Author: Loki

One year ago today, 33 people died on the campus of Virginia Tech University – Seung-Hui Cho, a severely disturbed victim of mental illness, and the men and women he killed in their dorms and classrooms.

I just came back from a moving vigil organized by my friend Kay, a Virginia native whose friend died in the shootings. It was a sobering experience to listen to Kay and another speaker talk about the grief they felt upon learning of the senseless deaths of people they had known and cared about. As I looked around at the friends I love listening with me, I could hardly grasp what I would feel if the same were to happen to them. The smiling photos of the victims spread across Chapel’s Field were indistinguishable from the faces I see walking up the Rabb steps every day, and as we listeners were told of their little quirks and aspirations – how one baked a cake for his studying friends, how one loved to run track, how one loved to stick her tongue out in photos – it really hit home that these were folks just like you and I. Except that we are lucky enough to keep making those little moments that are worth remembering, while theirs have all passed.

I cannot really find the words to draw some lesson from the deaths of those who never asked to be heroes, but I want to leave you with an image I found particularly moving. As the vigil went on, the wind grew harder and began to blow out the candles set for each victim. Yet as soon as a candle went out, there was always someone ready to relight it. Candle after candle was extinguished, but the people working were always faster, until finally, for a brief moment, all the candles were lit again. As dusk came on, the vigil ended and I startted to walk back to my dorm. But for as long as I was able to see, some candles continued to burn, their flames flickering in a darkening night.

It meant something to me. If it does for you too, take a moment and reflect on those lost in Virginia Tech. Remember how lucky you are to be alive and have people who love you. Pledge to do something great for the world – for the 32 victims who no longer have the opportunity. They deserve it.

Spring elections are coming soon – next Tuesday, April 15.

Lev Hirschhorn and I are running on an activist platform for Class of 2011 Senators. I strongly encourage everyone here at Innermost Parts to vote for us, if you can. Please check out our website at either my or Lev’s UNET space for more information. Also, join our facebook group and invite all our friends! We need all the help we can get, as this is going to be a close race.

To learn more about our campaign, check the blurb (snatched right from what I wrote for the facebook group) below the fold…
Continue reading “Brandeis Senate Elections coming soon!”

Louis Brandeis said

There is no such thing to my mind as an innocent stockholder. He may be innocent in fact, but socially he cannot be held innocent. He accepts the benefits of the system. It is his business and his obligation to see that those who represent him carry out a policy which is consistent with public welfare.

Debby Kuenstner, Brandeis’ administrator in charge of investment management, said

We have to decide which issues are important to Brandeis. Do we cut off so much investment opportunity that the endowment cannot fulfill its primary goal? You can’t keep the endowment at equal value for this generation and the next, and say “don’t invest in tobacco companies, do invest in environmental companies,
only socially responsible cases.”

When she told me this, I was troubled. I understand the need to make money with our investments. Yet unfortunately Brandeis seems to have been consumed by that hunger at the expense of any consideration of those investments’ social, environmental, or political impact. Our University has strayed from its founder’s dedication to responsible public citizenship.

Independent Voices for Endowment Sustainability and Transparency (InVEST), is trying to bring his dedication back to the forefront. Since we coalesced about one month previous from members of several campus activist clubs, we have been making promising progress. We have drafted a petition calling for greater investment transparency and responsibilty, and have obtained 500 written student and faculty signatures in support. Two days ago, the Student Union, often fractured when it comes to political positions, unanimously voted its enthusiastic support for a working proposal for the formation of an advisory committee to the Board dealing with these issues. Community opinion is behind us, and the administration and board must start to listen.

This is an issue I first addressed here on Innermost Parts months ago, after I found out Brandeis failed all the endowment-related clauses of its 2007 College Sustainability Report Card. Since then, the 2008 Report Card has been released, and Brandeis has again failed those clauses. By 2009, I want to reform our policies so that we do not fail three years in a row; I want our policies to be brought to the forefront among private Universities instead of lagging behind. If you’d like to get involved in this growing campaign, we’d love any help we can get. Email me at loki@innermostparts.org, or check out InVEST’s website.

A few hours ago, all of Innermost Parts’ contributors attended a march and vigil on campus to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. We marched from Shapiro to Usdan and back in a loud trail of over 120 people – a very large number for a club-organized Brandeis political event. We gathered in a circle to listen to speakers, sing songs, and reflect on how the war has impacted us, America, the Iraqi people, and the world.

I was incredibly impressed by the large turnout and the passion that so many people had, five years in. I know that my attention has drifted somewhat away from the war over the last few years, and I feel this event brought it back to the front of my mind.

