Author: Sahar

We’ve known for a while, but we were sworn to secrecy.

Now we can finally tell you – Cage Free Eggs are coming.
All food on campus will use solely cage-free eggs starting next school year.
The added cost of a meal plan will be 8 dollars per semester.

We’re throwing a party with the Real Food Campaign on Dec 2 to celebrate.
Info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=125861680808372

There’ll first be a soiree with (real) Food, where people will brainstorm plans for the Real Food Campaign next semester. Then afterparty (location tbd).

High-Five! We did it!
Continue reading “Cage-Free Eggs. Here. We won.”

I can’t decide what to go to today. Can you?

4-6pm

No More Arizonas: A Student Tour Against Bigotry
We’ve all heard about the heated battles in Arizona over anti-immigrant laws like SB 1070. But have you ever wondered what life is like inside the most controversial state in the nation? During a week-long tour of the state after the enactment of SB 1070, a delegation of nine students decided to find out. The accounts of what they saw, who they met, and how it changed their lives are riveting. Now these same students are touring the East coast and sharing their stories.

Join them for an upcoming speaking engagement to hear firsthand what they experienced, learn more about the rise of the anti-immigrant movement, and how campuses around the country are finding ways to counter bigotry.

Where: Harlan Chapel, Brandeis University, by the pond

6-8pm

Cohesion: Where Culture Meets Activism. The purpose of this event is to engage students, faculty and staff in a dialogue about the multicultural, political, and intellectual boundaries that we draw between ourselves as students, and how these lines have defined and created a culture of divided student involvement on our campus. This event will be held in the Ridgewood A Common Space from 6:00pm to 8:00pm and will include a special Thanksgiving themed, home-cooked dinner.

6:30-8;00pm

Noam Chomsky will speak on occupation, segregation, and “escalating policies of Apartheid” in Israel today, as part of Brandeis Israeli Occupation Awareness Week, hosted by Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine (BSJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

Breaking news! The cage-free egg survey responses are in!
Here are the results:

In a stunning vote of 89.1% to 10.9%, the student body overwhelmingly wants cage-free eggs to be solely used in preparing our food. This is the most unanimous result of a union survey that I can remember.

In fact, a sweeping 63.5% to 36.5% vote is willing to pay incrementally more for food if it is prepared in an ethical manner. Economics professors correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that the higher cost of eggs would (according to standard models) be split between Aramark and the students.

High five everyone! We really got out the vote and showed that Brandeisians want to live in an ethical environment. More on this later.

Another post from the summer I never got around to publishing. Part I is here. Part II is here.

One more thing about the Union – I think some criticism of the Union is misplaced for a different reason. I find people, even/especially people on the left, hating the Union so much that they advocate tearing it down, dissolving it, or weakening it. During the Budget Fight of 08-09, we frequently advocated for the administration to deal directly with students and bypass the Student Union.

I now think that was mostly a mistake. The Union has many flaws. Many, many flaws. At the end, it’s made up of people – and you need good people doing good works for the Union to be a success. Warts and all, however, the Union is our chosen way of projecting power as students. Dismantling or bypassing the Union gives students less power, not more. The Union is the way that generations of students before us have pressed their demands, gotten the stature to speak up for students to the administration and Board of Trustees, and gotten shit done. It’s kind of like the government. If you disagree with the government, you deal with that through taking it over or lobbying. You don’t try to dismantle it.

During my time on the Constitutional Review Committee, I heard a lot of negativity about the Union – for good reason. What I couldn’t stand, however, was the following line of argument: “Barely 30% of students bother to vote, even for Presidential elections. That’s a signal that the Union doesn’t matter that much – and it should bow to the will of the people, give up power, and not advocate for students”

I disagree with that analysis. People aren’t seeing an effective Union that stands up for them or matters in their daily lives – that’s why there’s low turnout. The last Presidential election had over 50% turnout – people care when they believe in the Union and its possibilities. The Union needs to deal with its low turnout problem by being relevant and bold, an inspiring figure for students – not by crouching defensively and not doing much of anything.

