Innermost Parts

Brandeis has a pool again! 

As President Rosen's latest e-mail announces, "the Linsey Pool at Brandeis University is back up and running," with an opening ceremony scheduled for this Saturday.

This is a great accomplishment! Here's to the petitions members of the Brandeis community created, the e-mails they sent, the articles they wrote, the surveys they took, all of which added up to a strong plea to the Board of Trustees to renovate our pool!

From a BrandeisNow article published on March 31st, the day the Board of Trustees approved the renovation:

Student surveys showed that the pool was one of their top priorities, past members of the swimming and diving team strongly advocated for the facility and alumni lobbied both former President Jehuda Reinharz and President Lawrence.

Changes to expect from the pool when you go there, as reported by BrandeisNow? (If you were here long enough ago to remember the old pool.)

Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins said the project includes new mechanical and electrical infrastructure, new locker rooms, repairs to the pool and pool deck, a new entryway and updates to the lobby.

Go activism! Be proud, all those who campaigned for a new pool! Here is your dessert!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innermostparts

Best of luck to Audra Grady and Thank You for all the work you've done to expand the Experiential Learning program and more.

Elaine Wong
Senior Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences
MS 120 Brandeis University
PO Box 549110
Waltham, MA 02454-9110

The Brandeis Office of Study Abroad sent out an e-mail yesterday to students returning from studying abroad.

"Brandeis has been offered the opportunity to have our students (YOU!) participate in a pre- and post-experience assessment survey in a study on the effects of study abroad. 

This study is funded by the Teagle Foundation and is directed by the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM)."

Most of the survey asks to what extent you mixed with the natives of the country you visited, so I've been interpreting "native residents" to mean Chicagoans and "native tongue" to mean English.

Part of me regrets that my "study abroad" program (as Brandeis considers it) took place in Chicago because it means I missed out on a lot of uniquely international experiences. However, I think to say that you only experience "cultural immersion" while truly abroad is ignorant: I still interacted with people of different cultures and had to adapt to living on my own in a new city, adjust to new fields of study, and more.

So maybe this survey wasn't quite intended for me, but I just like filling things out too much to resist.

The exciting part of the survey comes close to the end, with a series of role-playing examples! Some of the answers seem very obviously biased (I can hear them being said in an arrogant "American" voice) and I think I can tell which answer the survey thinks I should select if I am a culturally-enlightened human being, while others are more ambiguous. 

Because there are 24 of these role playing situations, and each is pretty long, I've included the one I like the most directly below, and you can click the "see more" tab if you want to read the rest.

92. During the last 30 years the Chinese government has implemented a strict one child per family rule in order to keep the population under control. The latest figures have shown the male to female ratio is becoming unbalanced with a ratio nearing 1.2:1. This has been caused by increased abortions of female fetuses. The largely patriarchal history of China, which valued males for helping the family’s economic prospects, has contributed to this trend. What should China do at this point?

Read more…

Since 1929, the FBI has defined rape as "carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will."

Many have protested this narrow definition for its gender-specificity and focus on physical force over the years. Now, CNN reports, the Justice Department released a statement saying they will be updating and broadening the definition.

"The crime of rape will be defined as "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

Change.org, an online activist site that allows users to draft petitions in order to provoke change, e-mailed out a list of changes that have taken place in the past few months, including a petition urging the FBI to update their definition, in which they have been involved. 

Read below for the full text of the e-mail and consider starting your own petition today.

Read more…