A final thought someone brought to my attention today, and which I’d like to leave you with – this is the first of its wars for which the United States has paid absolutely nothing (at least in terms of dollars) up front. In every other war, there has been an increase in taxes or some other financial mechanism implemented to pay for the war. But in this one, every penny has been borrowed from foreign governments and investors. So while ours may physically be a near-unilateral occupation, governments are financially responsible for this war the whole world round.

By President Bush’s own count, we have spent half a trillion dollars on this war, itself a sgering amount. Our generation and the next will be the ones paying. But by the conservative estimate of Harvard economist Linda Bilmes and Columbia economist Joseph E. Stiglitz in their new book, the total cost, accounting for the lost income of disabled soldiers’ families, the cost of supporting wounded veterans, etc., the cost is somewhere around $3 trillion dollars to America. Internationally, there is another $3 trillion cost.

These numbers are so large I cannot even wrap my mind around them. I would call them tragically ridiculous, but words seem silly compared to the unfathomable good such money could have done elsewhere.

Over the break, Sahar regaled you with tales of intellectual property rights pioneer and would-be Congressman Larry Lessig. He is truly a great man, but like many great men, is truly no longer running for Congress. From his website:

After lots of thinking and advice, I have decided it does not make sense for the Change Congress movement for me to a run for Congress in CA12. We would have just over 30 days to introduce a district to me and to an idea. That would not be enough time to convince them to turn away from an extremely popular politician with 30 years of public service.

Well damn.

The Hamas-sponsored children’s tv show, Tomorrow’s Pioneers, recently debuted a Jew-eating rabbit as a new character. I believe this impacts Brandeis more than other area universities. Perhaps Public Safety should be informed?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8w7_P8wZ0[/youtube]

A while ago, you all may recall I sent an email to Pres. Reinharz concerning endowment transparency (see previous posts). Well, he responded. Some highlights:

There are good reasons why the University does not disclose the details of its investments. Disclosure of holdings rarely, if ever, improves returns, and in most cases, disclosure hurts returns…There are groups and individuals, who in no way have the best interest of the University at heart, who seek transparency for the advancement of their own interests in ways that could be contrary to the University’s interests…

You should know that the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees reports annually to the full Board regarding investment policy and social responsibility.

You may find the full text of the email here.

We intend to pursue this issue and investigate the validity of Pres. Reinharz vague claims of the sinister intentions and woeful effects of transparency.Other prestigious universities such as Brown, Swarthmore, Vassar, Harvard, and Columbia all have student involvemnt in committees concerned with investment responsibility.

I will leave you with the following from the Sustainable Endowment Institute:

Won’t shareowner engagement hurt our endowment investment returns?
No. Shareowner engagement does not involve any changes in investments, therefore, it does not impact endowment investment returns. The goal of shareowner engagement is to seek substantial improvement in corporate policies through dialogue with corporate management. The university endowment’s position of power with the company comes through its status as a shareholder.

We apologize for the sparsity of posts after last semester. You will all be happy (or not so happy, take your pick) to know that Innermost Parts will resume its regularly updated schedule as of now.  Expect lots of substantive issues to be addressed, and keep reading!

in posts shall be in effect over the break. Meanwhile, enjoy your holidays!

As a sidenote, I recently sent an email to Pres. Reinharz concerning our endowment transparency. Let us see how he responds. 

This is a follow-up to the previous post. Read that first =).As students, we can apply pressure to the University to invest in socially responsible areas. We have pursued divestment from companies direclty or indirectly violating human rights (there was a divestment campaign out of Sudan a few years ago; I don’t know what happened to it) and such campaigns have proven successful in universities across the nation. But what kind of things should we invest in? Any ideas which prove socially responsible and fiscally rewarding? Is this something we should research and pursue? What are your ideas? Where do you want your money to go?

I recently came upon the College Sustainability Report Card for Brandeis, which can be found here. Our overall grade is a C, which means that despite some commitment to environmental sustainability, we’re still doing a fairly lackluster job. Especially troubling is the apalling lack of transparency in our endowment’s investment, as well as its lack of commitment to Brandeis’ principles. From the report:

Endowment Transparency – F
The university makes neither its proxy voting record nor its list of endowment holdings public.

Investment Priorities – C
The university aims to optimize investment return and has not made any public statements about investigating or investing in renewable energy funds or community development loan funds.

Shareholder Engagement – F
The university asks that its investment managers handle the details of proxy voting.

From what I can gather here, we are investing purely to maximize profit and without the input of shareholders or students. Is this what we want our university to be doing, when we could be using our money to invest in socially responsible ways such as renewable energy or microcredit loans, just off the top of my head?

These are just cursory ideas, and I think we should do more research into the situation. As responsible Brandeis citizens, we should ensure our university puts its money where its values are. At the very least, it could make its list of holdings public, which many other universities do.
What are we investing in which we have to hide?

