Innermost Parts

This post is part of a series that addresses the physical aspects of our campus, specifically the history and the current state of Brandeis University architecture and planning.

One of society’s ongoing problems is what to do with old buildings.  Do we demolish them and build something new?  Do we renovate and re-purpose them?  If they’re particularly special, we might even restore them to their original state.  Brandeis is no more immune to this problem than any city or town.  In fact, college campuses may feel the pressures to demolish old buildings stronger than any other communities.  Colleges depend on large donors to renew their facilities, and large donors want their names on fashionable new buildings.

For several weeks now, crews have been working at demolishing the Friedland Life Science building and the Kalman Pre-Medical Building.  To my best knowledge, no one has made a fuss.  I’m not a science student, but I’ve visited both of these buildings.  Friedland was actually pretty quirky and interesting, with large white panels covering much of the exterior and short windows at the top of each floor, creating glass divisions between its five stories.  I believe it was designed by firm of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbott, which had some very famous founders.

Should we really treat buildings such as Friedland as disposable?  I don’t think so.  Sure, they’re not very much in style today, but someday we may come to regret losing them.  Harvard’s now-loved Memorial Hall once faced the wrecking ball because 50-or-so years late it had fallen out of style.  Sure, Friedland isn’t so grand, nor was it probably constructed so well, but it’s so… well, modern.  It was of the era of the Space Race, and in my opinion it showed it.

Friedland isn’t the only building with a funky, modern style.  Goldman-Schwartz?  East?  Spingold?  Schwartz and Brown?  All of these buildings have been deeply neglected over the years.  Under the right conditions, any of these buildings could receive its death sentence.  At Brandeis, we take the attitude that after a building goes up, it’s okay to leave it to decay forever.  I urge Brandeis to treat its buildings with greater respect.

If you need reinforcement for what our ’50s and ’60s-era buildings could look like, visit the lobby of Gryzmish across from the campus center.  Without  daily wear from students, the interior has stayed fairly well preserved.  Really, take a look.  Once the examples of that style are destroyed, they will never come back in quite the same form.

So students at Rutgers kickstarted a campaign to overthrow the incumbent local Democratic machine and as a result are really shaking things up.

These students created a legitimate organization that is composed of residents across the city. They do community organizing by day, electioneering by night, and (electorally) they’ve been remarkably successful.

Rutgers site:

A group of Rutgers University students and graduates have brought their brand of social-justice activism off campus and into the streets of New Brunswick, winning seats on a key political committee and starting a movement to change the way city elections are held.

“We’re community organizers,” said Charles Kratovil, a 2009 graduate. “We think it’s the best way to effect real change – just like when Barack Obama got out of college, he became a community organizer.”

Kratovil and his fellow students are members of Empower Our Neighborhoods – a group that performs a range of social-justice projects and also spawned an offshoot organization, Democrats for Change to mount a direct challenge to the established Democratic Party that dominates New Brunswick politics.

And they won!

Democrats for Change, a coalition of moderate, progressive, and revolutionary democrats inspired by Obama’s campaign, shocked the political establishment in New Jersey’s recent primary election winning twenty-five out of fifty-six Democratic Party committee seats against New Brunswick’s entrenched Daleyesque political machine.

The election marks the first time New Brunswick’s conservative Democratic Party machine suffered a defeat at the polls. “For far too long the administration has heard only the voices of commercial developers and business,” said life-long New Brunswick resident Charlie Renda, “Yesterday’s vote signals the beginning of a renewal of democracy in New Brunswick” he added.

For many organizers this is the beginning of a larger political project. “It is time for progressives and radicals to get out of protest mode and to start taking power at the local level. It can be done. We are proving it,” said Keith Joseph a campaign organizer, “we hope to start uniting with progressives who are struggling for political power in other cities” he added.

We should do something like this here at Brandeis!

Random Thoughts:
This is really cool, and Social Justice is our thing, you know? I firmly believe that a sustainable organization of Brandeis grads and students working for positive change in Waltham/Boston would be good for students, a great place to work after you graduate, and, most of all, great for the community.

More than Words and the various Waltham Group projects are arguably a good place to start. They already have ties to the community and Brandeis proper.

We don’t have to /copy/ the Rutgers crew, but the point is that we can and probably should get involved in our community more, and in an organizing sort of way, not just a service sort of way.

I am a member of the Waltham City Democratic Committee. On one hand, the current committee isn’t very fearsome or entrenched. On the other hand, they don’t seem corrupt either. They’re just normal, decent, people, you know?

This is my point. We have so much opportunity to do good. Let’s not forget that. Also, compare and contrast that with Student Union shitshow. Which is more worth praise and attention?

