Author: Adam Hughes

Guns at Brandeis — A Year Later

About a week and a half ago, Brandeis saw something that had never happened before.  Several Public Safety officers responded to an on-campus incident by drawing their firearms, the first time that has happened since the guns were issued last June.  After the fierce debates over arming campus police last year, there’s been surprisingly little said about the decision now that it has gone into effect, so I think this incident is as good an excuse as any to revisit the initial controversy and take stock of what we’ve learned since.

The incident in question occurred Friday, April 24th.  The Hoot described the circumstances:

According to [Director of Public Safety Ed] Callahan, a responding public safety officer had been looking at footage from a closed circuit camera placed in the quad after receiving a call about marijuana use near Shapiro residence hall when a scan of the quad revealed a huddle of male students by Deroy residence hall holding what appeared to be a small caliber firearm.

The officer watching the live feed waited until the group of boys pulled the back slide of the fire arm back and forth—something that could not be done on a toy gun— and then put the gun in a paper bag before responding to the quad with armed officers….

Once on the scene, the officers drew their semiautomatic handguns from their holsters in order to secure the scene before ordering the three male students to put their hands in the air and to get on the ground…

Unlike most others on Innermost Parts, I was not involved in Students Opposed to the Decision to Arm last year, and I never had a problem with the idea of arming our officers.  It was clear to me that Public Safety considered access to a firearm a necessary precaution in their job and that officers felt perpetually vulnerable without one.  I understand and respect the concern that many students had about changing the culture on campus by introducing weapons.  However, I’ve never had any reason to doubt the intentions and competence of Public Safety, and I felt that all necessary precautions were being taken to make wielding firearms as uncommon and controlled as possible.  If I do not trust an officer of the law with a gun, then I don’t trust him to be a police officer at all, and I never felt that this level has been crossed at Brandeis.

This incident only serves to strengthen my conviction that arming Public Safety was the right decision to make.  Because it took so long for firearms to be drawn, we can see that it is only under the most critical of circumstances that they will be employed.  In fact, the only reason they were drawn at all was in response to an illegal weapon, and though the student’s gun turned out to be a relatively harmless pellet gun, the threat of bodily harm to the officers was still all too real.  In a broader sense, I don’t feel that guns have become the uncomfortable presence that many feared they would be, and I’ve never heard anyone suggest otherwise.  The idea of students possessing illegal firearms is far more troubling to me, and we now know this to be a reality (the Hoot story mentions that this wasn’t the first firearm apprehended this year).  There is comfort to be found in the knowledge that these situations can be dealt with safely.

Still, I feel that SODA’s efforts last year were noble, and there have been tangible and positive effects coming from the outcry that students raised.  The increased emphasis on student rights we’ve seen this year comes directly from the concerns that were shared last year.  The formation of the Office of Student Rights and Advocacy, the distribution of “Know Your Rights” magnets, and the support and progress towards a Student Bill of Rights all owe something to the vocal presence of SODA.  The Senate Social Justice Committee put on some great events like the Search and Seizure Forum under the leadership of SODA member Lev Hirschhorn, and Innermost Parts itself might never have been founded had it not been for the reaction against arming.

Ultimately, the anti-arming movement was successful in some respects, even if they weren’t the goals it initially had in mind.  Healthy debate is never a bad thing, and the fact that students showed how much this issue meant to them could have something to do with the transparency over our one firearm incident.  But we should all be glad that a threatening situation was safely diffused, and it’s important to note that this is exactly what arming the police was for.

Thoughts on the Rose Committee’s Interim Report

“BRANDEIS IS NOT CLOSING THE ROSE AND SELLING ALL THE ARTWORK.” Words and italics from them, bold and caps from yours truly.  If you’re going to take anything from the interim report of the Future of the Rose Committee, make it that.  We’ve sat and listened as the Rose first was closed, then open for the semester, then for part of the summer, then the whole summer, then open indefinitely.  Finally, we have an absolutely definitive statement from a body that’s spent lots of time researching this very issue that the Rose is not going anywhere, and, in fact, that we’re bound by donor agreements to keep the Rose Art Museum open by that very name.

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.

What Bill Ayers Tells Us about Student Autonomy

Before my title deceives you, I unfortunately missed Bill Ayers’ lecture on Thursday, and I have no idea what he talked about.  He might have brought up the idea of student autonomy; chances are he didn’t.

The event itself, however, sure told us a lot about the freedom we enjoy as Brandeis students — and it showed us that our administrators are dedicated to keeping it that way.

Imagine you’re Jehuda Reinharz.  Your university has taken a series of PR hits in recent months, some of them undeserved, and is now fighting an image of financial insolvency and betrayal of key donors and the art community as a whole.  You are facing a decreased applicant pool while needing to accept more students than ever.  It is absolutely critical that you do as little as possible to alienate your recently accepted students while they decide if they want to spend the four most critical years of their lives paying your tuition.

In the middle of all this, a group of students wants to invite a controversial speaker to your campus.  Not just any controversial speaker.  This is a man who public opinion has labeled an unrepentant murderer and terrorist.  A man whose name was recently plastered over the national news in discussion of whether his acquaintance alone should disqualify someone from assuming the United States Presidency. You know that his speaking at your school will cause a minor uproar.  You’ve seen it happen at a nearby university of similar reputation, to the point where they canceled his appearance.

Predictably, the comment pages of the local newspapers soon fill with vitriol.  The worst stereotypes of your university are dragged up and rehashed over and over.  One website even publishes the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of you and your fellow high-level administrators, presumably causing your inbox to fill with angry, ignorant screeds.

Would you still allow the event to continue?

The administration really got in the students’ corner on this one and proved their commitment to allowing us autonomy and educational freedom.  Their public comments struck exactly the right tone — that Brandeis does not endorse Ayers’ actions, but that they believe in giving us access to a wide range of viewpoints, and, implicitly, that they will not interfere with our ability to plan our own events through established channels.  Even those who protested Ayers must realize the courage and respect for students that underlaid the administration’s singing off on the event.

It’s possible that Ayers’ appearance has already discouraged some prospective students from enrolling at Brandeis.  It’s also possible that those who take offfense to Ayers would never have considered a school like Brandeis in the first place, and that our defense of principle over petty criticism will impress the prospectives enough to work in our favor.  Either way, the administration deserves a round of applause for this one.

Why not send Jehuda an e-mail telling him how you recognize and appreciate the university’s stance towards student autonomy?  I’m sure it’ll be a nice break from the “OMG OMG HES A TERRERIST U PINKO COMMIE SCUM!!!!!!11″ spam that’s sure to be clogging his B-mail.

Andy Hogan, Our New President

Today is Andy Hogan’s second full day on the job as Student Union President, and despite this high-profile position, I feel he’s still something of an unknown quantity to much of the student body, much more so than Jason Gray was last year.  There are several reasons for this: the Presidential race was much less competitive and low-profile than last year’s, Andy has only been a Union officer for one year, and his work has been much more organizational than Jason’s very public advocacy for the Student Bill of Rights.  However, in a very short period of time, Andy has quietly built up a stellar Union resume.  Last fall, he handily won the North Quad Senate seat despite running as a sophomore in a mostly freshman quad.  In just one semester of work, he impressed Jason Gray enough to be named Director of Community Advocacy.  And last month, he won the Union Presidency by over 350 votes.  His talents and character have already changed the Brandeis community for the better and are quickly gaining wide recognition; however, for those who still don’t really know Andy or who would like to know him better, I’d like to give a quick introduction to our new Union President.

I should start by saying that I’m far from an unbiased source.  Though I felt that being off campus made it appropriate for me to refrain from public comment on the spring elections, I was personally very happy to see Andy win.  But my relationship with him is much deeper than mere Union politics.  Andy has been one of my best friends since our first few weeks at Brandeis.  We joined (and subsequently left) TRON together, played together on countless intramural sports teams, served together on the Squash club E-Board, served together on the Union Senate, roomed next to one another, shared music, been repeatedly mistaken for brothers, and generally shared some of the best times I’ve had at Brandeis.  He was my campaign manager during my run for the Vice Presidency, and I still credit my victory more to him than to anyone else.  So yeah, I kinda like the guy.  But I also know him very well, and looking as objectively as possible, I can say that I think he’ll make an excellent leader for the Student Union.

