This is a conglomeration of a few worries I have about Brandeis right now:
1. The certificate of inspection in the Shapiro Campus Center’s elevator went up as of 4/10/10, last Saturday. As far as I know, a new cerificate saying it is safe to use it has not yet been posted. The elevator in Ziv 127 should’ve been re-checked on april 8th, same story. Do you know of any other elevators on campus that aren’t supposed to be “in use” right now– until they’re checked for safety? Lawsuits, anyone?
2. There are no astronomy classes being offered next semester. This scares me as well. As a student who does not do well in the “hard sciences” like chem and bio, astronomy is the one science class I would actually be interested in taking, and have a shot at doing okay in. Why is this? What’s happening to our physical science department?
3. What’s with the digging up of slightly yellowed grass all around the Shapiro Campus Center and replacing it with fresh new green grass? That green grass is coming from somewhere, as Amy pointed out to me, and wherever that is, they are being left simply with soil. Meanwhile, instead of investing in the growth and maintenance of our plants, we dig them up and replace them with new ones every spring. As a wise man named Alex once said, “landscaping is the work of seasons, not days.”
For all the noise about the arts and the humanities getting cut, the life/physical sciences are getting cut quite a bit as well. The CARS report suggested removing several areas which are not strengths for the departments, which means fewer atypical course offerings. They are also cutting quite a few faculty/employees, and reducing the size of graduate programs (which means fewer TAs). This also means that as you’ve noticed there are fewer science classes meant for non-science majors.
The Biology, Chemistry, and Physics departments offer courses for non-majors under the __ Science description (Biological/Chemical/Physical). They’re typically pretty cool courses that I, as a Biochemistry/Biology major, might consider teaching if they were taught at a more advanced level. There’s a course on environmental chemistry being taught next semester, as well as one on the history of genes and genetics. The physics version also does contain some astronomy, if you’re interested.
A somewhat little-known secret is that math courses are in the school of science, so if you take a math class, you can fulfill that requirement as well (though I do encourage you to look at the science courses.)
The campus elevators are safe to use even if the sticker is not updated. There are only two official state inspectors in region to do those inspections and it takes them a few months to get around to doing the official inspection. The elevator company (I forget its name) comes on a regular basis to check, perform maintenance, and make sure the elevators are in working order.