I wrote this during the summer. Never got around to posting it. Here’s part I.

Are critiques of the Student Union logically incoherent?

I’ve been reading this great article by George Packer, which really explores the dysfunction of the United States Senate. Read it!

Anyways, at first I thought there was a real parallel between the issues he raised and the current Student Union Senate. The more I think about it, though, the Union itself has many of the challenges of the US Senate – and some key differences.

A big problem in the narrative of the Senate is found in how it fails to pass legislation that deals with our challenges. Packer writes about anonymous holds, the requirement of unanimous consent, a 3-day-a-week schedule, and other factors as key determinants in the hobbling of the Senate. Yet, the Union doesn’t have these problems. Our stringent clean-elections law completely bans money in politics. The union executive has none of these external factors slowing it down (the Union Senate similarly doesn’t have filibusters, holds, or requirements for unanimous consent, and it famously is capable of meeting until late in the evening).

More subtle problems, however, are found in both. In the modern Senate, Packer finds, individual Senators have their own power bases and electoral machinery and are less likely to need the party – or the Senate itself. On the other hand, they’re so busy that they frequently follow the advice of aides or leadership regarding votes – and often don’t know why they’re voting for a particular bill or what it does. Senators are off being individuals (raising money, talking to interest groups, plotting, etc), instead of making ties among one another, especially across party lines. The rules for the Senate are so convoluted that mining the rulebook gives you a lot of power.

The Union, in comparison, is also full of individual actors that aren’t beholden to a party. The Union itself is filled with many different positions and people. They sometimes try to turn into a more cohesive unit – but the public always has an outcry about the clubbiness and elitism of the Union.

The Union is caught in a catch-22: Bonding invites charges of elitism, but a lack of bonding leads to argument and drama that could be avoided.

Packer tells the tale of how C-SPAN cameras cut through the closed atmosphere of the old Senate, getting rid of cozy deals but also encouraging Senators to read off prepared speeches on the Senate floor instead of speaking frankly. The cameras also lessened the need for Senators to hang around the Senate floor, because they could just waltz in whenever the cameras told them a vote was about to be taken.

I’m a big supporter of Union transparency. Still am. I fought for a mandatory open meeting for the E-Board once a week while I was on the Constitutional Review Committee – and I stand by that. Still, it’s good to take a step back sometimes and recognize that total transparency is both illusory (the hidden stuff just gets shifted during private time in to someone’s dorm instead of official meetings) and not necessarily a good thing. (Lawrence Lessig wrote an important essay back in 2009 that had a large influence on my thinking on the matter as well.)

So can we criticize the Union both for being too insider-y and for the drama and acrimony that results from their insider-y bonding? I think so, but we need to be more careful about it. Just as transparency doesn’t always have a good or bad outcome, neither do unaccountable secret senate meetings and a shadowy E-Board. It takes good people making good decisions to bring about good outcomes, not just helpful structures.

I wrote this a long time ago. Still think it’s worth talking about
The heads of the G20 nations are meeting in Toronto right now. For the last two days, there’s been a spectacle of protest and reaction on the streets of Toronto.

Yesterday, as the G8 joined the rest of the G20, the (I think) Canadian Federation of Labor and other respectable civil-society groups staged a large peaceful  march/protest of around 30,000. During the afternoon, about 300 black-clad figures broke out from the group and started smashing storefronts, etc. The march devolved into bands of thousands of protestors/onlookers roaming around Toronto or being surrounded by police, with the Black Block among some groups, merrily going about their property destruction and then changing clothes and melting into the crowd.

Different narratives/storylines I’m hearing about the whole thing:

• “This peaceful protest was hijacked by a reckless few. Now the peaceful many can’t get their message out”
• “Way to create a backlash against the left and against the change you seek, morons.”
• “Many of the black block were probably police provacatours. Police forces around the world have admitted that they do this at g20-like protests”
• “The police are pushing the story about a few vandals to cover for their illegal and brutal arrests and beatings of the peaceful majority”

I just don’t understand. The vandals/black block or whatever. What are the series of plausible steps they believe can result from their actions? What is their plan?

