Author: Sahar

So the University is facing budget shortfalls and a shrinking endowment. I’m pondering:

– Is it still right and proper to demand solar panels for Brandeis?

– On one hand, we’re already seeing queues of years to get windmill parts – if Brandeis doesn’t act now, will it be shut out of the market to buy solar panels? Will the prices only go up in the future?

– Does it make financial sense to buy solar panels now, so as to cut down costs

If you’re interested in doing the legwork to come up with these answers, email me or elizabeth setren.

Did you see the Obamamercial?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA[/youtube]
Notice the shout out to Unions? I like how Obama advances a tolerance agenda (see? Black/Hispanic/Mixed-Race people work hard and aren’t scary!) while simultaneously running for President.

I’ve been called by Obama volunteers 3 times in the last week. They all ask me to volunteer for Obama. Once, I got a call while I was in New Hampshire canvassing. That was fun. Before that I’d only gotten one call from them ever.

What are you doing on election day? Skip all your classes and go to New Hampshire to get out the vote with us. Contact Justin Backal-Balik for details.

What are you doing election night? Party at Chums! 9-12pm.

What are you doing the night before the election? DFA coffeehouse – we’ll be phonebanking there from 9-9:30 – it’ll be your last chance to call for Obama. 9-12 at chums, monday night.

All the election drama is now focused on the Senate.

This is a terrible time to be sick and bedridden..

Like, for example, in the past two days I told two separate people that their relatively unremarkable overcoats were each “the coolest, most distinguished coat I have ever seen.”

Maybe I just think overcoats are cool and I wish I had one. Maybe I tend to vastly overblow the significance of cool things.

On that note, you should go to Raymond, NH, this saturday for the most epic battle of the century this side of Waziristan. 

	vs
Brandeis		Tufts

BARACK the NH Vote! Whichever school canvasses the best will be able to claim superiority over the other for 100 summers. 

This Saturday.
Meet at Spingold at 10:30am.
Spread the Word. 
More info here.

update – 35 people confirmed to go so far. Can we make 40 by tonight?

And now, for a limited time only – you’re invited to a pre-emptive BARACK the vote victory (over tufts) party. Info here.

I’d like to apologize to everyone for not writing quite so much lately. That’s because we’re 12 13 days away from the General Election.

This Saturday will feature a rumble of epic proportions

The Brandeis vs Tufts battle for who can canvass the shit out of New Hampshire!

Come to Rabb Steps at 11am Spingold at 10:30am Saturday, get into the (provided transportation) with your closest friends, and stroll across lovely New Hampshire getting votes and volunteers.

Scared? Don’t be. This phase of  the campaign has you talking exclusively to Obama supporters, getting them to pledge to volunteer or vote.

You could be the one who swings the entire state of New Hampshire to the Obama column. You could spend a few hours talking to like-minded people about how awesome post-Jan 15 2009 will be, and then you can CRUSH Tufts.

Whichever school gets the most points wins. Points are allocated as follows:

THE BRANDEIS-TUFTS CHALLENGE:
On Saturday October 25, Team Tufts and Team Brandeis will go head-to-head in Raymond, NH, to see who can talk to the most voters, and BARACK THE VOTE for Obama!!

RULES:
Canvassing is from noon to 6pm
Meet in downtown Raymond, in the park across from the Town Hall to pick up your canvassing packets
1 point per contact (knock)
2 points for every new volunteer you find

PRIZES will be given to the winners!

BONUS POINTS:
biggest team: 2 points
“flair”: 1/2 point per piece

RSVP on the facebook page here.

I was reading an article in The American Prospect today – “Suddenly, Everyone’s Pro-Choice!“. This little paragraph jumped out at me:

There’s one other reason that pro-choice ads are springing up around the country. This year, the electorate will be much younger than in recent cycles, both because more young people tend to vote in presidential elections and Obama has galvanized young voters unlike any politician in recent memory. Surveys show that young voters are more consistently pro-choice than their older counter-parts.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter. Just by being who you are, and standing up and being counted at the polls, shifts this country in a better direction.

Posting this on behalf of students crossing boundaries -Sahar

Hey, are you interested in conflict resolution? Social justice? Coexistence issues? If you answered yes to any (if not all) of these questions, than you might be interested in Students Crossing Boundaries.

We are a group of students working to empower other students in conflict resolution. We do this by offering guidance in finding internships, developing leadership and team building skills, and putting students at the center of some of the world’s most influential conflicts.

This year we have two fellowship programs to Israel and Palestine and two sister cities on the Mexican-American border. The application isn’t too long or hard, so don’t worry, we are just looking for students who are motivated, adventurous, and are willing to go out there and broaden their worldly outlooks.