Innermost Parts is an activist community, so it’s of particular importance to us that Andy has established himself as a leader on activist issues in the Student Union.  One of his first major projects was planning the Combating Hate Fundraiser, which broke all attendance expectations and raised over $2,000 for a black church that was burned in protest of Barack Obama’s victory.  He followed that with another successful fundraiser for rape victims in the Rwandan genocide.  On a more Brandeisian level, he played a huge role in launching and running the Clubs in Service program, and he helped dorm-storm with Student for Environment Action to raise awareness of water-bottle reduction.  He’s the only Union officer I’ve seen to devote a page of his campaign website just to explaining his views on the importance of social justice at Brandeis.  Clearly, he intends to make these issues a focal point of the Union’s work next year.

Andy is particularly dedicated to the Union government’s role as an advocacy body, and one of his primary focuses is on bringing the Union’s work to every student.  In this way, I see his mentality as a natural successor to Jason’s core value of increased student involvement, both within the Union and in the entire Brandeis community.  He was one of the first senators to join the new Senate Outreach Committee, and he was one of its most active members, drafting the Stall Street Journal and planning events targeted at spreading awareness of the Union’s work to freshmen.  Critically, he views outreach as a tool for generating student feedback, not as a self-promotion gimmick.  He gave us the cell phone amplifier in Usdan in response to numerous student complaints, working successfully with administrators to improve student life.

His plans for next year come naturally from these concerns, and I’m very excited to see some of them implemented.  I’m particularly impressed by his ideas in the long-overdue area of club collaboration reform, which will create an online system for booking spaces and discussing co-sponsorship, making event planning quicker and less expensive.  Andy also wants to improve methods for instantaneous student feedback on Union projects.  Discussion boards have been very effective at generating diverse ideas from the whole community for the CARS subcommittees, and there is no reason why they cannot be used on a Union level as well.  He remains committed to starting and expanding environmentally-friendly projects like Deis Bikes, and his planned social justice identity forums will inspire discussion on the many ways this pillar of Brandeis is interpreted in the community, ultimately creating connections for socially responsible programs where none currently exist.

This past year has been unprecedented in the scope and importance of the Union’s successes, largely because of Andy’s contributions.  I expect Andy Hogan’s leadership to make next year just as productive as this one has been.

Leeyat Slyper Sworn In

For those of you who follow such things, the Elections Commission changed its mind on who won the Union Judiciary elections, and Leeyat Slyper was sworn in as the fifth Justice during Wednesday’s inaugurations.  Regardless of what you think about the interpretation of the elections rules, I can’t see anyone complaining too much about this; she clearly wanted the position when no one else did.  Congratulations, Leeyat! (and Justin, Matt, Judah, and Neda!  and everyone else who was sworn in on Wednesday!).

Thank You, Jason Gray

If you’re a regular reader of Innermost Parts, you probably already know how I feel about Jason Gray.  Getting to know him over the past year has been a complete pleasure and an honor for me, and I cannot repay my debt of gratitude for all he has done for me.  As a newly elected Vice President with little formal Union experience, I relied on his leadership to become comfortable on the Executive Board.  During the fall semester, his guidance never failed to point me in the right direction to accomplish the goals I had in office.  And when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to remain at Brandeis in the spring, his compassion and friendship gave me the strength to choose the path that was best for me, even in the most difficult moments.  But his influence this year extended far beyond me;  it’s safe to say that every student at Brandeis has profited from his peerless talents and genuine concerns as President of the Student Union.  With yesterday’s spring inaugurations, Jason’s term leading the Union has come to an end, and I want to take a quick moment to summarize all he has meant to the Brandeis community.

Jason told me once that, more than anything else, he wanted his legacy to be as an advocate for student rights and a promoter for student involvement.  “It’s about you” was his campaign slogan, and he never forgot to represent every viewpoint in each project he took on.  When many students were complaining about the service they received at the health center, he convinced the administration to give the center a through review, one which led to a number of substantive improvements.  When the student body opted to use the SAF rollover money for the creation of a new weight room, Jason not only consulted student athletes to determine what how we could purchase the most effective equipment, he made sure to find space for the dance groups which were displaced, and he fought to ensure that all students had equal priority to use it.  When the budget crisis hit and students felt left out of the decision making process, Jason fought to put students on all the newly formed committees, and he successfully planned town hall forums and informational meetings to give every student a clear picture of our finances and a voice in our future.

But his influence was also felt in far more subtle ways.  As leader of the Union government, Jason created an environment where every officer felt capable of leading his or her own projects.  ‘Deis Bikes happened thanks to the incredibly hard work of the eight-member Special Task Force on Bicycle Sharing, but their job was made easier because Jason would solve any logistical problems that came up with the administration.  When both the Coalition for Food Services Reform and the University Dining Committee were working to solve problems in dining, Jason helped to iron out the groups’ differences and to coordinate their efforts to achieve meaningful changes.  It was not rare for him to spend over eleven hours a day in meetings and on other Union work while still attending classes and staying on top of his schoolwork.  And not only did he always serve his mandatory Union office hours, he would frequently serve them in Usdan or in the Shapiro atrium so he could open himself to as many students as possible.

These accomplishments only scratch the surface of everything he achieved as Union President.  Proof of his success can be seen in the universal acclaim he received.  His praises have been sung publicly by trustees and administrators, activists, campus publications, athletes, and his fellow Union officers.  He has, in many ways, changed the way we perceive the Union on campus and ushered in a new level of student involvement in every facet of the University.  And while he has left the formal power structure of the Union government, I’m sure that he will continue to serve as an active voice for the causes he believes in next year.  Thank you, Jason, for all you have done for me and for Brandeis, and I know that I’m just one among the many who recognize what you have meant to us.

Who’s on Our New UJ?

There’s a debate in the comments of the election results post over who exactly won the Union Judiciary race.  This is a complex situation, and there’s a lot of confusion surrounding it.  I’ve looked at the election rules, the Constitution, and the vote totals as thoroughly as I can, and here are five scenarios on the election results to consider:

Scenario 1. What should happen: “Mandate” should be defined as being chosen by over 50% of the voters. Currently, it appears to be calculated as getting over 50% of the total votes, which is absolutely nonsensical because it’s impossible to get a mandate in a multi-seat election. In that case, Justin, Matt, Judah, and Neda received mandates, and, since Leeyat was chosen by over 10% of the voters (NOT votes), there should be a final round consisting of just her and abstain.

Scenario 2. What should happen otherwise: Article IX, Section 9 6 of the Constitution, which trumps the election rules, should take hold, and the five students with the most votes should be seated. Since Justin, Matt, Judah, Neda, and Leeyat all got more votes than abstain, they should all be seated.

Scenario 3. What should happen under the elections commissioners’ flawed and unconstitutional interpretation of the elections rules: Seeing as no one got over 50% of the vote, all candidates that got over 10% should go to a final round, as long as the final round ballot would be different than the first round ballot. Since this would be the case, there should be a final round consisting of Justin, Matt, Judah, Neda, and abstain.  See how messed up this is?

Scenario 4. What did happen: Justin, Matt, Judah, and Neda were all declared winners since they got over 10%, and Leeyat lost because she didn’t. I can’t find ANY reading of the Constitution/elections rules that supports this position.

Scenario 5. What will happen: Fucked if I know. I just can’t figure what the elections commissioners could possibly be thinking. Why is there always some kind of mistake in determining the results?

UJ Declines to Hear Case on Electoral Eligibility

The Union Judiciary just sent out an e-mail denying certiorari (declining to hear) a case brought by Henry Schleifer, a former write-in candidate for next year’s UJ.  Henry had formed a Facebook group to campaign for the position despite the fact he’s currently studying abroad.  However, because his term would technically begin next Wednesday during spring inaugurations, he is ruled to have violated Article IX Section 2 of the Union Constitution, which states “To be eligible to run for an elected Union office, a student must be… Studying on the Waltham campus for the entire period in which s/he will hold office.”  This decision was made by Tia Chatterjee on the basis of a precedent set in Tansey v. Herman in a 2002 UJ case and upheld on precedent by this year’s Judiciary.