In the comments, “George” calls me out: (He writes “Innermost Parts” instead of” Sahar Massachi” but I speak only for myself here)

It’s amazing how innermostparts would freak out when student leaders last year and the year before did minuscule things you disagreed with, yet now you don’t care to hold any of the current leadership accountable? Please do us all a favor and either admit that you are a hypocrite or that you were wrong in the past for writing incessantly about “meaningless bullshit” and demonizing past leaders.

Yo George, that’s the thing.

Last year, I cared *so much* about these sorts of things. Now, I can’t summon the enthusiasm to even write about this sort of stuff, most of the time.

I don’t really know why; I guess I’m going through a personal journey of sorts, and you’re watching it in real time.

Does Diana deserve to be impeached? Would be better off if she was? Maybe. In fact, I’m even sympathetic to the pro-impeachment side of things. Intellectually, I do feel these sorts of struggles are important, that proper running of the Union is important, that the Senate has the power and responsibility to do such things.

Still, I just can’t summon the energy to cover it, or to try to affect the outcome at all.

We’re all just students here, ok? Andy and Diana messed up, but they weren’t mendacious. They’re just kids. We’re all just kids. (In my mind, 20-ish is still a “kid”. You can replace “kid” with “young adult” if you want) They work hard, or don’t, doesn’t really matter. They were intimidated by the voting system and kept putting it off, then forgot about the whole matter. Rather than remind them, the Senate freaked out and impeached Diana.

Or maybe that’s not what happened at all. If that’s the case, we’ll find out at the trial.

Look, Innermost Parts was founded to uphold Brandeis values and uphold Social Justice. I want to get back to that vision of what we’re supposed to be. The internal power struggles of the Student Union, however much they matter to those inside the Union, look so boring now.

By focusing so closely on the Union for the past I-don’t-know-how-long, Innermost Parts hasn’t been able to grow in scope. We should be talking about funding decisions for the University, Board of Trustees affairs, about Dining and Aramark. We should be boosting worthy clubs and events, and we should help keep Social Justice a meaningful thing, not just a phrase that everyone bandies about.

That’s what I’m talking about.

Before anything else, we’re fellow students here. Sometimes I feel we act out these roles – blogger, journalist, “senator”, whatever, and forget that fact. Let’s just take a step back and remember that, come on, let’s not take ourselves so seriously here.

You know what really matters?

Many of my friends and acquaintances here at Brandeis right now are struggling to find a way to pay for college. They might graduate early, they might drop out. Some have already taken a semester or two off, and might not be able to return.

What the fuck?

I just talked to an absolutely cool prospective student I met last year. She was certain she wanted to come to Brandeis, but it turned out that she couldn’t pay and had to settle for for a different (inferior) school.

Why?

Not only are my friends being forced out of Brandeis due to its astronomical tuition, but many of us will be saddled with huge debt once we graduate, and face an even greater challenge paying for grad school.

I’m really frustrated because this is all happening in front of my very eyes, and I can see things get worse every month. I don’t know what to do about this. Please, anyone, if you are listening, help us!

A little while back the Student Union senate voted to impeach Diana Aronin, Union Secretary, and censure president Andy Hogan. Why? The Senate voted on an amendment to add a midyear Senator position to the constitution, and Diana/Andy didn’t put it up for a vote. You can read the Hoot if you want more information.

A year ago I would have been really interested in covering this.

Honestly? This is all meaningless bullshit. I really don’t much care anymore. The only thing worse than a powerless, meaningless senate is one that tries to flex its muscles in an unproductive, petty way.

This latest development, however, puts a smile on my face:

Petitioner Name: Deena Glucksman
Party against whom the case is being brought: Jenna Rubin, Executive
Senator of Student Union
Complaint: As of December 6, 2009, Student Union Secretary Diana
Aronin ’11, was impeached by the Senate for “willfully corrupting and
violating the duties set forth to her in the Union Constitution.”
According to the Union Constitution, Article X, Section 2, “A
two-thirds vote of the Senate is required to impeach an elected Union
Government official.” According to the Senate Resolution F09-3, 11
senators voted to impeach Secretary Aronin. There are currently 20
Senators seated on the Senate out of a possible 24. Neither an 11 out
of 20 nor an 11 out of 23 vote is greater than or equal to a
two-thirds vote. As a result, the impeachment was voted upon and
enacted unconstitutionally.

If this is true, Jenna Rubin comes out looking really dumb.