If this sounds interesting to you, visit our website. Learn more about us and apply!

www.studentscrossingboundaries.com

Please contact us if you have any further questions,

Best,
Adriel Orzoco and Feya HIllel.

McCain vs Obama, the final match.
It all starts in two minutes, and I’ll be liveblogging the whole thing on the website of The Roosevelt Institution, a student think tank.

You can see the liveblogging here – http://rooseveltinstitution.org/election2008

Roosevelt is a pretty cool organization. They were founded after the 2004 election by students who were all like “hey we are some seriously smart people. We can do much more than phonebank. We are much more than live bodies.” So then they founded a network of think tanks on college campuses. I’ll talk about it more later.

Liveblog here.

I get email:

The Peace Conflict and Coexistence Studies (PAX) program awards the Karpf and Hahn Peace Awards annually to Brandeis undergraduate or graduate students who wish to work toward coexistence and peaceful ways of addressing and resolving conflicts of many sorts.

Karpf awards are usually between $250-$700, but no single award can exceed $1,000. The Hahn awards vary in amount depending on the projects. Both awards may fund projects either partially or fully.

This year, the deadline for the completed application is October 24th. Please check out this link for more info and an application.

http://www.brandeis.edu/programs/peace/award.html

In general, there are three types of award recipients:

1. For artworks and essays on peace: Works of art related to peace include those that reveal costs of violence, commitment to non-violent struggle, and artistic expressions of any aspect of peace culture. These submissions might take the form of poetry (a substantial poem or group of poems); a play or skit or short story related to peace; slides of visual art; cassettes or CDs of music; or other forms of documentation appropriate to the work. This category covers only already completed works of art. Essays of 20-30 pages are included in this category of submission. Application must include a budget for anticipated expenses.

2. For travel grants and participation in a peace project or conference in this country or elsewhere: in addition to the narrative, submit brochures and other literature, reasons for your travel request, and an indication of how you intend to use what you learn at the conference or from the project. Submit a budget of travel and other costs anticipated.

3. For seed money for peace-related projects not involving travel: for designing and organizing a project such as a community mediation service at Brandeis or in a nearby community, or a peace education project in local public or religious schools, or a dialogue. These are only examples. Let your imagination take over.

For more information, please email me at tshields@brandeis.edu.

I didn’t know we did this. Cool!

Got this in my email. Van Jones! For free. Check it out. Send emails/questions/RSVPs to this guy.

Hey everyone,
Just reminding you about the upcoming Bioneers by the Bay kick off even on October 23rd. Bioneers by the Bay 2008 is an awesome environmental conference which is being held this year in New Bedford, MA. The opening night kick-off event is completely FREE, and we have reserved transportation to take everyone who is interested! The kick-off event features the amazing speakers and activists Majora Carter, Van Jones, and Simran Sethi. Check out the details at: http://www.connectingforchange.org/kickoff-info.html. So if you’re interested in going, send me an email, we are trying to organize the transportation and need somewhat of a head count. So check it out, let me know
Thanks
James Bartolacci

Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinhartz has sent out a campus-wide email talking about the state of the University budget – it’s not too great.

Donations, Endowment, and so on are all down.

I’ve heard people ask: “Yet, aren’t colleges supposed to thrive during recessions?”

Here’s my take:
We know that Brandeis is very secretive about the endowment, and (I think) they have some contractual obligations that prevent them for disclosing where our money is invested. This probably means that there’s a lot of money in “complex financial instruments”. This credit crunch could really have taken a chunk out of the endowment, I bet.

Colleges can thrive during recessions due to tuition costs. Yet Brandeis is famous for giving lots of financial aid.

Also, I don’t think that colleges do thrive through recessions. Demand for college goes up, yes, as the cost of college stays kinda constant but the returns of working decrease (decreasing the opportunity cost of college). That said, colleges don’t really get all their income from tuition, can’t adjust tuition to supply and demand like a market-oriented actor (and they shouldn’t!) and lastly people’s ability to pay goes down.

I’ll bet there are some Brandeis students, either newly-accepted freshmen or upperclassmen, who will have a very hard time paying for college this year, as tuition has already been fixed for this semester, and college loans just got a lot harder to obtain…

I hope there are no cuts to student aid, work-study, or (god forbid) TYP. We need to double or triple the size of TYP and offer more class-based affirmative action, especially now.

Anyways, you can find the full email in the extended entry.
Continue reading “Economic Downturn hits Brandeis”

Hi there, readers of The Brandeis Hoot.

Welcome to our humble publication. We know there’s a big news story about us today. Explore our archives yourself and see what we’re about. I hope you like what you find. Check out the “Brandeis Activist Calendar” on our sidebar. Pretty handy, eh?