Tia did the right thing by upholding the accepted interpretation of the law, but the fact that this precedent exists at all can only be described as fucking stupid (though even more explicit phrases might be appropriate as well).  Much of the justification for the decision in Tansey v. Herman is no longer applicable under more recent study abroad rules, and I find it to be pretty weak in any case (the entire decision can be found here in PDF form).  It seems that the Constitution has been changed in the time since the decision to make the “studying on the Waltham campus” requirement a little more apparent, but there’s still a very good case that the current interpretation is not what was originally intended.  Tia is quoted in the complaint as saying “Seniors who are quad senators violate that section too. terms for quad senators run from september to september. currently the quad senators for Village, Ridgewood, Mods, Ziv, Off campus and Charles River are all seniors. [sic]”  The Village and Mod Quads are for seniors only; under this interpretation, there is NO ONE who is eligible to represent either in the Senate.

I wish that the UJ had decided to hear this case and challenge precedent, especially considering that there aren’t enough balloted candidates for the five open spots, making it unlikely that anyone would really object.  The quickest way to change the policy from here on in would be to launch a challenge to one of the six aforementioned senators, a challenge which the UJ would be forced to accept for consistency’s sake.  I don’t suggest doing this without that particular senator’s consent; it would be unfair to make a senior who’s about to graduate go through the hassle of defending their seat for just one Senate meeting.  However, if one of those senators did agree, it would be a nice way to end their Union careers by helping to change this foolish precedent.

As it is, juniors studying about during their spring semester are prevented from serving in Union government positions for the final two years of their Brandeis career merely because of the 10 or so days they miss, which, because they fall during finals, are very rarely active days for the Union in any case.  I think most people would agree with me that that just isn’t right.

The full text of the complaint and the order denying certiorari are below the fold.

Continue reading “UJ Declines to Hear Case on Electoral Eligibility”

The Midnight Buffet — Is It Worth It?

At their last meeting, the Union Senate passed SMR S09-14, which provided funding for this semester’s Midnight Buffet, which will be held on April 29th.  The resolution called for $3650.10, and that total was apparently amended upwards to $3750 during the meeting.

The resolution itself is noteworthy for being over a thousand dollars lower than the traditional $5000 granted from the Senate’s operating budget for the Midnight Buffet.  The decrease was made in deference to the cap on the Union Activities Fee, and I’m pretty sure the additional money was or will be transferred to the F-Board to distribute to clubs during emergency request meetings.  This is a good gesture on the Union’s part to ease the substantial decrease in programming forced upon many clubs, but it’s still less than many people wanted.  While $1250 helps a little bit, the full $5000 would have helped even more.  Should the Midnight Buffet have been canceled in light of the F-Board’s decreased funds?

Those who have argued for cancellation point not only to the SAF but also to the economy in general, claiming that it’s irresponsible to spend so much money on a frivolous event (the Justice editorial page endorsed this perspective).  Clubs could use the money for more substantial events than what North Quad Senator Alex Norris calls the Union’s “Bread and Circus” event.  Giving the whole $5000 to the F-Board would open more of the SAF to the entire student body and take away from the amount that only the Senate has discretion over.

Proponents of the Midnight Buffet point to the event’s universal appeal and long tradition as a campus-wide celebration before finals.  Students deserve a reward after a semester’s worth of work and need something to alleviate the stress of finals.  I’ve heard many people describe the Midnight Buffet as one of their favorite events at Brandeis, and it always draws a huge crowd.  $3750 wouldn’t amount to much money when you consider how many clubs would be asking for a piece of it.   In addition, the Midnight Buffet is mandated by the Union bylaws, and changing the bylaw would make canceling the event a more complicated process than merely not funding it.

While I’ve always enjoyed the Midnight Buffet in the past, I think sacrificing it would be a small price to pay for the benefits of opening more money to the cash-starved clubs.  However, I accept that mine may be the minority opinion, and I ultimately think the event should be funded at the discretion of the student body as a whole.  In the future, I’d like to see the Midnight Buffet removed as a requirement from the bylaw; instead, I think the Senate should engage in more outreach and polling to determine on a semester-by-semester basis if the event is something the community truly wants.  The money being used comes from everyone — it’s only fair that everyone should have a voice.

An Update on the Clubs in Service Program

With all the press the Union government has received for its work in securing a student voice in budgetary committees, some of its other triumphs have flown below the radar.  The Clubs in Service program is one of my favorite Union initiatives this year, and its great intentions and success are unfortunately under-recognized.

Jason Gray first announced and described the program in November during last semester’s State of the Union:

The University’s Department of Community Service has the resources and connections for all clubs to be able to partner with Waltham and provide services to the community.

For example, the debate team could teach public speaking at a local school. An a capella group could sing at a local shelter. Your club can play chess or knit at a nursing home, shoot hoops at the Boys and Girls Club, cook a holiday meal for those in need, or organize a talent show at the YMCA. The opportunities are endless.

Every club could have a community-service component to it.

Today we challenge every club and organization to engage the community in service, and we commit ourselves to helping this challenge succeed.

The Hoot’s article on the speech included my very positive first impression of the idea.  And yes, I am about to blockquote myself:

Student Union Vice President Adam Hughes ’11 said after the address that while the Union’s executive board has yet to discuss how it will specifically aid clubs in adding a community service component, he hopes to make it as easy as possible for clubs to meet Gray’s “audacious call to action.”

Hughes said he imagines that the Union would “spend a significant amount of time next semester” helping to connect clubs with Waltham organizations.

“We don’t want this to be a huge ordeal for any club,” Hughes said. “This is a great actualization of Brandeis goals, and we want to make it as easy as possible for clubs to achieve.”

Here on Innermost Parts, Loki was more to the point:

Ideologically, I was most struck by  the point near the end of the speech when Jason challenged every single club to get involved in the surrounding community. This. is. a. fucking. great. idea.

I was involved in some of the early planning discussions when the program itself began to take shape.  The Union government would do the publicity, reaching out to clubs by e-mail and in person to get them on board.  They would send the clubs to the Waltham Group, who already had a great list of contacts and potential programs for clubs to be involved in.  The Waltham Group would work with the club leaders to plan a service event that would incorporate each club’s unique focus and to work out all the logistics.  In the end, we would be left with the perfect synergy of student resources to take advantage of our ability and desire to improve the Waltham community.

The program was launched in early February.  Class of 2012 Senator Akash Vadalia led the Union side of the program, and his great outreach laid the groundwork for success.  His goal was to get 15 clubs to participate in this, the program’s first semester, which would lay the groundwork for expanding it in the future.

Did we get there?  Just ask Jason:

This semester, some 31 clubs have signed up to participate and involve their clubs in community service.

Jason and Akash deserve tons of credit for leading the program to success beyond anyone’s expectations, and the Waltham Group worked tirelessly to accommodate every club sent their way.  And though Clubs in Service has already done amazing work in the community, its future is even brighter.  The program has a friend in a very high place: Union President-Elect Andy Hogan.  Andy made the expansion and institutionalization of Clubs in Service one of his foremost campaign platforms, and with his strong track record of planning successful community service projects (the Combating Hate fundraiser, the Rwandan rape victim fundraiser, past involvement in Clubs in Service), I’m confident that he’ll make the program even stronger.

If you’re involved with a club that hasn’t participated in Clubs in Service yet, you should definitely try to get it involved.  I’m not sure if the program is still active this semester, but it’s worth finding out.  At the very least, it’s never too early to start planning for next year.  Contact Jason (jgray@brandeis.edu), Akash (akashv@brandeis.edu), or Andy (alhogan@brandeis.edu) for more information (I’m not sure who would be best right now, but I’m sure any of them could point you in the right direction).  Community service is such a great way to make a difference in so many people’s lives, and I’m proud that Brandeis has proven itself a leader yet again.

An Interfaith Success Story

If you could sum up successful interfaith dialogue in three words, what would they be?

How about “Homies in Harmony”?

If those aren’t quite the words you had in mind, then you clearly weren’t one of the organizers of last week’s Jews and Muslims Session: Homies in Harmony III.  I wish that I had been able to make the event, because it seems like it was just as successful and entertaining as its name.  Check out this story in the Justice for a full overview of the event, but the basic premise was to create an interfaith conversation that would both allow for discussion of personal, controversial feelings and maintain a level of respect that would encourage participants to form friendships with people from unfamiliar faith tradition.  My good friend Neda Eid helped to organize the event, and she told me after the fact that she was very excited by how well it turned out.  Judging by the quotes from the article, it seems most of the participants felt the same way.