Update: Nope. Ms. Glucksman’s got it wrong. I’ve got many emails last night regarding this post. I love it when that happens. It turns out that 14 people voted for impeachment, but 11 people signed the articles of impeachment, and you need 2/3 of senators present when you have a quorum, rather than 2/3 of all total senators who are seated. I wrote this post in haste last night. Normally I’d do my due diligence on this. Thanks for keeping me honest.

This is big news.
Andy Hogan, Union President, will be a (non-voting) member of the Presidential Search Committee.

It’s been a hard slog to get to this point. And let’s be clear – it’s not enough.

But still, it’s nice to finally have a student representative on the actual committee to choose the next University President.

Edit: Plus, there’ll be one town hall and an online forum and such

We’re at Andy Hogan’s state of the union address right now. He’s just announced some cool news:

Starting this January, there’ll be a new place to get food in upstairs Levin Ballroom, in the Gluck Lounge. Cold Sandwiches, no seating, “higher quality”, and you can use either meals or points. After the Mandel Center is finished, it’ll either move to Mandel or some other cafeteria will be created in Mandel in its stead.

More news coming.

Anger at tuition increases, staff and faculty cuts, and the corporatization of education has led to major actions across the University of California system in the last few months. As the UC Board of Regents meets this week, students at several schools have staged protests and occupations to demand greater access to education (as promised in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education) and democratic decision-making.

Students at UC Santa Cruz and Berkeley have (attempted?) occupations. At UCLA, students have taken Campbell Hall and renamed it Carter-Huggins Hall in remembrance of Black Panthers murdered there in 1969. Although cops have tasered at least three students and beaten others, the occupation as a whole is still going strong.

More updates as they come in!

– Some students and faculty from Al-Quds University came to Brandeis. This is because we’ve had a partnership with them since 2003. While the article talks about them interacting with Brandeis students, let’s be serious here. They only interacted with small percentage of the Brandeis population. I might be a bit upset because I wanted to meet them, but couldn’t.

– There’s going to be a new committee on Faculty Workload.

– The Provost’s Committee on the Assessment of Student Learning is moving along. The Brandeis push for individual and departmental learning goals is continuing.

– Trisk is big.

– You know the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism? The person who donated that money is going to be the US ambassador to the UN General Assembly. Cool!

– Students can’t choose the next University President. We do have an official student advisory panel on all this, however. They are going to hold a “Town Hall” style of event where students will lay out their vision of what a good presdient will be. This is a good step in the right direction. More on this later.

– The Student Union will soon debut a new money-management system, mandatory for all clubs. Also, a new website by thanksgiving.

– The Constitutional Review Committee met, didn’t really decide anything. A lot of stuff will be decided in the next meeting this Saturday.

– The Justice has an editorial called “Refocus Louis Louis Week”. I agree with them up to a point, but my main complaint about LL week is that it seems to involve throwing around our money for not much reason. Free food is a great way to use our money. Free trinkets? Not so much. That said, they’ve been a lot better this year; I can’t point to any example of flagrant waste this year. Good job! Also, this is probably just me being curmudgeonly, but I would like to see some sort of talk of Louis Brandeis. We’re celebrating his brithday, but not talking/learning about him at all. Why?

As you might know, I’m on the Consttitutional Review Committee. I get to be one of 17 people who will attempt to rewrite the Union Constitution this year.

As your representative, it behooves me to let you know what sort of changes I’m thinking about proposing. I welcome your feedback.

Snatches of thought:

• The Senate has historically, well, sucked. How can we fix this?
• The Problem: Senate is set up as a legislative body, but it can pass no real “laws”.
• Lets take an analogy from like real life: a person in NYC has so many people that they elect: county eeec, local council member, borough rep, major, assemblyperson, state senate, governor, comptroller, state AG, House rep, 2 senators, + president + more local politicians that I forget. In theory, having all those positions be elected increases accountability. In reality, normal people can’t keep track of all those people they vote on, so those politicians are not accountable to anyone, since they don’t have bosses, only voters. A solution is to decrease the number of directly electable positions, but instead allow the recall. That way the people voters vote on are more likely to actually be scrutinized.
• We could decrease the number of senators, so that each election is more important, the “quality” of senator goes up, etc.
• People have a low opinion of the Union because their interaction with it is usually the senate. So many people have come up to me and said something along the lines of “At first I thought you were just exaggerating or crazy when you talked about how bad the Senate was, but I went to a meeting yesterday and now I understand completely.”
• Does the Senate have a function, really? All it really needs to do is charter/recognize clubs.
• Let’s be honest; all the power in the Union is found in the E-Board and F-Board.
• Let’s ignore F-Board for the purposes of this conversation: it seems to work more-or-less fine.
• If all the power is really in the E-Board, and most of the E-board is unelected, we seem to have a problem here.
• There are alternate models to democracy than just representational voting.
• Brandeis has less citizens than Athens did. Brandeis isn’t that big.What’s wrong with direct democracy?
• Voting costs nothing, and with the internet, is so easy.
• The Union doesn’t legislate. What power does it have? It’s power lies in interaction with adults, appointments to committees, and in controlling the flow of our money.
• If you want to reform the Union, reform the process of appointments.
• Logically, the answer to all this is to allow the Senate to confirm all appointments, or to even make the appointments themselves.
• But! The Senate sucks!