As to the article, well, I think the Hoot is a bit too hung up on this “political party” nonsense but that’s their prerogative. We’re about much more than elections or the Student Union and frankly you’re missing out if you just look at us through that lens. I certainly hope we’re a positive source for change on campus, though, and I hope you’ll stick around, write down your thoughts and reactions in the comments of posts, and generally have a great time.

The City of Waltham sent a representative to the Career fair last Thursday.

They want you. They want you to join the government of the city of Waltham, Massachussetts.

All you have to do is send in a one-page application and attach your resume.

I know what you’re thinking. “Holy crap! What’s the fine print?”

As far as I can tell, nothing. You apply for a position in a city commission and then the Mayor will hopefully appoint you. If enough people express interest (by commenting on this post, for example), I’ll try to set up a meeting for us with a representative from Waltham who can explain it more.

Let me emphasize this – Waltham is begging for students to join the actual legit waltham government.

Some commissions you could apply to join –
– Ambulance Service Review Committee
– BOard of Cemetery Commissioner
– Board of Health
– Board of Library Trustees
– Board of Registrars of Voters
– Board of Survey adn Planning
– Cable Advisory Board
– Commissioners of Trust Funds
– Conservation Commission
– COuncil on Aging
– Handicapped Serices COmmission
– LIcense Comission
– Municipal Awards Program Comittee
– Park and Recreation Board
– Waltham Cable Advisory Board
– Waltham Community Access Corporation Board
– Waltham Cultural Council
– Waltham Historical Comission
– Waltham HOusing AUthority
– Waltham Retirement Board
– Zoning Board of Appeals

I have a bunch of applications. I’ll set up a meeting soon where everyone can get a copy and we can all apply together or something. For now – get pumped! Also, find out more info on the specific commission you want to join on the waltham city gov’t website – http://www.city.waltham.ma.us/

Debate watching party 9pm in shapiro multi-purpose room. with free food (100 wings!)

Stephen Robinson vs Elections commission will not go to trial.

POYA manifesto in the hoot. Here’s my contribution:

I’m a shy person. I don’t like talking about politics. I really am. Throughout middle school and high school I gained a reputation as a composed, thoughtful person who didn’t pipe up much during political debates. I relished my role, listening to my friends debate politics, knowing that when I chose to speak, people would listen. They knew that I took the time to think both sides through. They trusted my judgment.

So much for that. Is it really a neutral act to refuse to rebel at the presence of evil? The America depicted in high school history texts is very different from the America we live in today. The genesis of this society was predicated on the genocide of the red man. The riches of this country were grown with the blood of the black man. And the woman? Don’t even get me started. We were promised an America embodying the realization of the Enlightenment, a land of tolerance. A land of freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from want. Freedom of expression. Instead we got Empire. Instead, we’re handed a kleptocracy.

Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t want to be an activist. I want to be an academic. I want to tinker with computers and curl up with a book in front of the fire. I don’t want to be painted as one-sided, angry, or needlessly didactic. Yet what choice do I have, when one political party systematically destroys America and the other is too cowardly to stop them? No choice. No time to waste.

There are so many things going on today. Community Service Fair, Career fair, Student Funding Info Session, etc.

After so many events (the info for which you can find on the Brandeis Activist Calendar to your right) why not unwind with Drinking Liberally / whoever you choose? We’re taking a field trip today to the Museum of Fine Arts!

There shall be two free concerts by indie singer St. Vincent at 7pm and 8:30, among other wondrous things.

Yo Drinking Liberally, tomorrow night (Thursday) we are going on a “field trip” of sorts to College Night at the MFA, there will be lots of live music, raffles, cool people, and ART. So come chill and be liberal with us.

We’ll be catching the Brandeis Cambridge/Boston shuttle that leaves Rabb @ 6:30. From there we’ll get off at the Beacon/Mass Ave stop, and take the green E line to the MFA stop. Tell your clubs, tell your friends, bring your COLLEGE ID, and be there or be lame.

Formerly. UJ to hear case re: Rosenthal Elections

This just in:

Stephen D. Robinson is going to sue the Student Union Election Commission in the Union Judiciary in regards to the recent election for Rosenthal Quad Senator, which Philips Loh officially won. Steven believes he’s been treated unfairly by the EC.

That’s all I know so far. We’ll update you with more information as we learn more.

Got an email just now from Jehuda. Seems like Brandeis is giving out a $25,000 yearly award for “outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations.” Cool. I don’t know much about this year’s winner – Kwame Anthony Appiah, but I hope that we get to learn more about this guy during the process of giving out the scholarship. This confirms an earlier trend of innovation by Brandeis – since we lost our comparative advantage regarding financial aid, it seems that the University is trying other ways to stand out – fellowships, a community service freshman floor, huge fellowships for academics, etc. Great ideas!

