The Brandeis Hoot - 3-13-09

B R A N D E I S U N I V E R S I T Y ' S C O M M U N I T Y N E W S P A P E R T H E H O O T . N E TM A R C H 1 3 , 2 0 0 9

VOL 5, NO. 21

Pakistan’s government in trouble

Opinions, page 13

Comedians: Funny alumni talk life behind the mic.Brandeis WatCh: Implications of UJ trial.the hoot report: Stem cell research and DC voting rights

IN THISISSUE:

Brandeis grads take to the mic

Diverse City, page 8

AUDIO @ THEHOOT.NET

Alterman wins in UJ case

BY ALEX SCHNEIDEREditor

In a unanimous decision, the Union Ju-diciary found a senate money resolution (SMR) granting funds to bring William “Bill” Ayers and Robert H. King to campus to be “null-and-void.”

The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Rachel Graham Kagan ’09, found that the SMR was allocated to a project that was “not a Union project,” and, as a re-sult, did not meet the standards for SMRs as defined in the Union Constitution.

“I think this sets a clear and excellent precedent for future use of the Senate Discretionary Fund,” Class of 2009 Eric Alterman, who brought the case, said. “A “Union Government Project” must be more than just Senate approval or the ef-forts [of] club leaders doubling as Sena-tors. Senators should be initiating projects, individually and though committees, for the benefit of their constituents.”

Lev Hirschhorn ’11, one of the respon-dents, disagreed. “I do not think the jus-tices made the right decision. I think that a more careful analysis would clearly have shown that this was a union project.”

The issue before the court was whether

See UJ, p. 4

Non-violent crime up, public safety says

PHOTO BY Max Shay /The Hoot

BY JAKE YARMUSSpecial to The Hoot

The number of non-violent crimes on campus has skyrocketed this year, accord-ing to Brandeis Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan.

“Crime spiked seriously from last year to this one,” Callahan said. “In the past 35

years, this is the highest I have ever seen it.”Campus crime incidents largely fall un-

der one of two categories: crimes that vio-late school policy, and crimes that violate property.

The increases in crimes that violate school policy have had two main contribu-tors. The first is a 150 percent increase in drug and alcohol abuses in the past year.

The second is fire safety violations. This increase comes mostly from a fire drill last semester where over 15 violations, mostly covered smoke detectors, were discovered in one night.

This incident has raised awareness for fire safety concerns and sparked sponta-neous room checks by the department of

See CRIME, p. 2

Funding for Ayers visit still up in the air


With the proposed March 30 William “Bill” Ayers event approaching, sponsoring clubs Democracy for America (DFA) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) do not have sufficient funding to compensate the speaker and to pay security costs, which in total would add up to around $7,000. After the Union Judiciary’s (UJ) decision to overturn a senate money resolution to help fund the event, the likelihood of finding additional funding sources has decreased significantly.

“We are trying to make it happen, and we are not giving up yet, because we have not exhausted all of our options,” DFA member and event planner Lev Hirschhorn ’11 said.

According to Vice President for Campus Operations, Mark Collins, organizers have promised $4,500 to the university to fund security, which would cover an increased police presence, the possible use of metal detectors, and other basic logistics. Collins also explained that an agreement of $4,500 was reached only on condition that the event be capped at around 200 students and be held in a location with easily controlled access, such as the Shapiro Campus Center Theatre. With these conditions, he said, “I

See AYERS, p. 4

Kosher food not responsible for G.I. bug

The Health Center confirmed that there was no food poisoning in Sherman Dining Hall after 29 students came to the center complaining of vomiting and diarrhea.

The complaints came from students fall-ing ill after eating at the dining hall, spe-cifically, in the Kosher section; however, Nursing Director Kathleen Maloney said that these students were suffering from a norovirus, or “tummy bug,” and not food poisoning.

“Whenever people get a tummy bug, they always think it’s food poisoning,” she said, “but the circumstances of this virus do not indicate food poisoning.”

According to Maloney, when food poi-soning occurs, it is because one food has been contaminated with a virus either be-cause of poor packaging or because it has been handled by people carrying a virus.

That virus can infect students eating the food; however, Maloney said that the symptoms would most likely become ap-parent in a few hours, and that because the virus would infect many students at the same time, those sick would report to the health center all at once, in a large group.

Instead, those infected by the stomach bug reported to the health center in groups of staggering sizes over a period of days.