Conclusions:

• I want more direct democracy at Brandeis! I just don’t know how to fit that ideal into reality. I need ideas, here!
• Non-monetary power in the Union is concentrated in a mostly-unelected e-board and in the people they appoint to University Committees.
• Committees are where policy is made: let’s focus on that.
• IRV voting is a more democratic form of voting, and is easy to implement and understand. We have to switch to that. Tufts, MIT, Harvard, and a bunch of other schools have already switched to that system.

What do you think should be changed about the Union Constitution?

So I was looking at the online poll on the Justice last week.

The whole story is that at the Rose re-opening this semester, a bunch of students wore “save the rose” buttons, and Shula Reinharz (wife of Pres. Reinharz and a Sociology Professor in her own right) was all “dude the Rose is saved. Get rid of those buttons already.” The Poll basically asked “was this thing that Shula did ok?”

Now, lets put aside the fact the allowed poll responses were awful. Actually, let’s not. For the “No, that was not OK” response, they put “No; the right to free speech should not be challenged.”

Um, if the right to free speech should not be challenged, why challenge Shula’s right to ask people to not wear buttons? A possible real “No” response might read “No; Shula acted inappropriately and rudely”, or “No; in fact, the Rose is not yet saved.”

The point is this: I don’t think whoever made that poll understands why those students were wearing those buttons in the first place. You see, the Rose still isn’t saved. The Rose is under attack, and quite possibly not actually a museum any more.

Fact: “The Rose, if it continues to function as a museum, would almost certainly be excommunicated from the community of other art museums for breaching a code against selling works (unless it is for the purpose of buying other art). It could be unable to secure loans of work from other museums. This would have a huge impact on its ability to mount exhibitions, and on its ability to attract a replacement director, if it seeks to do so.”
Fact: The Rose currently has no curator, educational director, or permanent director.
Fact: The University is in a big legal battle with the Rose trustees, and is claiming that they are of course entitled to sell whatever the hell they want

Claim: Without visiting art works or a director, the Rose would be a gallery, not a museum.

The Rose is still not saved, and the University is still trying to crush it legally.

And that, my friends, is why the Rose needs saving.

Today, I and a number of other students (the exact number I do not know – I estimate conservatively around twenty) stood briefly during Dore Gold’s speech during the debate (regardless of what the organizers say, this was a debate). Surely many believe that this was inappropriate and rude – and for the most part I agree, but I also think that we had an important message.

Justice Richard Goldstone is one of the most credible sources on the matter of War Crimes. He’s investigated crimes in South Africa, Rwanda, the Balkans and other hot-spots of violence. If anyone knows what a war crime is, it’s Justice Goldstone. To further add to his credibility as a neutral investigator, he is a long-time Zionist. Yet this man was pitted against a “pro-Israel” speaker – putting him in the uncomfortable position of being “anti-Israel,” which he most certainly is not. Just two weeks ago Dan Meridor was allowed to speak uncontested by a speaker from a different narrative – Goldstone should have been afforded the same respect. I am certainly not opposed to discussion and debate, but this event lopsided the discussion. No Palestinians were invited to speak and thus the Palestinian narrative was excluded from this event.

This is what we were protesting. Taped to our shirts we had the names of both Israeli and Palestinian civilian victims of the Gaza War. We stood silently – for just a few moments to let the audience know our discontent.

Though I myself was not harmed or attacked in anyway – many of my fellow protesters were physically violated for their peaceful protest. One protester commented that after she sat back down, the person in front of her repeatedly pushed their chair back against her. Another said that she was repeatedly slapped lightly by her neighbors. Yet another said that while standing she was shoved and her hair was pulled. This is most certainly a disturbing use of force, and in my mind takes away any sort of moral high-ground the right-wing might have gained from us being ‘rude.’

All of this makes me think. We live in a world where culture dictates that when we feel ‘wronged’ it is acceptable to use violence to make things right.

I have a lot of sympathy for the people of Sderot who lived in terror due to the rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza. When Israel invaded Gaza this winter – it did so to put a stop to the rocket fire. It did so under the assumption that it is acceptable to use force to right a wrong. Whether or not the invasion of Gaza did temporarily stop the rocket fire, but it did nothing to bring about a long term peace.