Here’s another idea. The Ethics Center is great and has a lot of potential. It’s also an institutional embodiment of the values that Brandeis was explicitly founded on. Let’s integrate them more tightly into undergrad life. They should sponsor classes, bring in guest lecturers, and reach out to students wanting to promote the cause of good throughout the world. Don’t get me wrong – the Ethics Center Fellowship is great. Let’s build on that more, instead spending energy on silly pictures of Einstein holding a bagel.

Continue reading “Good for Brandeis, Good for the community”

Well another primary-round election has come and gone. Here’s the interesting things I see from the results:

– Shocker of the night: Sara Enan, a write-in candidate, managed to get more votes than Edward Tanenbaum, who was officially running unopposed. Impressive.

– Congrats to Andy Hogan, new senator for North Quad. Andy is a sophomore living in scheffries so this is kind of an upset. Andy was also the campaign manager (and secret weapon) for Adam Hughes.

– Andrew Brooks is back in the Senate as the New Senator from Ziv Quad. Congrats to Andrew.

– Nathan J Robinson and I are tied for votes (and move into the final round opposing each other) in the race for Castle Quad senator. No matter which one of us wins, I’m glad that the Castle will have a great Senator this year.

– There were very many uncompetitive races this year. No official candidates for TYP. Turnout of 17 people in Charles River. One official candidate for both East and Rosenthal Quads. One candidate for both mods and off-campus each. One official candidate in both Mods and East. Two candidates for Rosenthal and Off-Campus. No official candidate in Grad. No official candidates – or qualifying write-ins – in the Village.

In each of the elections Innermost Parts has focused on – F-Board, Senator-at -Large, President, Vice-President, and Special-Election-Vice-President, there have been fiercely contested races. Not so this time. Weird.

– Castle Quad is the exception. Nathan and I are in a tight race where every vote does count. I will crush him.

– Lastly, Adam makes a good point in the comments:

The race that really interests me now is the Class of 2012 Senate race. Section 9c of the official election rules (the section which governs winning multi-seat elections) states “In the event that a primary ballot would be identical to the final round ballot, except for the ability to write in candidates, the primary round shall count as the final round. The candidates with the most votes shall be declared the winners.” The only three candidates on the primary round ballot were Supreetha Gubbala, Akash Vadalia, and Joseph Sloman; thus, unless I’m hugely mistaken, Supreetha and Akash should be declared the winners. I think the commissioners got this one wrong.

So tomorrow promises to be fun.

First off, from 12-4 there’s thing thing called “rock the vote” hosted by Brandeis votes. The description says:

Come get registered to vote and learn about prevalent issues in this upcoming election.

There will be 16 on-campus clubs stationed around the Great Lawn ready with information regarding how both the Democrats and Republicans view their club’s issue.

Enjoy music throughout the event and performances by on and off campus artists!

Eat a free lunch! (while supplies lasts)

Ride the mechanical bull!

Come learn what is happening politically and socially in the country. Become truly educated in what the next president supports and VOTE!

I mean, that’s kinda vague but it seems that there’ll be free food and music and so on as well as info about political issues and ways to register to vote there as well. Worth checking out, especially if you haven’t requested an absentee ballot or registered to vote yet.

Also, at the Rock the Vote thing the Student Union will announce the winner of their Brandeis Votes competition, in which every club had the opportunity to compete to register new voters. The clubs who registered the most new voters will received cash prizes. So that’s cool.

Secondly, tomorrow there will be the famed Brandeis Economic Forum which we previously covered but can be basically summed up as Smart People From Brandeis Talking about the Financial Meltdown.. 7 – 8:30pm . you really should go.

Bonus event: This hasn’t been officially announced yet, but Drinking Liberally will be taking a field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts for their big college fest this Thursday so clear your schedules.

I just read something and it really struck me:

I just watched the BBC News. It appears that at their party conference in the UK, Labour is once gain calling for the nationalization of industries, openly rejecting Blair-ism are the abandonment of Clause IV. Meanwhile, back here in America, conservatives are blaming the financial meltdown on minorities and diversity. In the midst of it all, an African-American leads the campaign for President and, after previously nationalizing the mortgage sector, Congress now openly talks of nationalizing an additional 5% of the national economy. Republicans, by contrast, just want to hand over more money to corporate executives. Oh yeah–and there are no more investment banks.