Last year marked a low point for interfaith dialogue at Brandeis.  It seemed that every few weeks introduced another controversy that played itself out in the papers and left a lot of hurt feelings.  The charter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the Israel 60th birthday resolution, aspects of the Mamoon Darwish saga and of the Senator-at-Large election and Judiciary case — I’m sure most of you still have sour memories of all of these events.  Even the Boston Globe took note of the firestorm the campus had become.  It’s counterproductive to go back and assign blame for everything that happened (I certainly don’t claim to be innocent myself), but I think it was clear to everyone that something had to change.

And something did change.  To the credit of the entire Brandeis community, this year has been almost completely free of the public battles that marred ’07-’08.  It’s hard to say exactly what did it; perhaps everyone just got tired of seeing so much bad blood.  Regardless, everyone at Brandeis should be proud that the interfaith dialogue on campus has improved so substantially over last year.

However, this clearly doesn’t mean that anger and bitterness don’t still exist.  Tension among religious groups has existed as long as humans have; should we really expect it to disappear overnight from our campus?  And just because it isn’t spilled out over the front pages of the Hoot and the Justice doesn’t mean that it has no effect and that we are best off ignoring it.  JAM Session should serve as a model for how to deal with these tensions productively and turn them into tools for strengthening our community.  It seems that plans are already in place to develop a more frequent series of conversations, and I encourage everyone to get involved with this in some way.  The elephant in the room is the Israeli-Palestinian tension, the biggest source of interfaith conflict on campus.  JAM Session wisely kept the focus on more general interfaith issues (though Israel/Palestine wasn’t explicitly excluded), but eventually that discussion needs to be had.  We should look at JAM Session as a model for approaching these issues in a way that allows respectful disagreement and productive action.  Brandeis has come a long way since last year, and though we may not be there yet, I have great confidence that we’ll eventually be able to engage even the thorniest of issues and remain homies in harmony.

Updated Elections Results

Well, you all protested the lack of Pigasus results, and the powers-that-be have listened.  Tia Chatterjee sent out an e-mail to the candidates today with the full election results including votes for ineligible candidates.  Pigasus wound up with 17 votes for President (22 if you include the various misspellings).  My favorite protest vote, however, has to be the person who voted Donald Rumsfeld for Vice President.

The complete e-mail is below the fold.

Continue reading “Updated Elections Results”

Elections Results

Here they are:

Congrats to Andy for President, Amanda for VP, Daniel for Treasurer, Diana for Secretary, Akash, Julia, Makelensky and Gabriel and Lisa for Fiance Board (all positions), and Nicole for UCC.

There will be a final round for Junior Rep to the Board of Trustees. It will include Heddy and Sahar.

There will also be a final round for Junior Rep to the Alumni Association. Jourdan and Sam.

The polls for the final round open at 12:01 AM on Sunday April 5th. They will be open until 11:59.

Continue reading “Elections Results”

The Arts at Brandeis

It’s been two weeks since Jason Gray made this call to the Brandeis community:

[T]oday, I challenge the University administration to engage the arts community in order to find tangible ways to invest in the long-term future of the arts at Brandeis. I call for a series of meetings between administrators and members of our artistic community to discuss ways to ensure that Brandeis remains a fertile ground for artistic creativity even amidst the financial situation.

I haven’t heard about any progress being made on this issue since the State of the Union, but I hope the Union (or some other party) is following up on it.  This is a tough time for everyone at Brandeis, but the art community has been particularly hard hit.  The closing of the Rose Art Museum is the most obvious reason, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.  Just as important is the way in which the decision was made and announced, the current uncertainty about the Rose’s exact status, and the various other cuts that the art department has faced.  Jason made the historical importance of the arts to the university very clear in his speech, and I know that there are many professors and students who need reassurance from the administration that they remain a priority.

The cuts outside of the Rose have not gotten nearly as much general publicity, but they have contributed to the sense that the arts just aren’t as important anymore.  One of Brandeis’s true jewels, the Lydian String Quartet, has been reduced to part-time status for next year, a move that violinist Daniel Stepner says may force a decreased concert schedule for next year.  The Hoot has more on the importance of the group and the effect of the reduction:

The quartet, founded in 1980, is an internationally acclaimed chamber ensemble dedicated to reinvigorating works from the classical canon while exploring contemporary pieces. The group has won ensemble prizes at important festivals in France, England, Canada and the United States, given performances in prestigious American and European concert halls, and released more than twenty musical recordings. Yet despite their worldly ambitions, the quartet feels most at home at Brandeis University, where all the members are part of the teaching faculty and regularly give performances.

Before the program began, the quartet announced that the university would be cutting back its position to half time for the following year, but that the ensemble would figure out a way to continue offering concerts to the Brandeis community and broader listening public. At a time when cutting back on the arts appears to define the university’s modus operandi, the announcement came as more troubling than shocking.*

It’s sad to see another world-renowned art institution handicapped by the budget crisis.  In addition, the Music Department has lost and not replaced three full professors in the past few years, and the graduate program suffered cuts even before the budget crisis hit.

Of course, the Rose has been the focal point for controversy this semester.  The official statement released by the Fine Arts Faculty shows how deep their surprise and disappointment at the initial announcement was:

In addition to despairing at the Trustees’ action, we wish to make clear that at no point in the decision making process was the Department of Fine Arts faculty consulted. Neither was there any communication regarding the decision with the Rose Board of Overseers on which a member of the faculty sits. Nor was any reference made to the museum at the university-wide faculty meeting last Thursday (January 22) when strategies to confront the current fiscal crisis were discussed.

The department faculty wishes to express our profound sadness at the consequences of this abrupt action for the liberal arts mission, cultural life, and intellectual legacy of the university…

As to the proposed future of the museum building, at no time before or after notification of the decision, have members of the Fine Arts Department expressed a desire to change the function of the Rose or reuse the building. There is no academic advantage to be salvaged from closing the museum and selling our art. It is a sad response to the current fiscal crisis that treasures left in trust for current and future students are now being sacrificed. The department remains committed to continuing the legacy of the intellectual and artistic practice here. We are losing an irreplaceable tool to fulfill that goal.

Since then, we’ve had a series of backtracking and vague, contradictory statements about what exactly will happen to the Rose, and its future remains very uncertain.  What we do know is that the Rose contains one of the best collections of modern art in the world, and it now appears very likely that we’re going to lose at least some of its masterpieces.

I know that many of these cuts may be necessary due to the state of our budget, and I think the administration has done a much better job of handling these situations in the past few months.  However, we cannot allow the arts community to feel marginalized and irrelevant in the decision-making process or in campus life.  Jason was absolutely right to call for meetings to remove these feelings and to plan a solid future for the arts at Brandeis, and I hope we can see his goal realized soon.

*The article I quoted was written by Max Price, the Diverse City editor and a great writer and good friend of mine.  His piece “Arts resources at Brandeis: Use them or lose them” is the best statement I’ve read on the importance of the arts in general and at Brandeis.  I highly recommend you check it out.

Respect

I just got around to reading the Justice’s article about the State of the Union today, and one thing in particular really jumped out at me:

“I think his speech was one of the most outstanding you can imagine from a student leader,” said Rena Olshansky ’56, a member of the Board of Trustees’ Students and Enrollment Committee, who said that it was her first State of the Union address. Commenting on the Union Rena said, “I think the [students] set their agenda, and that’s important.”

University Provost Marty Krauss, who attended the speech, said in an interview with the Justice, “[Gray] has a tremendous amount of respect among the members of the administration because he’s a mature person; he’s diplomatic; he thinks about the perspectives of many constituencies; he’s smart; and he makes really good recommendations, and he gets things done.”

Senior Vice President of Communications Lorna Miles, who also attended, added that Gray “has been incredibly vital; his legacy is having created a consciousness in the University among the administration and the faculty that students are part of the day-to-day governance of this community.”

That’s an incredible amount of respect for Jason Gray coming from the administrators and trustees who attended the speech.  We’ve already heard the great praise that Jason gets from the student body, and it’s really satisfying to know that the other members of the Brandeis community feel the same way.

This kind of universal acclaim is impressive enough on its own, but I find it even more impressive when viewed in the context of the content of Jason’s address.  The speech was not tailor-made to draw praise from the administrators.  Several times, Jason challenged the University to meet goals that he set, and he wasn’t afraid to call the administration out on several mistakes.  Most notably, he directly stated, “[T]here is no doubt that the Rose Art Museum has become a case study in what not to do procedurally.”  Isn’t that hard-hitting?