I’d like to announce the creation of something new, and hopefully awesome.

It’s the allactivsts email list.

Here’s the scoop:

Over the past few years, there have been a few attempts at making an email list for all activists on campus. In my time, there has been arc, arcliasions, changeagency, brandeischangeagency, bbcc, just to name a few. This new list consolidates them all into one email list for all activists on campus.

Why do we need an all-activists-on-campus email list?

A few weeks ago, F-Board gave “activist” clubs much less money than it gave other clubs. If we had such a list back then, we might have used it to vent and quickly realize that we were all being screwed. As it was, we realized it gradually, too gradually to coordinate an effective response.

What would we do with an all-activists-on-campus email list?

There are lots of ways this can be useful:

• People and clubs can advertise their events
• Find others to join or offer support to your campaigns
• Ask for cosponsors
• Ask for strategic advice in your campaigns
• We can pass around links to grants, internships, or fellowships that are awesome. (I will be doing this)
• We can use this to invite each other to parties
• We can use this list to link to very important articles in campus papers or other places
• I know Change Agency, at least, has money to give and will be using this list to do so.
• More ways that we haven’t thought of yet.

How will this be useful for me?

The above reasons. As well as the fact that anyone can email this list. You will have the opportunity and responsibility to email hundreds of dedicated Brandeis changemakers, whenever you want. You will have the responsibility not to abuse that power, and the responsibility to read and respond, as appropriate, to other people.

We now have a new tool. As we use this list, we will figure out how we can most effectively wield it. The important thing is that we experiment and be patient.

Will this list get spammy?

It better not. IF that starts happening, I promise to take steps to stop it. If this email list gets too high-volume, we might break into 2 email lists – a low-volume announcement one, and a high-volume discussion one.

Furthermore, if you log into lists.brandeis.edu, edit your membership mode to “digest”. This means that you will be guaranteed at most 1 email per day, summarizing the day’s activity.

I love this idea! Building the movement on campus is awesome. How can I help?

Well, right now we just have an email list. That was the easy part. Its success will be determined by two factors: the people on the list and the conversations we have. Therefore, there are two broad ways you can help make this a success:

1. Add more people to the list: The more activists (god I hate that word) on this list, the better. Email your club list and ask them to join this one. Add your friends, etc. There are very few first-years here, and they are the future. Evangelize.

2. Add quality discussion to the list: Think about the sort of things we should be talking about. Then talk about them. Make this list a dynamic, helpful resource by asking and answering questions, posting opportunities, giving kudos to great work done by other clubs, etc. Please make this a community worth being part of.

I hope this will be a success. With your help, it could be.

So go here right now and sign up for the all-activists-on-campus email list.

Thanks!
This is a slightly edited version of an email I wrote in collaboration with Matt Gabrenya

So, picking up from my previous post on the need for a new model for unifying the progressive community:

I’m a big fan of email lists. Used correctly, one email can replace 20 phone calls, or an email list can build a sense of community, or create space for a discussion that doesn’t already exist.

We need an email list for activist leaders.

It’ll be so easy to set up – and so useful! Asking for cosponsors could happen over email – instead of 5 different lunches. You can discuss possible approaches to emergencies on campus, or ask each other questions, or banter about a silly Justice article.

We need a way to keep in touch with alumni

There are super-cool Brandeis alumni scattered across the country doing good. We could facilitate a network of lefty alumni. We’ve brought alumni back to campus in the past, and that was great, let’s keep doing it. We were able to do that because David Cunningham knew them – but relying on one man’s connections is limiting.

So why not just make a spreadsheet with the names, contact info, and “what they’re up to” of lefty alumni? We can have different professors add their knowledge – and we keep updating it as years go by. Easy to set up, valuable. Great.

Often we think about high-cost, high-reward things we can do for campus (cough CCW cough). These are some very low cost, medium impact things we could do instead. Good idea?