Hamas and other terrorist organizations fall into the same problem. They feel wronged by Israel and then think it is acceptable to use violence to make things right. Sixty years of on-and-off war has proven that this method does nothing – it hardens your enemies hatred of you and leaves behind a trail of dead civilians.

The people of Israel are scared and angry. The people of Palestine are scared and desperate. Both sides must come to realize that a failure to recognize how they have wronged the other and the use of violence will only prolong the conflict. Regardless of whether or not Israel acted ethically in Operation Cast Lead, the invasion angered Palestinians and destroyed their already weak economy, infrastructure, and usable farmland. The people of Gaza have nothing, there is very little work, very little food, very little to do. It does not surprise me that many of them turn to terrorism.

As a proud Zionist, I am determined to see the State of Israel survive this conflict. The use of force is simply a short-term strategy for creating an uneasy peace. To end the conflict, Israel must work to improve economic and living conditions in the West Bank and the Gaza. The first step is to lift the crippling economic blockade of Gaza. They must withdraw all settlements from the West Bank and East Jerusalem so that Palestinians can also have the right to self-determination. Though many may claim that these actions are counter-productive to Israel’s short-term security (they are not), in the long-run they are absolutely critical to creating a lasting peace.

Both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian people must cease using force as a means to achieve change. It cannot and will not work.

This is why I stood up today – to protest the use of violence. In using force against us, the right-wingers who opposed us achieved nothing. Yes, we were antagonistic, but we stood up for what we believed in and then peacefully sat back down.

When are we all going to start talking about the really high cost of going to Brandeis? I know a bunch of people who are being forced to drop out because Brandeis simply keeps raising tuition and costing too much.

This is not cool.

I don’t know why, but it seems like no one on campus is talking about the increasingly high cost of living here. Maybe people are uncomfortable discussing these sorts of things, or feel ashamed talking about how many loans they took out to get here? Honestly, I have no idea.

Enlighten me: how are you dealing with paying for college? Are you noticing a bunch of your friends leaving Brandeis early, or is it just me?

Taisha Sturdivant, next time I see you in person I want to give you a big hug and take you out to dinner. I am so proud to be in the same college as you, and I want to wish you a happy birthday. I really look forward to meeting you in the future.

The story:

Taisha Sturdivant grew up around Four Corners, in Dorchester, on a dead end called Harvard Park that looked nothing like a park and was home to no one who went to Harvard. The gangsters sold their drugs and fired their guns and Taisha winced at the pop-pop-pop and kept her head down.

Her brother started running with a gang, and then one day he wasn’t running anymore: He was standing, in a courtroom, in front of a judge, because he sold drugs.

“First time I was in a courtroom, I was 12. It was to show support for my brother,’’ she said. “He’s still incarcerated.’’

Taisha Sturdivant grew up around Four Corners, in Dorchester, on a dead end called Harvard Park that looked nothing like a park and was home to no one who went to Harvard. The gangsters sold their drugs and fired their guns and Taisha winced at the pop-pop-pop and kept her head down.

Her brother started running with a gang, and then one day he wasn’t running anymore: He was standing, in a courtroom, in front of a judge, because he sold drugs.

…

By the time Taisha Sturdivant enrolled at Brandeis, many of the kids she grew up with were dead, in prison, or, like her sister, single parents living in the projects.

“No one I grew up with went to college,’’ she said. “No one.’’
…

She is 20 years old, going on 40. She’s a junior at Brandeis and she’s been on the dean’s list every semester. She writes poetry and knows a lot about the world. She spent last summer on the Mexican border, working with immigrants. She’s going to Ghana in January, for six months, to put into practice some of her ideas on education.

She’s going to finish up at Brandeis next year, go to law school, and then Taisha Sturdivant is going to change the world.

Believe it.

The Constitutional Review Committee is a strange beast. “We”, the student body, are reviewing/revising/rewriting the Union constitution, but no one is elected, anot too many people are appointed by the Student Union, either. (Full disclosure – I was appointed by the Union to this committee).

Instead, members of the Constitutional Review Committee are selected by constituent clubs and organizations themselves, such as “secured non-media” or “club sports”. The result is interesting: most of these people don’t seem like they’d normally have much to do with the union at all, yet here they are rewriting the constitution.