We’re in the middle of two wars, we find stories of runaway executive power boring and passe. We’re in the midst of the second internet boom (with the attendant rise in the pseudo-economic “network thinking”). Wars and shit are going on all around us. Israel-Hezbollah. Georgia. The congo, darfur, and who knows what else. These last few years have seen a pretty uniform political shift, where states that had left-leaning governments at the turn of the century (germany, france, uk) elect conservative governments, and right-leaning states (US, Japan, Australia) are shifting leftwards. The internet has led to decentralized political and economic innovation the world over. First outsourcing is the hot new trend/bogeyman, but now the rise in cost of shipping has effectively raised our barriers to trade to pre-NAFTA /WTO levels.

Truly, we live in interesting times.

Due to elections (I’m running!) and massive amounts of work, expect a lighter posting schedule until mid-to-late week. Sorry. -Sahar

I’ve been assured that this’ll be the biggest thing on campus for at least this week.
This event features the Deans of both Heller and IBS, talking about the mortgage mess and so forth.

Jason Gray tells me that it’ll be big. That’s good enough for me.

Make sure you go, dudes.

Date:
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Time:
7:00pm – 8:30pm
Location:
Brandeis Rapaporte Treasure Hall in the Library

Brandeis University Forum on U.S. Economic Policy
The U.S. Financial Crises and What the Next President Might Do About It

This forum is an installment of the Brandeis University “Spotlight on Economic Distress” series.

***Financial Crisis at Home and Abroad – Imagining the next President’s agenda***

The Collapse of the subprime mortgage market has shaken U.S. and global financial markets. Iconic corporations are mired in bankruptcies and bailouts. Economic growth is down sharply, with no sign yet of recovery. In this program, leading Brandeis experts explore the downturn’s impact and consider how to make matters better.

Featured speakers:

Lisa M. Lynch: Dean and Professor of Economics at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Lynch is currently chair of the Board of Directors of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, and she is a former chief economist at the Department of Labor (Under President Clinton).

Bruce R. Magid: Dean of the Brandeis International Business School and holder of the Martin and Ahuva Gross Chair in Financial Markets and Institutions. Magid is a former managing director and senior vice president at Bank of America.

Moderated by: David Warsh, economic journalist and proprietor of EconomicPrincipals.com. Former writer for the Boston Globe for 22 years.

This event is free and open to the public. Reservations not required.

Food and Beverages will be served.

In honor of Nas’ concert tonight:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yydpWtjqa8[/youtube]

Alternative video

Here’s the info:

Tickets bought at the door are $25.00.

In addition, if you have already bought your ticket, please be aware that doors open at 7 pm. The openers will be DJ Raj, Jon Hope, and the Green Lantern.  The following restrictions will be in place for the venue:
No bags allowed
No food/beverages allowed (including the Brandeis water bottle)
No video cameras or other recording devices
Metal Detectors will be in use

Have you ever wanted your club to get more help putting on bigger and better events? Have you always wanted to find different groups to partner with, but didn’t know where to start?

The CCB will provide a forum for club leaders to more easily co-sponsor and program joint-events. By promoting cooperation between clubs on an equal basis — especially clubs that don’t traditionally work together — we can all create programming that is more creative and larger in scale.

For the CCB to succeed, we need your help in finalizing its organization.

If you’re interested in learning more, have suggestions, or just want to participate, please come to the first meeting on Thursday, September 25th at 5PM in the Student Union Office on the third floor of the Shapiro Campus Center.

At this meeting, we will work together to create a structure and organization for the CCB to succeed.

If you have any questions, please contact Alex Braver at alexb@ or Ryan McElhaney at ryanm@

Sounds like a good idea for a thing to do…

In stream-of-consciousness form.

Wow, what an increase in turnout. About 600 people voted in the primary round; 913 voted in the final round. That’s about a 52% increase in turnout to about 30% (assuming we have 3200 undergrad students).

Is 30% turnout something to celebrate? Well, the last “all-campus” election (Senator at Large) had a turnout of 895 students, which is pretty comparable to the 913 that voted this time.

How Adam did it – an army of volunteers who had polling stations in Usdan and Sherman at all times, as well as those who canvassed almost every dorm on campus. He also had us rooting for him too. Hopefully that meant something.

Well well now. So I ended up endorsing the current Student Union President, Vice President, and Three Senators, one of whom is the head of the Social Justice commitee, and one of whom co-founded Innermost Parts. Hell, the new VP is practically the second-in-command here on the blog as well. So – we’ve got good people in the right places. There’s no reason not to expect great things from them. Time to shift from a tone of “the nebulous student union should do this” to “dude I have a great idea let’s run with it!”

So yeah. Time to start laying out even more positive agenda items, etc. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t call out the Student Union if they act badly, however.