So what does all this mean?  First, it says something very positive about our administrators.  By praising the speech so effusively, they’re letting us know that student participation is not incumbent on our complete deference to their decisions.  They are willing to have a dialogue with us, allow our disagreement, and even to admit mistakes and work towards changing them.

But it also says so much about Jason himself.  He has the rare ability to say exactly what needs to be said while striking the right chord for every party involved.  This didn’t just happen overnight; it is the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work, determined advocacy, and appreciation for everyone’s point of view, and it shows what big shoes our next Union leaders will have to fill.  Ultimately, Jason’s greatest success might be that he was able to treat every single Brandeisian with respect, and it should be no suprise that he has received so much respect in return.

A History Lesson from J-Gray

For a speech with a theme of “Looking Forward”, Jason Gray’s State of the Union went pretty far back to the past — all the way to 1946, in fact, to the University’s founding.  Of course, this isn’t a criticism; the past is our best (and maybe our only) tool for predicting the future, and Jason effectively used several anecdotes to guide our approach to the next few years, both in attitude and in deed.  They were among my favorite parts of the speech, and they put some of our current struggles into context.  I’d like to quickly examine these passages, but first I want to encourage anyone who has a story about Brandeis’s past that they find particularly revealing or just plain interesting to share it through the comments or by e-mail to czar@innermostparts.org.  I’d like to explore more of Brandeis history, and anything we receive will be researched and incorporated into a post at some point.

I’ve heard several times in relation to the financial crisis that Brandeis has gone through worse struggles before.  However, overall I think the campus discussion has been surprisingly sparse on any actual details of historical parallels.  I think it would be a great relief to many people if we could point to specific situations where Brandeis has handled difficult finances before and come out fundamentally intact.

Can we find guidance in the University’s founding?  Jason think so:

In 1946, even before Brandeis became Brandeis, a group surveyed the campus.  They found it badly run down.  Walks were eroded.  A Castle had been built, yet built without an architect.

When Abe Sachar was approached to be the first University President, he was warned by a friend that the Brandeis project would be “a great disaster” and “nothing but pain.”

But the promise of what Brandeis could be was so much greater than any of the potential challenges.

The castle was improved, cafeterias built, faculty recruited, and students matriculated.  By early 1949, the same friend who had warned Sachar against accepting the job, visited the campus.  Standing under the arch of the Castle, he said “I thought it could not be done, but…  it had been.”

In a specific sense, I don’t think they University’s founding has much to tell us about our current situation.  Yes, Brandeis’s founding was not without significant challenges, but they seem to be more infrastructural and administrative than financial (I’m basing this mostly on Jason’s speech and Wikipedia.  Any corrections would be greatly appreciated).  Regardless, the methods for funding a fledgling university in 1946 and for rescuing an established university in 2009 are quite different.  Jason’s point is more general: Brandeis has shown the ability to overcome the odds in the past, and the ideas that helped us then still exist today.  If nothing else, the passion of the entire community to come together and help the University shows that we all still believe that the promise of Brandeis remains so much greater than the challenges.  If that philosophy was enough to set Brandeis in motion, it will be our greatest ally in keeping it strong.

The other key passage is much more specific:

At our founding, our curriculum was informed by a Harvard general education report from 1946. It recommended studies in a core curriculum, humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

Brandeis, however, was not satisfied. We added another area to our curriculum: the study of music, theater, and the fine arts.  This commitment is one from our founding, and one we must continue.

Jason’s comments on the arts deserve broader discussion and action than this post allows, so I’ll hold most of my thoughts for later.  For now, I’ll just say that this provides the perfect framing for discussing the arts at Brandeis.  Art was deliberately included as one of the building blocks of our curriculum, and it must remain there, or we will be betraying the ideas this university was founded upon.

Our history is indeed very interesting and bears much more attention than it often gets.  If you’re interested in exploring it further, I recommend the very comprehensive “Brandeis University: A People’s History” hosted off the official Brandeis homepage and Phil LaCombe’s excellent series of posts from last year: Blunders of Brandeis (here, here, and here) and The Castles of Brandeis (here, here, and here).  Again, we’d love to hear your own stories, so post and send away!

Our Great Swim Team

I’m still on the Brandeis Athletics press release e-mail list from my time as the Hoot’s sports editor, and I still read the e-mails and keep up with how the teams are doing.  Today’s release about the NCAA D-III Swimming and Diving Championships was particularly impressive:

Brandeis University rookie swimmer Marc Eder (Princeton, N.J./Lawenceville School)  had a pair of lifetime-best performances, including a school record, in two optional events at the NCAA Division III Men’s Swimming and Diving championships at the University of Minnesota… On the first day of competition, Eder improved his time by nearly five seconds in the 200-yard individual medley… [In the 100-yard breast stroke] Eder improved 16 places… missing All-America honors… by 1.04 seconds.

Wow!  A rookie swimmer breaks a school record and exceeds expectations at the NCAA Championships!  If anyone knows Mark, be sure to congratulate him on this incredible performance.

However, it becomes a real shame when you realize that Eder has only one year left to swim at Brandeis before funding issues and the lack of a pool will probably force the swim team to disband.  And he’s not the only great freshman talent that we won’t get to see mature fully.  Angela Chui broke two Brandeis records in her very first meet and came very close to making the NCAA Championships herself.  Now, both Marc and Angela will have to decide whether to stay at Brandeis and not swim or to transfer to another school.  I’m not sure what I’d advise for them.  On the one hand, I passionately love Brandeis and believe it’s the best place in the world to get the particular education and experience it offers.  On the other hand, Marc and Angela both came to school expecting to swim, and it would be difficult to see their tremendous potential go unfulfilled.

I have a close friend on the swim team, and I’ve seen first-hand the hard work and dedication the swimmers put into their sport and the disappointment they will feel if they can continue competing.  Our budget may not allow for a swim team beyond next year, but these athletes deserve the chance to keep doing us proud in the water.  Lindsey Pool should have been renovated long before it’s problems reached the critical point, and though I understand that reality that’s facing the administrators and appreciate the difficult position that they’re in, I still hope we can find away to keep Brandeis Swimming and Diving alive into the future.

To read more about the the team and to find out how you can help, visit www.supportbusdt.com.

Sports Information Director Adam Levine’s full press release is below the fold.

Continue reading “Our Great Swim Team”

Complete State of the Union Text

If you couldn’t make Jason Gray’s final State of the Union on Tuesday, then you missed out on a very good speech.  Thankfully, Innermost Parts is here for you again (Have we ever let you down before?  Don’t answer that…).  Below the fold is the complete text of the speech, titled “Looking Forward: Student Involvement, Student Rights, and Student Advocacy”.  I’ll have more thoughts on the speech itself and several key points from it in the next few days, but for now, I encourage even those who already saw it to peruse it again and get an idea of what the Union has done this semester and what is still ahead.

Continue reading “Complete State of the Union Text”

Cell Phones? In Usdan?!?!

Here’s Andy Hogan, the Union’s Director of Community Advocacy, discussing the new cell phone amplifier in lower Usdan.  Andy was the driving force behind the project and secured funding for it from the Office of Facilities Services.:

As of Monday morning, you can now use your cell phones in lower Usdan.  The amplifier that was installed takes reception from outside and projects it into the building.  If your phone has bad reception normally, than this is not too much of an improvement for you (sorry T-mobile users).  However, if your phone gets normal reception outside, you will now be able to use it while eating in lower.  As for the range of the amplifier, the stairs between upper and lower still has poor reception but I have been able to get service from Home Zone to the C-store.  If you want to look for it, its installed on one of the walls of the skylight in the middle of lower.

As I was dormstorming during my campaign for North Quad Senator, one of the main issues people had was cell phone reception on campus.  Many people’s phones did not even work in their dorm but mainly people complained about lower Usdan.  At first, I looked for improving reception on the whole campus.  When this proved too expensive and difficult to coordinate with the companies I looked specifically for lower Usdan.  I found this amplifier and spoke to facilities about installing it.    There have been many complaints about this project as a waste of funds in a time of cutting down, as a luxury.  This is a useful project because even though we are cutting back it is important to always improve our campus.  We should not just shut down in a time of crisis, we should fight for improvement and even luxuries.  When I went around to my constituents, they gave me a way to improve the campus and as a student government representative I wanted to fulfill their suggestion.