Brandeis is not a Democracy.

We don’t get a vote – but sometimes we get a voice. This is one of those times. Jean Eddy and Marty Krauss are about as senior administration as you can get (and not be President). They’re leaving soon. The student union is going to appoint representatives to speak on behalf all students regarding our thoughts on their replacements. Those representatives could be concerned only with lining their resumes and schmoozing with the administration – or one of those representatives could be you.

Apply to represent the student body for the search committee. Someone will represent the student body – and it’ll either be one of us or one of them.

As you may know, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean C. Eddy and Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Marty W. Krauss will step down from their current position. Both Jean Eddy and Marty Krauss have made great contributions to this institution, and we sincerely appreciate their efforts.

[snip]

The search process for the two positions will begin in the near future. As such, the ad-hoc Administration Structure Advisory Committee will evaluate the administrative structure and duties.

A Student Advisory Committee will be formed to (1) research student opinion on the administrative structure, (2) present student opinion to the Administration Structure Advisory Committee and President-elect Fredrick Lawrence, and (3) participate in the search process for the two administrative positions.

Furthermore, there is another opportunity to serve on the search committee for a new Director of the Rose Art Museum.

*********
APPLY to be a member of one of these committees: http://my.brandeis.edu/survsimp/one?survey%5fid=5609. DEADLINE SATURDAY, SEP. 25 (5 PM). Strong applicants will be invited for interviews with me, Marla Merchut ( Director of Academic Affairs), Ryan Fanning (Director of Executive Affairs), and Herbie Rosen (Secretary).
*********

You will be expected to commit a significant amount of time to these meetings and discussions, as recommendations made by these committees will impact the future of our university.

Please note that I will be working with the administration for more avenues of communication regarding these issues. Your voice is important to this community, so take the time to apply.

President-elect Fred Lawrence, as cool as he seems, wasn’t elected by students. He was elected by the Board of Trustees – old rich people. To the extent that we get a voice – we gotta seize it.

So Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have just announced dueling (non? quasi? mockingly?) political rallies at the end of October. My suite is stoked – we are so going!

There’s a facebook event for Brandeisians going to rallies. It’s named, appropriately enough, Brandeis people at the Stewart/Colbert Rally. Join if you’re going – we’ll figure out places to meet in DC, it’s a place to find rides, a place to stay, etc.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Rally to Restore Sanity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

I’m a bit worried – this rally is right before Halloween and I really wanted to have a Trick or Vote on campus this year – anyone going to be on campus for Halloween and want to make that happen?

Things I learned from the annual public safety report:
1. There was a forcible sex offense on campus last year. 2 last year.
2. The public safety department provides the following services:

Community Policing
University police officers are annually assigned as department liaison officers to any community group requesting their assistance. Officers will meet with these groups throughout the year to offer assistance and answer questions on public-safety issues, help in planning events and resolving problems or concerns.

Fingerprinting
The department offers free fingerprinting services to community members needing fingerprints for job or visa application, or other related reasons. These services are provided by appointment only. Please call 781-736-5000 or 781-736-4240 for more information.

Projects
The department is available to assist community members with educational projects they may be researching in the public-safety field. For statistics, general information or references to outside public-safety agencies, please contact the department at 781-736-4240

Did you learn anything else?

I’ll be brief – homework calls:

I got an email today from someone who claimed that she lost her faith in Brandeis because Jehuda banned a Palestinian art exhibit in 2006, but regained it after the student-organized Marty Peretz open letter.

This simply baffles me. Brandeis is not a democracy. No student voted for Jehuda. “President-Elect” Frederick Lawrence might’ve been elected by old people rich, powerful, or famous enough to be on the Board of Trustees, but I sure as hell didn’t vote for him or against him.

Brandeis is not a democracy. Student actions shouldn’t increase or decrease your appreciation for the administration, and vice versa. Don’t make the mistake of giving us credit or demerit for what the adults choose to do around here.

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

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

How badly did you disgrace your University this week? If your name is Marty Peretz (’59), the answer is “very badly”.