The runoff came down to two candidates, both running on activist platforms. I think this reflects a real desire from the students at Brandeis to bring back the “social justice spirit”, to rise over the balkanization of clubs and have a more unified campus. In other words, we students really take this whole “Brandeis Values” thing seriously. We all try to realize that through the lens of different clubs – DFA, SEA, SPA, etc. I think there’s a hunger for a more over-arching sense of campus solidarity.

I’m really impressed by Adam and his rapid ascent. Word up.

OK then. Now what mandate does the new VP have, based on the issues he ran on?
Continue reading “Post-Election Thoughts”

Adam wins!

update:
Rank    Candidate              Votes    %
1          Adam T. Hughes   524       57.39
2          Andrew Brooks      360       39.43
3          ABSTAIN                29         3.18

This is a bit off our normal beat, but worth marveling at.

With the DOW off over 500 points yesterday, Lehman in bankruptcy, the Fed rescuing A.I.G. tonight, the viability of WaMu and others institutions in doubt, Fannie and Freddie placed in conservatorship, a major money market fund halting redemptions, it might seem like the credit crisis is spiraling out of control.

And there are definitely more problems to come.

So it seems that we just nationalized ourselves some banks by accident. Socialism!

First impression – so the US Government now owns a big chunk of the financial industry, eh? This can only increase the power Chris Dodd. All glory to the Dodd!

Seriously, though. Can anyone more informed than me help explain? This would be a good time for, say, a Brandeis Econ Professor to drop by and teach us what the hell is going on.

This is exciting. Remember when Etta King sent out an email telling everyone about her efforts to create a physical location for the Activist Resource Center?

Remember this?

I have proposed to Jason Gray (Student Union President) the establishment of a physical space tentatively called the Activist Resource Center to serve and support the activist community.

If you are interested in discussing this possibility, if you want to have a say in what a place such as the one proposed would look like or do, OR if you think this is an unecessary effort and would like to discuss why, you are invited to a meeting with Jason and I and anyone else who shows up to begin this process. I have been in countless conversations over the last few years about how to better support the activist community, and I think this is a very possible solution towards building better connections between our groups

It’s going down today.
7pm. Shapiro. Union Office.

(You’d have known this already, by the way, by seeing this event on the “Upcoming Events” widget located on the sidebar to the right of this post)

This is it. The final push. Don’t forget to vote. For Adam..

It’s a runoff. Hughes vs Brooks.

update- The numbers:

1 Andrew Brooks 266 43.75
2 Adam T. Hughes 195 32.07
3 Gustavo Pardo 85 13.98
4 Christina Khemraj 37 6.09
5 ABSTAIN 14 2.30
6 Anthony Rios 2 0.33
6 Alex Trott 2 0.33
8 Nate Porteshawver 1 0.16
8 Frank The Tank 1 0.16
8 Jordan Suchow 1 0.16
8 Roy Rotstein 1 0.16
8 Jordan Rothman 1 0.16
8 William Sipzner 1 0.16
8 Alex Braver 1 0.16
15 Alexander Reed Braver 0 0.00
15 Suahd Iddrissu 0 0.00
15 Chaely T. Marrow 0 0.00

According to my back-of-envelope calculations, Adam needs about 4/5 of the Gustavo/Khemraj vote to win, assuming that all who abstained in the first round continue to do so and everyone else votes the same way as they did before (either for Hughes or Brooks or not voting at all).
Winning 80% of those votes is a pretty tall order.

Mike Kerns, outgoing VP of the Brandeis University Student Union, just made a powerful endorsement of Adam Hughes for the same position. Read it for yourself:

VOTE ADAM!...

I wholeheartedly endorse Adam Hughes to succeed me as Vice President. He is a candidate who can truly represent the ‘deis student body and help to guide our Student Union in progressive, truly constructive directions. I have come to know Adam as a selfless individual who has within him all that a true leader requires. While we often find the work of the Student Union to be distant from us, there are a great many impactful issues that need be addressed, and we need Adam to stand for student rights, we need Adam to stand up to the administration when students are barred from campus unduly with their academic careers on the line…we need Adam. There is no question in my mind that he is up to the job, and I respectfully urge you to VOTE NOW (http://union.brandeis.edu/elections/FA08-3/vp#) for Adam. He is simply the candidate I trust to carry on as guardian of our values, our interests, and our community’s priorities as Brandeis’ next Student Union Vice President!

If you’re looking for the candidate whose platform represents who he truly is and what he truly stands for, Adam Hughes is your only choice. He is the activist who actually does more than pay lip service to our community’s concerns at election time. He portrays himself as the individual he actually is as opposed to the candidate painting himself over and pandering at election time. Adam is the candidate who has actually worked hard on the issues touted now by his primary opponent at election time.