Building a Wider Donor Base

It’s no secret that Brandeis’s fundraising is much too slow right now and that the Madoff scheme is a big reason why.  The failing economy would be a huge handicap on it’s own, but dealing with the greatest theft in history targeted mostly toward our greatest donor base has made our situation critical.  We know that the University already has an excellent fundraising department — it was only last August that we were hearing about the record amounts of money we were taking in.  Yet the obvious questions are being asked.  Is Brandeis too reliant on the wealthy Jewish community for fundraising, and if so, how can we diversify our base of support?

Jewish sponsorship has always been fundamental to Brandeis’s identity.  It is one of our four pillars, and it connects us to the Jewish community in a way that I deeply appreciate, even as someone with no Jewish background.  Thus, any steps we would take to diversification should never come at the expense of our Jewish connection.  Indeed, it is just as important to ask ourselves how we can ensure this connection stays strong.  I’ve heard that many more conservative Jewish groups have grown somewhat suspicious of Brandeis for various reasons (most notably for Jimmy Carter’s visit), and we cannot afford to lose them as supporters and donors.  Obviously, we have to balance our Jewish sponsorship with our non-sectarianism, and I’m certainly not suggesting that Carter should not have been allowed to come.  However, we must always be clear that our goal is to expand and not to replace our current base of support.

Honestly, all of these questions are far beyond my level of expertise, and I assume that any suggestions I could offer have already been thoroughly explored.  In fact, I think it’s very possible that we’re doing everything we can to expand and that the only way to grow a larger donor base is through the passage of time.  As the University matures, more families and organizations will develop personal connections with Brandeis through our alumni.  Targeted campaigns might draw donations for people or groups who want to further specific missions, but overall I imagine that it’s difficult to find communities willing to donate to a college to which they have no personal connections.

The biggest immediate concern might be the waves of negative press coming from the Rose decision.  Many alumni seem to have rallied for the Rose, and let’s hope that they still view us as worth their donations.  Still, if you subscribe to the view that any publicity is good publicity, perhaps we can use this as an opportunity in a very public forum to ask for help from donors.  We don’t want to scare off new recruits by appearing too desperate (if it’s not too late for that already), but hopefully the Rose will prove to potential donors that the stakes we are facing are very high.  I don’t think we can construct a fundraising campaign around the Rose without looking bad; people won’t like the idea of art used as cajolery any more than art used as a slush fund.  Still, it’s not every day that Brandeis draws so much national attention, and if we can use it to point out all that we have worth giving to, perhaps we can find a silver lining.

Money, and Why Your Club Isn’t Getting Any

In the wake of the Finance Board’s marathon decisions, a lot of clubs have been wondering why they got so little money compared to previous semesters.  It’s not the budget situation — the Union Activities Fee is fixed and thus divorced from the budget cuts.  So why is everyone getting less than usual?  Here’s the situation to the best of my understanding (all info courtesy of the Student Union Constitution.  If I’m wrong at any point, feel free to call me out in the comments).

The Union Activities Fee is divided into three separate funds:

  • The Union Government Fund goes to the government, providing the E-Board discretionary, the Senate discretionary, and several other small projects.  From here, we get the newspapers, the bikes, the Midnight Buffet, and a bunch of other government projects.
  • The Justice Printing Expenses Fund goes to the Justice.  To maintain separation between the press and the government, the Justice doesn’t have to go through the F-Board for money.
  • The Finance Board Allocations Fund is by far the largest fund, and it’s the one we’re interested in here.  This is the money that goes to Chartered Union Organizations, which are all chartered clubs.

In the past, the Union Activities Fee has been fixed at 1% of the total tuition.  This meant that inflation wouldn’t affect the Fee, because it would increase along with tuition.  However, that changed as of this year.  The substantial roll-over money that the F-Board had accrued convinced the administration that the Union was getting too much money, and part of the requirements they set for allowing us to keep the roll-over and build the new weight room was that a cap was to be placed on the UAF.  Thus, when tuition increased over last summer, the UAF stayed where it was last year.

Unfortunately, the economy didn’t.  As the cost of living has gone up, exacerbated by the recession, the money that the F-Board has to allocate isn’t going as far as it used to.  It’s my understanding that the F-Board allocated money as they usually would during the fall semester, which is why no great changes were felt.  However, that has left them with a smaller pot than ever before for the spring.  Hence, across the board, activities that deserve to be funded have not gotten the money they deserve.

Solving the problem is as simple as convincing the administration to remove the cap on the UAF.  The budget crisis may complicate that, but the increase would be a relative drop in the bucket to the shortfall we’re facing.  More importantly, we need to assure them that the roll-over won’t happen again.  Responsibility for the roll-over is somewhat complex and is shared between past F-Boards and clubs that didn’t spend all their allocations.  However, last year’s treasurer Choon Woo Ha instituted several reforms to ensure that the problem wouldn’t repeat itself; I’m very hazy as to what exactly they are, but thetreasurer.org probably has more information if you’re interested.

In short, the problem isn’t with the current F-Board or the current Treasurer, Max Wallach (who I know from personal experience to be very thorough and good at his job).  Let’s hope that the UAF cap is removed, and clubs will once again be able to get the funding they deserve.

Our Financial Model — The Past and the Future

As details of our financial situation have come out, it has become apparent that Brandeis is in worse shape than many other universities.  There are several well-known reasons for this.  Our relative youth means our endowment is much smaller than most institutions of similar standing.  The Madoff scandal affected our donor base much more heavily than most schools.  However, some of the blame has to go to the financial model that Brandeis has been working under for the past few years.  For those unfamiliar with Brandeis’s spending patterns, this post is the most comprehensive explanation I’ve seen and is definitely a must-read.  Basically, even as we were receiving record fundraising totals, our spending was so aggressive that we took on an incredible amount of debt, and the market failure has left us with obligations we can no longer come close to meeting.

For what I gather, aggressive spending has been a common feature of Brandeis’s recent history, and though recent circumstances make it tempting to view this as a complete mistake, we must also recognize the good that has come of it.  Simply put, I doubt that there is another university in the nation that has done so much with so little.  Flawed as they are, the US News and World Report rankings provide good perspective on where our reputation stands.  Brandeis is number 31 among national universities, an amazingly high position considering we are only 61 years old.  Plus, we are much smaller than every other school in our league; the only smaller school above us is the much less diverse CalTech, and the next school with an enrollment below our 5,333 is WPI at number 71.  And while the numbers obviously don’t mean everything, I think every Brandeis student realizes that we are incredibly lucky to be attending this school.  Our faculty is excellent and very well respected, our facilities have been constantly improving, and we’ve enjoyed visits from the top names in almost every field of study.  This kind of success doesn’t come cheap, and it’s safe to say that without our aggressive spending patterns, our meteoric rise to the upper echelon of academia could not have happened.

Yet this success was also gamble, as we see now.  Yes, we had an emergency fund, but it was obviously too small for a crisis of this magnitude.  And while the combination of horrible recession and Madoff could not have been predicted, I’ve seen no evidence that there was any kind of emergency plan in place for disaster, something I imagine would be elementary.  Is it possible that selling the Rose was always going to be the backup plan?  I doubt it.  If so, it would have been carried out much better.  Even if it was, it’s obviously not a very appetizing one, even if you ignore the (very convincing) arguments against using art as an ATM.

So how are we to judge the university’s past financial model?  The answer will come in how Brandeis weathers the current crisis.  If we emerge bruised but largely intact, then the failure of emergency planning is a mistake that will not come close to eclipsing what should be recognized as one of the greatest feats of university management in history — the development of a leading national school in just over half a century.  If our reputation and standing are permanently damaged, then Brandeis has gambled away its future and made all of our degrees that much less valuable.  The stakes are incredibly high.

I consider myself very lucky to be connected with a school as great as Brandeis, and I’ll view a few years of relative stagnation as a small price to pay for all the great things that Brandeis has to offer.  However, if the Brandeis I leave is fundamentally weaker than the Brandeis I decided to attend, I’ll feel cheated and used.  In short, my recommendation for the financial model of the future is one that is still very aggressive; in fact, as aggressive as possible while still providing a plan to help us survive lean years.  However, I can also understand why some people will want to see much more caution in the future.

Let’s start this discussion in the comments.  What do you think Brandeis’s long-term financial model should look like?