Food poisoning is even less likely because those infected reported to the health center after eating Kosher Sherman food on both “milk” and “meat” days. As according to

BY ARIEL WITTENBERGEditor


GI BUG: Students eat dinner on the kosher side of Sherman dining hall last night. Though many students had speculated that they suffered from food posioning after eating kosher food at the dining hall this week, both the health center and Aramark say that Sherman food is completely safe to eat.

the laws of Kashrut, food served at Sher-man on milk days cannot be cross contami-nated with food served on meat days, mak-ing food poisoning occurring on both days extremely unlikely.

Maloney said that whenever the health center suspects that there is a gastroenteri-tis (GI) virus being passed around campus,

the health center is required to call the de-partment of public health and the dining halls on campus.

The fact that no one working in the din-ing halls had been to reporting to work sick, Maloney said further indicated that

See GI BUG, p. 3

East QuadJenna Rubin ‘11

Ran against Edward Tanenbaum

2 The Hoot March 13, 2009

N E W S

CARS redesigning website to market universityBY ARIEL WITTENBERG

Editor


UP CLOSE: Jamie Fleishman ‘11 gives a tour to prospective students and their families. Because of the nation’s economic recession, fewer families can afford making the trip to visit campus before applying to the university, making a well designed comprehensive website crucial for attracting young minds.

Part IV of V in a series on Academic Re-structuring

In an effort to better market the universi-ty, the Curriculum and Academic Restruc-turing and Steering committee’s admis-sions subcommittee has begun work on a redesign of the university’s website.

“The website is the first stop for many prospective students when they begin to look at colleges,” subcommittee member Prof. Margie Lachman (PSYCH) said. “In the 21st century, the web is certainly more important than print literature in terms of making sure prospective students have a complete understanding about what Brandeis is and what we are all about.”

The redesign of the website is just the lat-est in a string of changes the university has been making, including adding a business major, in an effort to raise revenue by in-creasing the number of students enrolled each year.

That the admissions subcommittee is concentrating on advertising the university through the internet, as opposed to printed literature, is no coincidence. As Senior Vice President of Communications Lorna Miles told The Hoot, “in a time of financial limi-tations, using the internet is a cost effective way to reach out to potential applicants.”

The internet is also the method of choice for prospective students researching the university.

The new site will be different from the current web-site in that it will be organized by broad categories. Instead of having a separate webpage for each major, the site will orga-nize majors into clusters, such as “Health and Soci-ety,” each of which will have a homep-age.

From the clusters’ “micro sites,” one can then navigate to individual majors. The de-sign of each “micro site” is being worked on by at least one student, one faculty mem-ber, and one member of Miles’ communi-cations staff.

While this new organization seems to echo the idea of “meta-majors,” Lachman said that the clustering of majors “is just marketing” and will not change the struc-ture of the university in any way.

“It’s important for future students to see what they are going to do when they get out of here,” she said. “It’s not going to change what they can or will do here, but with the economic times, people are questioning why they need a liberal arts education, so we want to make it more clear how coming

to Brandeis can help you when you leave, even though we are a liberal arts univer-sity.”

The website will also emphasize Brandeis’ core values of “social justice, community and opportunity”—which have been de-cided on by the subcommittee.

“We want to show outsiders what we know about how great Brandeis is,” Lach-man said. “It’s not that we want to be unique, but we want to capture the essence

of Brandeis.”Lachman said

that this new slo-gan is not, by any means, an effort to replace the uni-versity’s motto of “Truth, even unto its innermost parts,” but rather it is an effort to show prospective stu-dents “that they can fit in here and to excite them about that through the

web.”Lachman sees the website as a way for

the Admissions Department to expand re-cruitment to areas of the country and the globe that have growing populations that the university has not yet tapped, such as the Southeast and Southwest of the United States.

“The baby boomlet has passed its peak, so we are trying to recruit more students in a time where there are less high school graduates than there used to be,” Lachman said. “So we’re trying to find where in the country and the globe the population is growing.”

Currently, the majority of Brandeis stu-dents are from the Northeast of the United States, and while Lachman believes that

Brandeis will always have a large amount of students from these regions, she said that in order to accept more students while maintaining the same quality of Brandeis student, the Admissions Department will have to look outside of New England.

In addition to a new organization, the website will also have a revamped “micro site” that features profiles of students, fac-ulty and alumnae.

