The Justice also has an article on the community response to the MSA vandalism. Innermost Parts is in it so of course you should check it out.
The Presidential Search committee is progressing in its search. More on this later.
A commitee thinks it can save maybe 2 million dollars a year through more prudent purchasing and other logistical smartness.

And that’s the news.

Priorities

Adam Hughes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:00:45 +0000

The front page of this week’s Justice has, as its lead article, a story about the Constitutional Review Committee’s final report. The article is well-written, comprehensive, and informative, and it’s accompanied by a nice, eye-catching picture. The problem is that I don’t think anyone cares.

The CRC is one of those topics that’s only interesting to the very small minority of students who follow the Union closely. Its meetings were held behind closed doors, its mission is basically just a reshuffling of the Union government, and even the best changes it proposes will measurably affect only a small percentage of the campus community. You don’t have to take my word for it; in same issue’s ‘Brandeis Talks Back’ section, all four of the students they interview express complete apathy to the process. Yes, the report is significant enough to merit coverage, but does it really deserve its front page status?

Meanwhile, you’d have to turn to page 5 of the paper to learn that a potential hate crime occurred on the Brandeis campus this weekend. The newly-refurbished Muslim Student Association suite was viciously vandalized on Friday. The wall in Imam Talal Eid’s office was permanently damaged, and his personal copy of the Quran was stolen. The nature of the theft makes it hard to view this as anything but an attack against campus Muslims, and it absolutely sickens me to think that such a vile invasion could happen at the school I call home. But apparently, it’s worth only one-sixth of a page buried in the News section, next to a full page of advertisements.

During Diana Aronin’s impeachment and trial, many people complained about the petty disagreements that the Union officers turned into a public spectacle. I agree with them, but the campus media need to be held culpable as well for turning what should have been an internal Union affair into a weekly front-page spectacle. If our Union government suffers from self-importance, it is only because they’re used to getting undue attention for every minor issue. Meanwhile, the papers will continue to alienate their readers if they glorify topics that are ultimately irrelevant for most students. I suspect that students are far more interested in uncovering hate on our campus than on how big the Union Senate will be next year, and I think the every campus media outlet needs to reassess what its reporting priorities should be.

Today’s News

Sahar — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:32:16 +0000

- Some students and faculty from Al-Quds University came to Brandeis. This is because we’ve had a partnership with them since 2003. While the article talks about them interacting with Brandeis students, let’s be serious here. They only interacted with small percentage of the Brandeis population. I might be a bit upset because I wanted to meet them, but couldn’t.

- There’s going to be a new committee on Faculty Workload.

- The Provost’s Committee on the Assessment of Student Learning is moving along. The Brandeis push for individual and departmental learning goals is continuing.

- Trisk is big.

- You know the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism? The person who donated that money is going to be the US ambassador to the UN General Assembly. Cool!

- Students can’t choose the next University President. We do have an official student advisory panel on all this, however. They are going to hold a “Town Hall” style of event where students will lay out their vision of what a good presdient will be. This is a good step in the right direction. More on this later.

- The Student Union will soon debut a new money-management system, mandatory for all clubs. Also, a new website by thanksgiving.

- The Constitutional Review Committee met, didn’t really decide anything. A lot of stuff will be decided in the next meeting this Saturday.

- The Justice has an editorial called “Refocus Louis Louis Week”. I agree with them up to a point, but my main complaint about LL week is that it seems to involve throwing around our money for not much reason. Free food is a great way to use our money. Free trinkets? Not so much. That said, they’ve been a lot better this year; I can’t point to any example of flagrant waste this year. Good job! Also, this is probably just me being curmudgeonly, but I would like to see some sort of talk of Louis Brandeis. We’re celebrating his brithday, but not talking/learning about him at all. Why?

News Roundup: Finally caught up

Sahar — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:47:58 +0000

From The Hoot:

- Shula Reinharz (wife of President Jehuda Reinharz) thinks the Rose is saved. Then why is Brandeis University engaged in a costly legal battle to crush it and sell the spoils?

President Reinharz’s wife, Professor Shulamit Reinharz (SOC), approached the students and said, “If you want to keep doing something damaging to the university and the museum, then keep doing what you’re doing.” “They are misguided,” she later said. “They should be saying ‘I support The Rose.’ The Rose has already been saved.”

- That Harper’s article was sort of dumb, and Ariel Wittenberg has numbers to prove it.
- The Constitutional Review Committee is still forming.
- There’s a new committee on endowment transparency (CEER): “Sara Robinson ’12, Josh Hoffman-Senn ’12, Evan Green-Lowe ’10, Beau Bonness ’11, Amy Mandel ’10, Nipun Marwaha ’12, Matt Gabrenya ’13, and Coleman Mahler ’13″. Hopefully CEER will be more effective this year than last.