If you are progressive and interested in Brandeis politics or world politics as they apply to us students, we’re looking to broaden our writing base.Whether you simply want to write a post now and then or be a regular contributor, we’d love if you’d drop us a line. Send an email to loki@innermostparts.org and sahar@innermostparts.org if you want to talk more. Act soon, cause interest is growing already. And yes, that is Louis Brandeis.

Well, the global climate change summit in Bali has drawn to a close.

Approaching the end, it seemed like delegates would leave the summit with nothing but a tan and a bunch of free pina coladas. The United States continually roadblocked efforts to set tangible emissions standards, citing concerns that China, India, and other developing countries are not making the commitments demanded of the US. But in the final hour, after being hissed at and booed by fellow delegates, we finally capitulated a wee tad. After talking it out, everybody decided it would be a grand old time if… they all talked some more! Two years of talks, to be precise. This from a wonderful round-up of the conference by the NY Times (found here),

The resulting “Bali Action Plan” contains no binding commitments, which European countries had sought and the United States fended off. The plan concludes that “deep cuts in global emissions will be required” and provides a timetable for two years of talks to shape the first formal addendum to the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty since the Kyoto Protocol 10 years ago. 

At first glance, this seems to be dissapointing, non-binding politico-speak leaving us right where we are now. But considering that the Bush Administration has until now entirely denied the need for new climate policy from fifteen years ago, it represents a pretty big shift. And, as Al Gore pointed out when he accepted his Nobel Prize, the next administration is more apt to realize we’re plunging the world to its doom. (Get that story here.) In two years, we’ll have that new government. US negotiators certainly wheeled and dealed and pushed off the issue with another series of non-binding commitments. But maybe – just maybe – a new Administraton will make something real out of these post-Bali talks.

At least one of our presidents sees the urgent need for a stricter energy policy – Brandeis’ President Jehuda Reinharz. We have signed onto the Presidents Climate Commitment, a commitment to form a plan for universities to go climate-neutral. I encourage you to check it out here. Other area schools Harvard, Yale, Tufts, BU, Brown, and M.I.T have all not signed.

An interesting side-note – we spend more developing laser weaponry to fry the world than we do on researching renewable energy sources to keep it from frying. Take the recent mounting of a 12,000-lb laser on a 747 as an example of our twisted priorities.

More on what we as Brandeis students can do on climate change to come.  

A few weeks ago, you’ll remember the Administration decided it would be a wonderful idea to remove $210,000 from student control under the F-Board and instead allocate it to the Department of Student Activities. Quite a few people, myself included, were a bit upset. A university is built upon the students – we are the sole most important force, its future representatives in the world. It is we who should be the primary deciders of our institution’s philosophy and policy. We therefore have a right to be outraged when a hefty chunk of the already meager financial resources under our control is suddenly snatched by a hand in the clouds. The principle of the thing – that we are neither fiscally responsible nor wise enough to manage money concerning our extracurricular involvement – is grounds enough for protest.

And so we did. On December 6, a substantial group of students (my eye for figures is notoriously bad, but I would say the number was… 70? 100?) gathered outside the Bernstein-Marcus Administration building and marched through its halls, chanted a few times, and ate a good deal of donuts and hot chocolate. Now, I certainly don’t have anything against hot chocolate – that stuff’s delicious. But I think the whole vibe of the thing – the snacks, the protest almost solely for the sake of the experience – was fundamentally flawed.

A protest is a deeply symbolic act. Its symbolism – that masses of people are willing to get up and spend their time marching in defense of a cause they care about – is the entire point. And I think that idea was missed here, for several reasons. First of all, the event was only organized with the consent and oversight of the Administration itself, the very institution whose policies we were supposedly acting out against. What does this say about the commitment to student independence we were supposedly trying to defend? We apparently only care enough about our rights to organize one event for which we must seek official approval? We are only able to do so by enticing attendees with donuts and hot drinks from Dunkin Donuts? After saying a few words and disbanding, we pat ourselves on the back and don’t plan any follow-up action or demonstration. This is a tepid response at best.

What we need to be doing is continuing to protest until we are actually listened to, not patronizingly tolerated. We should have been showing up on the lawn of Bernstein-Marcus every day until we received some serious response. Instead, the message we sent was that we do not care enough about our rights to actively demonstrate for them, and will only show up to one officially approved march if we are bribed with luxuries, no matter how tasty they may be.

Martin Luther King said that “he who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” While a transfer of funds is not the worst of evils, it is certainly something harmful to our student independence. To combat it, we must continue to protest. Once was not enough. It is regrettable that we have let so much time pass, regrettable that we will not really be able to continue action until after winter break. But, if we wish to be taken seriously, we must continue organizing protests, even without administrative consent. We must not stop until our voices are heard.

by andy on our first post. check it out here