That reminds me: The members of the Constitutional Review Committee so far are:

ICC – Kenta
Club sports – Benjy cooper
religious organizations – Matthew Feinberg
Secured media – Andrea Fineman
Secured non-media – Jessie Steinberg
Senate – Ryan fanning
performance and artistic- andrew litwin
eboard – Jenna Brofsky
f-board Julia Cohen
non-sports competition – Nipun
division of student affairs – Steph Grimes
CA- Tamar Brown
at large – Sahra Massachi and Alex Schneider

Aaron Swartz, a sharp mind (and technically my ex-boss), doesn’t really like the institution of college. A very successful soon-to-be 23 year old activist, hacker, and thinker, Aaron co-invented RSS at age 14, and now he’s the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and on the Board of Change Congress. He’s also created a bunch of other cool stuff that I won’t get into now.

So this is a very impressive guy who knows his shit, if you pardon my french.

He’s recently written about a phenomenon called “Disciplinary Bubbles”. Brandeis Professors, do you have any insight to this phenomenon?

His point:

The academy is often thought of as the ideal for developing knowledge: select the brightest minds in the country, guarantee them jobs, allow them all the resources they need to research anything, don’t interfere with any of their conclusions. On some issues, these independent-minded academics form a consensus and we tend to give their consensus very heavy weight. They can’t all be wrong, can they?

And yet, in my empirical research, I find they very often are. A short blog post is no place to do a careful study, but I can mention some examples. The classic works in industrial relations turn out to be complete hoaxes, yet they’ve dominated the teach of the field for over half a century. (See Alex Carey’s book for details.) In political science, the most respected practioner’s most famous work shades and distorts his own findings to support a theory wildly at odds with the facts. (See Who Really Rules?) The whole field of fMRI studies are so flat-out ridiculous that journal articles are even making jokes about them. And, maybe most blatantly today, economics was dominated by a paradigm that believed substantive unemployment was impossible, despite that notion having been famously and thoroughly debunked by Keynes and, of course, reality.

To become a professor of X, one must first spend several years receiving an undergraduate major in X, then several more years going to graduate school in X, then perhaps work as a postdoc or adjunct for a bit, before getting a tenure-track position and working like mad to make enough of a dent in the field of X to be seen as deserving of a prominent permanent position. When your time is called, a panel of existing professors of X passes judgment on your work to decide if it passes muster. Can you imagine a better procedure for forcing impressionable young minds to believe crazy things?

This makes perfect sense to me, but I didn’t spend most of my life in the academy. I’m really interested in hearing what our professors have to say. Students – maybe you should ask them about it during/after/before class tomorrow.

From The Hoot:

– Shula Reinharz (wife of President Jehuda Reinharz) thinks the Rose is saved. Then why is Brandeis University engaged in a costly legal battle to crush it and sell the spoils?

President Reinharz’s wife, Professor Shulamit Reinharz (SOC), approached the students and said, “If you want to keep doing something damaging to the university and the museum, then keep doing what you’re doing.” “They are misguided,” she later said. “They should be saying ‘I support The Rose.’ The Rose has already been saved.”

– That Harper’s article was sort of dumb, and Ariel Wittenberg has numbers to prove it.
– The Constitutional Review Committee is still forming.
– There’s a new committee on endowment transparency (CEER): “Sara Robinson ’12, Josh Hoffman-Senn ’12, Evan Green-Lowe ’10, Beau Bonness ’11, Amy Mandel ’10, Nipun Marwaha ’12, Matt Gabrenya ’13, and Coleman Mahler ’13”. Hopefully CEER will be more effective this year than last.

We often contrast “private” schools (like Brandeis) with “public” schools (like the SUNY System in NY). Let’s not forget the third category: for-profit colleges.

They’re often run in a predatory fashion and are in cahoots with the private loan industry. We’re lucky not to go to one.

Cross-posted from my blog.

This past Friday evening I participated in an event called Critical Mass, with the purpose to celebrate cycling and assert cyclists’ right to the road.  In Boston, bicyclists hold a ride on a last Friday of every month, starting at Copley Square in the Back Bay.  There are no organizers.  I heard about the event from some fellow Brandeisians through Facebook.  I’d never done any real urban riding before, so naturally I felt anxious as I sat with my Schwinn on the Commuter Rail, waiting to arrive in Boston.  Since I work at WalkBoston Fridays, I rode the bike over to Old City Hall and locked it up outside the office.  Making it from North Station without incident felt like quite an accomplishment!

After work when it came time to ride over to Copley, I realized how disoriented I felt bicycling rather than walking around the city.  Suddenly I had to deal with a bunch of one-way streets and I lacked the time to think about my direction at each intersection.  When I arrived at Copley Square there were already a number of cyclists, many with single-gear or fixie bikes, others with modified road cycles, and a whole bunch of people in costume for Halloween.  I felt silly with my mountain bike.  I ran into a fellow I met at the HONK!Fest and we chatted for a bit.  Again, no one was in charge, so we just had to wait until someone started riding and then follow.

