Break!

With the passing of commencement, Innermost Parts is officially on break. What does this mean for you?

– We no longer strive to put up at least a post a day.
– We’re no longer bound by the news cycle.

Happily, this means we can branch out into new types of posts. I’m excited about the opportunities that time to think and no homework provide. I’m thinking of writing about:

  • Analysis of long-term trends at the University
  • What sort of Brandeis do we want to see, anyways?
  • Summaries of what’s happened so far while I’ve been here at Brandeis
  • Looking back at good old posts – have they stood the test of time? Plus relative newcomers can be exposed to the brilliance wisdom of people who have since depareted Brandeis/Innermost Parts
  • Bringing a social movement perspective to happenings at Brandeis
  • A look into inspirational figures:
    • There have been alumni/professors etc at Brandeis that are cool and you should know about!
    • I’m looking at a short biography of Malcolm Moos, regarded as a great and wise man (and gov’t official) as well as University President. He had a big hand in writing Eisenhower’s famous last address (the military industrial complex one) and then was famous for being President of the Univeristy of Minnesota during the sixties. Instead of antagonizing the activists at the school, he embraced them, and therefore great things happened under his tenure. I can write more about him and other great models for University decisionmakers.
    • One thing that I wish happened at Brandeis was more/any classes on, well, Louis Brandeis. I got Urofsky’s killer book, and if i have time I’d like to blog about interesting points made so that we can all learn more about our namesake.
  • Adam wrote an absolutely spot-on take on how the student union’s relationship with activists can either be poisonous or productive. I’d like to do some more thinking out loud about what a productive relationship would like like, and what exactly do we went
  • In general, there’s probably going to be more posts like this, with introspection, talking about Innermost Parts and activism at Brandeis, asking you for ideas, offering up positive ideas about what I’m for (as opposed to what I’m against) etc. I’ve done a lot of searching and a lot of thinking about Innermsot Parts, activism, student power, etc in the last year, but you guys haven’t seen most of it – I didn’t necessarily know whether you’d be interested in that sort of thing. Now that we’ve hit the summer I can be looser and vary my topics more.
  • I want to write more about activism – how to do it, theory, examples, great articles I’ve found on the subject, etc. A founding idea of Innermost Parts was to be (among other things) a teaching tool for students about how to get things done. We haven’t yet really fulfilled that goal and I’m excited to try.
  • Over the course of the last year I’ve met a bunch of Brandeis alumni, specifically alumni that have been activists on campus. If I have the time (I probably won’t) I’d like to interview them and get the story of what sort of stuff went on during their time at Brandeis, any messages they want to share with us, etc. If someone else wanted to take on this project I think it’d be really cool.
  • In general I want to be more introspective,  take a step back and talk about trends, big-picture, long-term stuff. That and also whatever crosses my mind.
  • I’m sure the others on Innermost Parts have their own plans for what they’ll write about that are different than mine, too, and I’m looking forward to reading that.

So, do any of these ideas excite you?
Anything you particularly want me to write about?
Anything that you yourself want to write about?

Enjoy the break.

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