I know because I pioneered many of these issues through the Union last year, including gender-neutral housing, tolerance for individual identity, an environmentally friendly campus-wide initiative, a resolution calling for endowment transparency, etc. And I have experienced our candidates in action. Adam is the one for us.

Respectfully, there is a reason Andrew Brooks was voted out of his senate seat last spring, and there is a reason he was so unsuccessful in his previous bid for VP.

That’s how it’s done y’all.

One and a half hours left before the polls close.

All night I’ve been trying to go to http://union.brandeis.edu/elections and vote for Adam Hughes.

All night the server has been crashed. It’s 2:30 at the time of this writing and things don’t seem to have gotten better. Last year we also had problems on election night. Let’s hope that the results will be announced sooner this semester, at least.

As for the mysterious Justin Sulsky email – he pulled the same sort of thing last election. I don’t know where Justin gets access to all students’ emails so quickly. I doubt he painstakingly copied them out from the brandeis people directory. Shady.

Anyways, there are problems with the election website, we here at IP have endorsed a scrappy candidate who happens to be running in the same race as Andrew Brooks, while Justin Sulsky has access to everyone’s email address. It’s April 2008 all over again!

Half an hour before the primary election, and possibly swayed by my ringing endorsement, Mike Kerns has announced his endorsement of Adam Hughes for Student Union Vice President.

More info as this situation develops…

There’s been a lively debate in the comments over the upcoming Vice-Presidential Special Election, but through the lens of analyzing one candidate, Andrew Brooks. This is the case for Adam Hughes, the insurgent candidate for the post (and a fellow here at IP).

What is the character of Brandeis? Is it found in our entreprenurial and innovative spirit? The way that we find people different than us kickass? (We reserve our tolerance for people like Jordan Rothman.) Is it our crusading spirit to heal the world?

Only one man in the running represents all these facets of our beloved school. Only one man can truly represent all these underlying ideals of this community. That man is Adam Hughes.

Continue reading “The Case for Adam Hughes”

The Brennan Center for Justice (great org run out of NYU) just came out with a “guide to explain the rights of student voters”. Their website is here. Their press release:

ith thousands of young and new voters expected to participate in the 2008 election, today the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law launched an online legal guide to student voting. Students across the country will face unique challenges when they register to vote and cast ballots this November, and the interactive
Legal Guide to Student Voting provides an easy-to-use state-by-state analysis of voting laws tailored specifically to college students.

The Brennan Center Guide also dispels common myths about the registration process that can impede student voters—particularly students attending college away from home—as recently described in the New York Times.

With a thorough synthesis of the voting regulations in 50 states and the District of Columbia, the Guide features a clickable map of the United States with concise guidelines about the often complicated registration, residency, voter ID, and absentee laws that vary in each state. By scrolling over a given state, the Guide allows students to
quickly determine how to cast a ballot whether they are voting in their home state or out of state.

There are so many resources for youth voting this year, it’s ridiculously easy to vote / register to vote. And kudos to Brennan. This goes beyond “how to register to vote” and instead attacks people’s legal questions and the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) surrounding Student Voting head-on.

Message for you:

Drinking liberally tonight.
Chums, 11pm.
We’ll have a chums challenge competition, if enough people come.

Before drinking liberally, you might want to …
a: go to chums open mic night at 9pm
b: do the SEA bonfire (show up at shapiro atrium at eihter 8pm or 9pm)

See you TONIGHT

Did you know we had a Kiva.org group set up for Brandeis University? You can join here.

Kiva.org is an easy online way to give out international, no-interest microloans. Here’s an excerpt from their about page:

We Let You Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals in need of funding – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Good news, everyone:

Hello Everyone!

Whereas many people within the activist community at Brandeis have expressed frustration and discomfort with the lack of collaboration, organization and cooperation between activist groups on campus

Whereas activism can only grow to be more effective and inclusive in an environment that fosters the sharing of skills and resources

Whereas many activist efforts could use a place to store, share and meet in a constructive manner

I have proposed to Jason Gray (Student Union President) the establishment of a physical space tentatively called the Activist Resource Center to serve and support the activist community.

If you are interested in discussing this possibility, if you want to have a say in what a place such as the one proposed would look like or do, OR if you think this is an unecessary effort and would like to discuss why, you are invited to a meeting with Jason and I and anyone else who shows up to begin this process. I have been in countless conversations over the last few years about how to better support the activist community, and I think this is a very possible solution towards building better connections between our groups. I am not aware of other efforts to create a similar space, so I apologize if I am stepping on anyone’s toes. Please reply to this email and let me know which meeting time (Wednesday September 17th at 7pm or Thursday September 18th at 7pm) is better for you. Whichever date gets the most replies will be the time of the meeting and I will send out another email.

PLEASE forward this to anyone you think should be involved because I did not send this to every club! Thank you so much.