With over 100 cyclists, we took over the streets of downtown Boston.  It was simply amazing and brought a huge grin to my face.  Instead of being pushed to the margins, we owned the road.  Collective action gave us the right to ride in freedom.  Instead of thinking about the car behind me or the intersection ahead, I could actually take in the sights and lights of the city.  And the pavement–so smooth!  The automobiles have it so good.  We blew through the red lights, with people physically blocking the cars along the way.  It was brilliant, and sooo satisfying to stick it to the faceless, polluting cars.  Still, the whole thing was rather self-indulgent.  We made it nearly impossible for pedestrians to cross the streets, and that brought on a little guilt.  While it’s not right to act as the automobile drivers do and selfishly take up the entire street, I don’t think it really hurts anyone to do it for an hour or two once a month.  I’ll be sure to participate again.

Reminder: Meeting tonight, 8pm SCC.

An invitation: Do you want to join the new improved Innermost Parts?

The Board of Trustees has set the wheels in motion for the most momentous decision in our tenure at Brandeis: choosing the next President. Meanwhile, the faculty are architecting the new face of Brandeis academics, and the Student Union is rewriting our constitution.

We need a platform to advocate our vision of the future – and hash out how to get there.

Introducing – the 2009 relaunch of Innermost Parts.

We need a strong voice advocating for students on campus, and we need one that’s read by faculty, students, and staff alike.

I want to work with you to make Brandeis better.

Innermost Parts is the student progressive blog on campus. We’re read by the administration and treated as an authentic student voice. We write about change we want to see on campus, and sometimes – especially if we work hard for it – it happens. We’re starting over – do you want in as well?

We’re going for a fresh start: using time-honored community organizing techniques with cutting edge blogging tactics.

It’s time to speak truth to power. It’s time to let the Board of Trustees know that we students will demand a voice in the process of choosing the next President of Brandeis – and the fate of the University as well. It’s time to start holding the Union accountable, the media accountable, the administration accountable.

We’re meeting this Monday at 8pm at the Shapiro Campus Center (atrium).
Can you make it?

I think that The Blowfish is sometimes funny, and it’s a cheerful sight to see them in orange jackets handing out copies on the Rabb steps. But they’re definitely not above criticism, even when they’re ‘trying to be funny’.

Case in point: this week’s column entitled “Happy Dating Violence Awareness Week!”, which offered ideas and tips for celebrating the fact that millions of women (and men) around the world are at risk of violence from their partners. Their ideas include watching a Kung-Fu movie with your date (“watch other, more attractive people beat their signficant others”) and trying S&M or bondage (“hitting, biting, punching, scratching, cutting, maiming and burning are sometimes seen as reprehensible behaviors in a dating relationship…unless, of course, the other person’s into it!”).

Let me draw a useful distinction here. This is Not Funny. Keyboard Cat for President of Brandeis: funny. The fact that, for instance, 20 in 1000 young women will suffer violence from an intimate partner strikes me as a pretty serious topic.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think this is ‘beyond the bounds of free speech’, whatever that means. What I think is really sick and disgusting about this is the unapologetic endorsement of rape culture – the systematic normalization of sexual violence against women, such that it’s almost expected (even cool) for men to participate in it while women who claim to have been assaulted and raped are ignored, demeaned, even threatened. I, for one, have the feeling that sexual violence is trivialized if the Blowfish’s suggestion for being aware of it is not “listening to Metallica on your iPod[,] which drowns out the muffled sobs of your partner.

I think it’s pretty commendable for Brandeis Six-TALK to organize a week of activities to raise awareness about this usually-ignored reality, and pretty fucking offensive for the Blowfish to tell us that it’s “time to pick yourself off the floor and celebrate Dating Violence Awareness Week!” If you feel the same way, you might want to let the (all-male) editors at the Blowfish know how you feel by sending them a note at blowfish[AT]brandeis.edu

As my girlfriend might tell you, the best part of Halloween is definitely wearing costumes and Trick or Treating.

You know what would kick so much ass? Trick or Treating to save gay marriage.

It works like this:
A. Go to DriveForEquality.org to hitch a ride (or drive yourself) to Maine.
B. Stand in wonder at the beautiful Maine foliage.
C. By day, work with the No on 1 campaign to organize people to vote against an amendment getting rid of same-sex marriage in Maine.
D. By night, rock out, pull on your bitchin costume, and Trick-or-Vote! It’s like a treating, but in addition to giving you candy, people vow to vote to save gay marriage.
E. High-Five! You just saved Gay Marriage.