Here’s what he recently had to say:

“Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”

We awarded Peretz the alumni achievement award in 2009. He’s frequently listed as a notable alum by Admissions. We have both the obligation and the opportunity to publicly call for him to apologize.

Sign our open letter to Marty Peretz, demanding an apology for his un-Brandeisian editorial: http://fromBrandeistoMarty.com

We’ve written an open letter that clearly states that Peretz’s remarks are not okay, and that Brandeis doesn’t appreciate those hateful words.

If an honored Brandeis alum speaks appallingly it reflects on our university and on us. Join us in calling for our University to make it clear that bigotry is not a value we honor.

If 500 community members sign this open letter, we’ll mail the letter – and the signatures – to the New Republic as a University response to his comments.  The public pressure might force Peretz to apologize for his remarks – and if it doesn’t, we’ll ask President Jehuda to strip him of his alumni achievement award.

Thank you for standing with us in support of Brandeis – and universal – values.

I sent a version of this as an email to some people earlier today. I figured I’d share it with you all as well

Brandeis is pretty great but also a bit too serious sometimes, and also bureaucratic. I’ve gone to colleges with brown sheet paper pasted to the bathroom stalls, so that students were encouraged to write. Instead of the lewd crudity you see here, they had poetry, discussions, stories. We need that sort of activist spirit at Brandeis.

We need to do more things like this:

I put on a “Zombie Week” program in my Washington State University dorm last spring, which was an RPG/game of tag/social experiment, and won residence hall program of the year.

Infected had to wear a red wristband inside the dorm. One person started as an infected. Dorm rooms were safe. A tag from any infected, and you were infected too. Weapon and item cards, (a few provided in the mail, and others cached around the building) could be used to defend against zombies.

Basically, weapons and items were RPG-style cards that had to be handed to attacking zombies. We had a pretty large selection with some interesting combinations and effects. Pipe wrenches, decoys, propane tanks, etc.

Everyone was “required” to play, and even though there were a few people who just became infected and didn’t give a shit, there were hundreds of others sprinting up and down the halls at all hours. It seriously sounded like a fucking zombie apocalypse. Three in the morning you’d hear crashing and screaming, and then silence.

Motivation to survive was a Visa cash card for $50 and other prizes such as Left 4 Dead copies and “The Zombie Survival Guide”. The finale of the event involved fighting your way to the rec room Friday evening for prizes, pizza, and a zombie movie. I swear half the dorm showed up.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and I’d be happy to post the ruleset and items if anyone is interested in replicating this (or just taking a look).

CAs take notice!

If you were wondering, our hall government committee was called Coffee Hour and our job was to host foreign movies with coffee and intellectual discussions. We deemed that super lame and instead spent our whole budget line item on Zombie Week.

This is awesome. This is what college should be. Let this be an example of the lifestyle we could be living in

The American Enterprise Institute is an explicitly right-wing organization. They have a new report out claiming that we students study an average of 14 hours a week, which is 10 hours less than people in the 60’s. Their summary:

In 1961, the average full-time student at a four-year college in the United States studied about twenty-four hours per week, while his modern counterpart puts in only fourteen hours per week. Students now study less than half as much as universities claim to require. This dramatic decline in study time occurred for students from all demographic subgroups, for students who worked and those who did not, within every major, and at four-year colleges of every type, degree structure, and level of selectivity. Most of the decline predates the innovations in technology that are most relevant to education and thus was not driven by such changes. The most plausible explanation for these findings, we conclude, is that standards have fallen at postsecondary institutions in the United States.

So I’m not sure I agree with or trust the AEI on anything. What do you think of these allegations? I I don’t keep track of how much I study per week – is 14 hours correct? Also see Ezra Klein for more.

Want more even more Sahar in your life?

I made a personal miniblog to document things that make me smile and keep track of my adventures.

Also sometimes writing for Innermost Parts feels constricting. I have to worry about style, staying on topic, being witty, etc. So this’ll be a place to let off steam and not let that get me down.

Check it out if you want.