The Future of Financial Transparency

In the past few weeks, the Brandeis administration has become much more transparent about the financial situation that the University is facing.  This has been both frightening and relieving; frightening, because the picture is quite bleak, and relieving, because at least we know what the picture looks like.  Overall, however, the result has been very positive for the level of the campus dialogue.  We can speak of the challenges facing us in terms of dollars and cents and know that our conversations have some basis in reality.

Yet changes can occur in the financial world quickly and with little warning.  Our future may look much more dire or more secure several months from now, and there is no guarantee that we’ll get the same level of information that we have been given so far.  We can hope that the administration continues at this increased level of transparency, but they may not feel the same pressure to do so.  While it would be nice to believe that the current wave of student activism will not break, there are any number of things that could find the student body becoming less vocal — summer vacation, a lull after the major cuts for 2009-2010 are finalized, just plain activist exhaustion.

Our best hope is that the administration has reached the same conclusion I have: that financial transparency benefits all of us.  As we’ve been working on the same page, the unproductive paradigm of students versus administrators is giving way to a circling of the wagons founded on the understanding that we’re all in this together.  Of course, there’s still room for debate — Rose Art Museum, anyone? — but the administrators have, to their credit, open pathways of involvement for students in decision-making, and the students have, to their credit, contributed in thoughtful, substantive ways.

Therefore, I think it is time for the students to ask for a promise of continued financial transparency, and I propose the following as a part of this:  Every month, Brandeis should release a short document to the entire community updating all of our major financial statistics and putting them in an easily understandable context. This does not have to be a time-consuming task.  The numbers already exist, and I’m sure that they’re tracked very carefully.  In fact, they are guaranteed to come out sooner or later; why not make it as they’re relevant and let us use them for more than just finger-pointing in hindsight?  This practice should continue beyond the current budget crisis; when Brandeis reenters the land of plenty, why shouldn’t we all celebrate together?

This is our University, and we all have a stake in it beyond the very relevant fact that it’s our tuition money that’s being used.  All we’re asking for is an idea of its financial health and the ability to make our contributions to the discussions of its future as well-informed as possible.

Two Important Forums Tomorrow

At last week’s open forum, President Reinharz promised that the dialogue between the administration and the students was just beginning, and tomorrow at 5 in the Levin Ballroom, he will keep his word.  The main complaint that most students had with the first forum was the inconvenient timing; 11 o’clock on a Wednesday is impossible for many students to make.  Thankfully, it looks like that was just a necessity of the schedule rather than an attempt to minimize turnout.  In fact, by holding a similar forum shortly afterwards, President Reinharz is proving that he wants to engage as many of us as possible.

The forum will be structured the same way as the last one, with the same presentation being shown for those who haven’t had a chance to see it yet.  However, the forum should still be productive for those who have, since this will be the first opportunity to ask the administration about the sustained bad press from the Rose Art Museum and about the reexamining of the study abroad decisions.  Provost Marty Krauss will probably have a lot to say about the new Committee on Academic Restructuring (CARS).

The follow-up forum, to be held at 6:30 in the Shaprio Campus Center, should prove to be just as interesting.  Jason Gray has put it together explicitly for the students, and it should help pull in students beyond those currently involved in BBCC, whose core is still weighted towards the established campus activists.  The entire student body faces the threat of deep cuts, and now is a great time to involve underrepresented members of the campus community.  In the e-mail announcing these forums, Jason made it clear that he hopes to encourage activism on the community level, saying “Our greatness lies in a Student Body that speaks up to be heard in the process of determining the future of our University… As Union President, it gives me great joy to speak for you, but even greater joy to speak with you.”  I expect many new ideas for action moving forward to come out of this meeting,

One other interesting statement from the e-mail promises that the forum “will be the predecessor to a series of academic forums that will be held for the entire Brandeis community to discuss proposed curriculum changes.”  From what I hear, these forums will actually be held by the subcommittees of CARS.  That means they will be far more than just Q&A sessions.  Instead, they represent a real opportunity to influence the decision-making bodies that will determine Brandeis’s academic future.  We have moved beyond merely asking for transparency.  Instead of just listening, we will be listened to.

Jason’s e-mail from Monday is below the fold.

Continue reading “Two Important Forums Tomorrow”

Dust off the Tie and Tails, and Let’s Help the Homeless

The Faculty Club is hosting a fundraising event this Saturday at 8pm for hopeFound, a homeless shelter in the greater Boston area, and from what I hear it’s going to be a mightily impressive event.  Just for comparison, last weekend’s very successful (I’ll post the figures when I get them) Union fundraiser for the Macedonia Church of God in Christ was organized in a few weeks.  This event has taken two years.

The planning has been a labor of love for Aaron Mitchell Finegold, a senior and current Ridgewood Quad Senate candidate, who has spared no expense in making the event as ornate as possible.  It’s structured as a very formal cocktail reception and silent auction, and though I imagine the auction items will be outside the typical college student’s budget, Aaron has promised that the event will be spectacular enough to interest  everyone.  It will provide a great networking opportunity with alumni and area businesspeople, and the Faculty Club is providing the catering.  At the very least, there will be alcohol (open bar from 8-9; of course, they will be ID’ing).

It’s nice that student activism is impacting the greater Boston community, particularly a charitable organization; when the economy heads south, charity is one of the hardest hit.  The high-society nature of the whole thing may seem at odds with the humble mission, but Aaron’s really done his homework, and he knows what brings the money to these events.  I’m sure all the excess will turn some people off, but if you like this kind of atmosphere and have $15 to part with at the door for a good cause,  Aaron has made sure you’ll get your money’s worth.

Climate Change Solutions Day Tomorrow

As part of the National Climate Change Solutions Day taking place on hundreds of college campuses tomorrow, the Campus Sustainability Initiative will be hosting a series of really cool events tomorrow.  If you think this weird “environment” thing that the young’uns keep going on about is important, then you’ll probably find something interesting in their program schedule.

The Shapiro Campus Center will host the Sustainability Solutions Showcase, a forum and educational display focusing on simple ways to green yourself on the Brandeis campus.  It features a webcast with several experts on the actions they foresee from the Obama administration and a live video conference with none other than our own US Representative Ed Markey, one of the true Congressional leaders on environmental issues.  Tours will also be held of Ridgewood and the Science Complex with an emphasis on their state-of-the-art green technologies.

Follow this link for more information on times and locations and for RSVP information for the tours (space is apparently limited).

Thoughts on the Study Abroad Advisory Committee

The creation of the Study Abroad Advisory Committee was announced on Friday, and it represents a clear commitment on the part of the administration to rectify the mistakes they made in planning and announcing the changes to study abroad.  It is composed of three administrators, three faculty members, and three students, all chosen for their expertise and influence on the study abroad program.  True to the spirit of community involvement in which it was created, the committee has launched an open my Brandeis forum to allow everyone to share their thoughts (check it out if you haven’t yet).

It’s important to note that Brandeis is going to see significant changes to the study abroad program next year.  While taking away merit aid that was promised for study abroad was a bad way of cutting costs, the decision represents the fundamental truth that the current system is set up with luxuries that Brandeis can no longer afford.  Kim Godsoe, the Dean of Academic Services, warned the student body in the e-mail introducing the committee that

There will need to be significant changes to the current study abroad policies to ensure fiscal viability for the program and the university.  Possible changes could include limiting the number and type of study abroad programs in which students may participate, limiting student participation in the study abroad experience, and/or restricting the use of all financial aid for students who wish to study abroad.  None of these choices is the kind that we want to make, but potentially painful choices will be necessary to ensure the program remains within budget.

The necessity of restructuring the program makes it all the more important that students take advantage of the opportunity to share their views on the my Brandeis board.  There is no other way to ensure that another flawed policy does not go into effect.

It is not the adminstration’s fault that changes will occur, and they have shown their dedication to the study abroad program by running it at a loss to give students as many options as possible.  Indeed, they deserve great credit for creating this committee, a tacit admission that they made a mistake with the merit aid (a policy I’m almost certain will be overturned) and a sign that they intend to learn from it and that they have always kept the students’ best interests in mind.  Credit also goes to the students behind the creation of the committee.  Committee member Alex Melman took action on the merit aid issue as a Senator from the  beginning and has refused to let it go away, as shown by his constant updates on its progress on Innermost Parts.  Jason Gray, who always seems to come through for us, collected stories of students that the decision affected and lobbied directly for a policy change.  Many students e-mailed and talked directly to administrators, turning their dissatisfaction into positive action.