Explanation of Trick-or-Voting:The thing about canvassing (going door-to-door and talking to people about politics) is that people don’t want to be bothered, really. Here’s the good part: what’s the one day in the year when people sit around at home waiting for people to knock on their doors? Halloween. Here’s where you come in: you knock, you yell “trick or vote!” and then ask them to vote NO on amendment 1 to save Gay Marriage. Plus: Candy!

For more ways to help Maine Equality go here.

The news that matters from this week’s the Justice:

-So remember how Richard Goldstone is the chair for an advisory board at the Ethics Center? Well those connections are going to bring him here to Brandeis on Novermber 5th to talk about his famous report about the Gaza war. Be there or be rectangular.

– More news on which departments / programs will move to the Mandel Center for Humanities, and which will not. There’s a committee to advise the provost on all this, but it consists only of professors – no grad students, no staff, and no undergrads.

It’s strange how a center for the Humanities is hosting lots of social sciences. I’m not complaining – I love the Social Sciences! However, I bet the story behind this is an interesting one.

– The Mandel Center for Humanities will have a Rooftop Garden!

–These people might perhaps tell Board of Trustees what students want in a new President, if they speak when spoken to and don’t cause too much of a fuss:

Andy Hogan, Heddy Ben-Atar, Jon Kane, “Yuki Hasegawa (GRAD), Rachel Markman ’10,
Nicholas Hornstein ’11, Rebecca Bachman ’13, Marla Merchut ’12 and Julian Olidort ’11.

Andrew Gluck ’11, Union Vice President Amanda Hecker ’10, Megan Breslin-Jewer ’11 and
Jamie Fleischman ’11 are the outreach coordinators.”

It is a travesty that there will be no student representation at all in the actual real
search committee.

– Nine JBS’s have been approved. “Web Services, Mobile Apps, and Cloud Computing,” “Environmental Health and Justice”, and “”Beacon Hill Summer,” “Collaborative Theater and the Theatrical Essay,” “Conflict Resolution and Ethics in the Real World,” “Ethnographic Fieldwork,” “Health and Society Field Semester,” proposed by Prof. Peter Conrad (SOC); “Pathologies of Criminal Law: Restoring Justice,” and “Understanding the American Jewish Community”.

These sound pretty cool. If only we could take these JBSs in addition to the normal 8 semesters.

They plan on making the JBS as onerous, tiring, time-consumptive, and just plain hard to
apply for as studying abroad. Bummer!

– If I understand this correctly, Stephanie Grimes think that recognized clubs “are no[t]
allowed to reserve space, receive funding or market themselves.” Either she is wrong, has been misquoted, or all recognized clubs are breaking the rules.

– Leigh Nusbaum, senator for the Village, is trying to set up an honor code, with all the administrative edifices that go with it. Personally, I think an honor code would be cool, but she didn’t ask me. Did she ask anyone?

Number of people who actually live at Brandeis choosing the next President: 0.

Number working-class people who toil here every day who get to choose: 0.

President Jehuda Reinharz today sent out a letter to the Brandeis community, detailing the committee that would choose his successor.

The goods:

Trustee Meyer Koplow ’72, managing partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz in New York, will chair the search committee. Other Trustee members of the committee will be Allen Alter ’71, Senior Producer at CBS News; Jack Connors, civic leader and former Chairman of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc.; D. Ronald Daniel, Director of McKinsey & Company; Stephen B. Kay, former Chair of the Brandeis Board of Trustees and Senior Director at Goldman, Sachs & Company; Myra Kraft ’64, philanthropist; and Barbara Mandel, philanthropist. Also serving on the committee will be Michael Sandel ’75, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University; and Thomas Friedman ’75, Foreign Affairs Columnist for The New York Times.

Brandeis faculty members on the search committee are Gregory Petsko, Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacodynamics and of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center; Leonard Saxe, Professor of Jewish Community Research and Social Policy; Gina Turrigiano, Professor of Biology and of the Volen National Center for Complex Systems./blockquote>

The fact that Michael Sandel will be on the committee makes me feel a lot better. If only they could also get Michael Walzer, too.

So. I was told that the fact that there are no students on the search committee was due to the lack of faculty. Now I hear that there are 3. While it’s great that faculty are allowed into the “big kids club”, this just makes the lack of staff, grad students, and undergrads more grating.

Full letter:
Continue reading “The Committee to Replace Jehuda Reinharz”

What if Baan Thai* refused to serve black students?

A bunch of seniors from Washington University went to a traditional class trip to a nightclub in Chicago, and the black students were refused entry for clearly racist reasons.

Prejudice – it could happen to you.
Continue reading “The end of “the end of Racism””