Peace.

Etta King

Etta can be reached this way.

Did anyone catch Ariel Wittenberg‘s article in the Hoot (the August 2008 issue). It’s called “God Bless You”: A personal story and it’s about what she did over the summer. Damn it’s good. Read it. It’ll make your day. It sure made mine.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

His mom had shown me his picture. In it he was all dressed up in his army fatigues with his helmet and riffle. Derek wanted to be a police officer when he got back from the war.

His face was young. He was my age, but being 19 and working behind a desk for the summer made 19 too young to dress like a GI-Joe and to be shipped off to a foreign desert to risk your life for your country.

I’m a patriot. And for me, that means speaking up against a war you disagree with.

But for this kid, who was a patriot too, it meant paying back a country that lets you speak out whenever you want with his body, maybe his life.

You can tell that Ariel wrote this from the heart, and not as a quick hack job to beat a deadline. This work was honest. A Brandeis Virtue.

Got an email from Jason Gray today; I’m sure you did too. Looks like the Student Union EBoard is trying to do its bit to help out the victims of Gustav.

What their effort boils down to is this: Tabling for donations, backing a student volunteer group, and persuading International Club to donate some funds from Pachanga.

Well, that’s good I guess. Way to use the bully pulpit for some good. I remember in High School, after the Southeast Asian Monsoons, a kid named Adam Sax raised 10,000 from students for charity. So this donation drive definitely has promise. I don’t know why, it just feels…underwhelming.

Maybe the students who join the National Collegiate Volunteers could do some video interviews with some residents and bring back their stories? How about we get the University to invest some of its endowment in no/low-interest micro-loan programs for hurricane survivors. Or maybe we as a student body could raise a ruckus about the failed conservative policies that got us into this mess…again?

I dunno. This isn’t meant to be a criticism of the Student Union. They’re just people on a busy schedule doing what they think is right. I just think there is a capacity at Brandeis for so much more. Those are just some quick ideas I had. This is a good first step, but imagine the possibilities of all else we could do.

You can read the email under the flip:
Continue reading “Student Union vs Hurricane Gustav”

Maybe it’s because localities put so many barriers in front of students registering to vote?

Late last month, as a voter-registration drive by supporters of Senator Barack Obama was signing up thousands of students at Virginia Tech, the local registrar of elections issued two releases incorrectly suggesting a range of dire possibilities for students who registered to vote at their college.

The releases warned that such students could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns, a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.

[snip]

Last fall, in Statesboro, Ga., in a hotly contested city council race, there were challenges to the registration of about 1,000 Georgia Southern University students who had used dormitory addresses. “We threatened suit, but the issue went away when they figured out that the challenges weren’t going to affect the results of the election,” Mr. Greenbaum said.

In 2003, in Waller County, Tex., the district attorney wrote a column in a local newspaper threatening to prosecute students at Prairie View A&M, a historically black university, for illegal voting. The project sued, and the district attorney backed down

This happens all across the country. In many places, students have to change their voter reg information every time they switch dorms. Oftentimes, towns don’t want students from other states to mess with their local elections, so they pull shit like this to make it hard for students to vote. On one hand, you don’t want large Universities overpowering the small towns they’re adjacent to. On the other hand, you don’t want to disenfranchise anyone. It’s a problem.

Applications to join the Steering Committee of the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance (which basically means giving out grants and so forth for deserving clubs, etc) are due at midnight tonight.

Here’s what I wrote for my application:

Q: How would you describe the issues and challenges related to pluralism and unity at Brandeis?

A: Brandeis, as I’ve said before, has a very fractured social scene. The glut of clubs serves to divide, rather than unite, many students on campus.

For instance, the members of Students for Environmental Action and the members of the Brandeis Democrats may have much in common and benefit from working together, but the clubs meet at around the same time and one can’t be in *all* the activist clubs on campus.

Similarly, the “identity clubs” (mixed-heritage, ahora, etc) have little contact with clubs which are not under the ICC umbrella. This is a problem which should change.

Beyond these structural problems, there are simmering tensions below the surface of calm. Voluntary segregation is still an issue. Anything to do with the Middle East is sure to raise hackles. Affirmative action is like religion and politics – not spoken about in polite company. There are only 7 Black professors on campus, and goodness knows how many Latin@s, etc.

Pluralism, Diversity, Tolerance. These things are stressed during Orientation (and the Mosaic pre-orientation program) and hardly ever spoken of again. As Ben Brandzel put it, this University was created to tear down the walls between members of humankind. We were explicitly created to challenge unjust admittance quotas in other colleges. I don’t believe that we’re institutionally living up to that legacy.

So that’s what I think? What about you?