I believe the most important element of study abroad is to keep it open in some form to as many students as possible.  Consequently, it might be best to start by cutting down the number of available programs and preserving only the most popular and cost-effective.  However, I would be suprised if there were no new limitations on who can go abroad.  At the very least, I’m heartened to know that a collection of strong, committed minds is working on the problems with the voices of the whole Brandeis community involved.

Polls Open for Winter Elections

The polls are open now for the Winter Round of Union elections.  Everyone is eligible to vote in at least one race, so make sure to take the time to cast your ballot.  Time after time I have seen how just one Senator can start the ball rolling on a project that benefits the entire Brandeis community; every race can be important.

We got 100% participation in our first election questionnaire, and I hope you find it useful in making your decisions.  Below is a full list of candidates along with links to their questionnaires:

Vote here.  We’ll have the results posted as soon as we receive them on Wednesday morning.

More Ways to Join the Brandeis Discussion

BrandeisPlans was a great step forward in the process of empowering students in changing Brandeis.  The idea of a forum open equally to every member of the Brandeis community was simple but brilliant, and it really hadn’t existed in any shape before.  However, the wiki format makes it more suited to collecting and sharing broad ideas than for detailed discussion, so the ability for collaboration among students, faculty, staff, and administration was still far from complete.

Thankfully, BrandeisPlans was only the first step.  The Committee on Academic Restructuring has proven to be just as open as we could have hoped, and they have introduced a new series of online forums hosted by My Brandeis and covering the most discussed ideas for curricular improvement.  Four of the forums correlate to the current subcommittees of CARS: Third Semester Plan, Degree Requirements and Advising, Business Major, and Recruiting and Admissions.  The fifth correlates to the steering committee itself and can presumably be used to discuss issues other than the aforementioned.

The third semester and degree requirement boards have gotten by far the most activity, but I hope that all five will soon see robust debate.  The forums are incredibly important.  Now, every single member of the Brandeis community is part of the academic discussion.  Cutting significant costs while maintaining or even improving our world-class academics is an enormous challenge, but with the intellect of the entire Brandeis community working in tandem, I am confident that it can be done.

Covering Winter Union Elections

Election day for the four Union positions open during this winter round is just two days away.  Usually, winter elections are limited to just one or two races, but for a variety of reasons, this year will have four open slots, including one with a constituency of the entire ungraduate student body.  The open seats are:

  • Senator for Ridgewood Quad.  Ridgewood was unoccupied last semester, so there was no Senator.
  • Senator for Village Quad.  Not a single person ran in the fall, so the seat has been unoccupied.
  • Justice of the Union Judiciary.  Danielle Shmuely resigned to study abroad this semester.
  • Senator for the Class of 2010.  Paul Balik resigned for personal reasons. (Incidently, Paul’s resignation represents a great loss for the Senate.  His thoughtful, meticulous style  made him a very highly respected voice in debate, and his leadership on the Bikes Task Force is a key reason why Brandeis will have bicycles to lend in March.)

We’re trying a new style of election coverage during this cycle that I hope will help the candidates connect with those in the Innermost Parts community.  Each candidate running for an open position was sent a short questionnaire covering issues of relevance to their elections.  Their answers will be posted as they’re received, and we’ll post a link to them on election day.  Hopefully, voters will be able to use these answers to make more informed choices in these races.  The questions sent to the candidates are:

For Senate candidates:

  1. What new or existing projects would you like to work on in the Senate?
  2. What experience do you have that you think would help you be an effective Senator?
  3. What issues do you find most pressing for your specific constituency?
  4. One of the four pillars upon which Brandeis was founded is the commitment to social justice.  How do you interpret this commitment, and what role does the Student Union Senate have in fulfilling it?
  5. What do you consider the most pressing issues facing Brandeis as a result of the budget deficits, and what role would you play as a Senator in working on them?

For Judiciary candidates:

  1. What experience do you have that you think would help you be an effective Justice?
  2. What would your approach be in judging a case, and how do you think it might be different from the approach others would take?
  3. As a Union government officer, would you involve yourself in Union projects beyond the Judiciary?  If so, what?

Reviewing Our Success So Far

Wow.  Among all the meetings, protests, committees, forums, list servs, blogging, e-mailing, letter writing, and general, all-around activism that we’ve seen from so much of the student body recently, it’s easy to forget that the infamous closed faculty meeting was only one week ago as of yesterday.  So much has happened since then, so much has been achieved, and so much work still lies ahead.

In the latest Justice, Hillel Buechler states that the gathering outside of Olin-Sang on that Thursday “failed to accomplish anything substantial” and that “any hopes or signs of true action …fizzled”.  With all due respect to Hillel (he’s one of my favorite op-ed writers at Brandeis), his eulogy for our demonstration was quite premature.  In the week since the faculty meeting, we’ve seen:

  • President Reinharz present to the students the principles he showed the faculty that will guide his decisions in the budget cut process.
  • The creation of the Brandeis Budget Cut Committee, a group with an active list serv and several successful meetings already under its belt.
  • An open letter from the Student Union President to the faculty and administration calling for greater opportunities for  student involvement in planning for Brandeis’s future.
  • A student-led campaign to preserve the job of a highly respected faculty member.
  • A collaborative wiki created for the entire Brandeis community to share ideas to ease the budget crisis.
  • Several high level administrators attend a Union Senate meeting to share information about Brandeis’s financial picture with the entire student body.
  • An open forum with President Reinharz to discuss Brandeis’s current financial situation.
  • Students invited to sit in on every new committee to discuss potential academic changes, including the steering committee.
  • And, just breaking now, a new Study Abroad Advisory Committee with three student voices (including Innermost Parts’s own Alex Melman!) to reevaluate the controversial changes to the study abroad program.

In short, the past week has resulted in an administration more willing to listen and engage with students than ever before, a faculty who has come out strongly for increased student involvement, and a student body reenergized and full of great ideas for improving our campus.  The lesson I take from this is that activism is not a zero-sum game.  When people decide to speak out, everyone benefits.  It would be disastrous to lose focus on the challenges still ahead, but the entire Brandeis community should be congradulating itself on everything that it has accomplished.  More importantly, we should look at this as a model for how we can weather the strom of budget cuts while gaining something in the process.

ONE MORE DAY to Apply for New Academic Committees

The deadline for applying for the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Sub-Committees is this Saturday at 5pm, so apply now here or forever hold your peace.  The subcommittees open to undergraduate students are Recruiting and Admissions, creating a possible Business Major, Summer Semester/Summer Away, and Degree Requirements and Advising.  These openings for student voices are the realization of what we’ve been working so hard to achieve and represent a golden opportunity to participate directly in shaping the future of Brandeis academics.

For more information on the application process and the requirements for the committees, check out Jason Gray’s initial e-mail below the fold.

Continue reading “ONE MORE DAY to Apply for New Academic Committees”

My Latest Hoot Article

Not to self-promote too much, but I just want to quickly call attention to my article published in today’s Brandeis Hoot.  I hope it answers any questions anyone may still have about my sudden resignation from the Student Union, something which I have an obligation to explain to the student body that elected me.  If you have any questions/comments about the article or my situation in general, please feel free to contact me at athughes@brandeis.edu.

We now return to our regularly scheduled budget crisis.

Another Chance to Talk to Administrators

If you missed yesterday’s forum with President Reinharz or just didn’t get a chance to ask your question, you’re in luck.  The Graduate Student Association has planned another question and answer session with senior administrators to be held later today.  The meeting is at 5:00pm in the Olin-Sang Auditorium, and every member of the Brandeis community is invited to attend.  Even if you were satisfied with Wednesday’s event, it’s still a good idea to attend and show that we are consistently committed to making sure our voices are heard.

Publicize Your Ideas on BrandeisPlans

Wow, I really picked the wrong time to leave the campus.  Protests, sit-ins, listservs, national controversy, student forums (fora?) — what fun you must all be having!

I’m definitely keeping an eye on everything though, and consider this my long-awaited (yeah, right) return to active posting.  Echoing InfoGirl’s post from Monday, I really want to encourage everyone to check out BrandeisPlans, not just as passive observers but as active participants in the discussion that will, if all goes well, not only lead the University to new heights but also ultimately save the world.

Continue reading “Publicize Your Ideas on BrandeisPlans”