“Students leave here with a great educa-tion, but I think what makes Brandeis grad-uates unique is that they also have a sense of social justice which they carry with them to wherever they go next,” Miles explained. “We want to show that Brandeis produces conscientious students, but also students who have a conscience.”

Lachman also said the website will ad-vertise Brandeis as a “green,” or environ-mentally friendly university, citing univer-sity President Reinharz’s decision to reduce bottled water on campus last year.

Miles said that using the website as a method to advertise for Brandeis is logical given the nation’s current economic crisis, a time when many families may not be able to afford traveling to the campus.

“Which college we are going to go to is one of the most expensive decisions we make in our lives, and it’s a decision that we all need good information to make,” Miles said.

“With the committee, we’re trying to cre-ate admissions materials that give prospec-tive students a sense of the Brandeis expe-rience using the website to help them make their decisions, even if they can’t come visit campus,” she continued.

A pilot of the website should be available to the Brandeis community by April, at which point in time, students, faculty and staff will be able to critique the website and request changes before the pilot becomes official.

Residence Life. The result has been a more than 250 percent increase in fire safety vio-lations. Though these are separate issues, Callahan sees them as related.

“I think that these are highly connected,” Callahan said. “Most of these drug offenses are in [students’] rooms, and covering a fire alarm makes smoking a lot easier.”

He added that many of the drug related offenses were committed by underclass-men who were first-time offenders.

Callahan speculated that the increase in drug use on campus could be due to addi-tional stress on campus from the financial crisis.

“Students at this university work very hard. You have to focus on a lot of things at once. You get a lot of pressures, and, espe-cially when you are young, it can be hard to resist,” he said.

Representatives at Brandeis’ Psychologi-cal Counseling Center, however, said they have not seen an increase in students look-ing for help dealing with stress related is-sues, saying that the center has been “busy as usual.”

Additionally, local universities, such as Tufts and Harvard have experienced drops in crime over the past couple of years de-spite facing similar hardships themselves.

The number of thefts at Brandeis, on the other hand, has tripled, jumping from 8 to 24.

“Theft has increased tremendously,” claims Callahan, “from small crimes like a student losing their wallet at the gym, to a student whose $5,000 lap top was stolen.”

Director of Student Development and Conduct Erika Lamarre attributes this in-crease in crime in part to an increased staff awareness. Additionally, Lamarre believes that current staff members understand how to interpret student behavior better than in past years, and therefore can catch students in the act.

“Much of the theft in the last year has come from the new P.O.D. store,” Lamarre said, “The store is new and has more food to offer. This may lead more students to steal. Staff has become more aware of this trend.”

Another tool helping P.O.D. store staff catch students stealing is the new security system, which enable managers to video record the store, review tape and catch stu-dents stealing after it happens.

There has not been any increase in vio-lent activities, which have remained steady for the past couple of years.

Still, Callahan does not believe that the non-violent crime wave will end anytime soon.

“The trend will probably continue,” he said. “However, we are working hard to try and assist students in any way we can.”

CRIME (from p. 1)

Campus crime rate increases

Senate Election Results

North QuadAlex Norris ‘11

Ran unopposed

INFOGRAPHIC BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

We want to show that Brandeis

produces conscientious students, but also students who have a conscience.

- Lorna MilesSenior Vice President of Communications

March 13, 2009 N E W S The Hoot 3

In light of recent events surrounding the possible closing of the Rose Art Museum, the future of the Interdisciplinary Masters Program in Cultural Production remains unclear.

While Provost Marty Krauss confirmed that the committee looking into the mu-seum’s future will “investigate and advise” on how decisions made about the future of the museum would affect the graduate pro-gram, no decisions have yet been released.

The program, now in its third year, at-tracts students interested in museums and cultural heritage studies.

According to program director Prof. Mark Auslander (ANTH), “many of our classes frequently visit the museum to con-verse with the staff, look closely at the ex-hibitions, and consult works in the vault.”

One student, Brian Friedberg (GRAD), who has led an effort to sell shirts and pins reading, “Save the Rose,” explained that his studies make use of the Rose by looking at “the details of how the museum works. The architecture of the museum, the organiza-tional structure, [and] the presentation and promotion of exhibitions are all of great in-terest for someone like myself.”

News of the closing of the museum an-gered some in the graduate program. When asked whether he would have applied to the program had he known about the contro-versy that played out in the initial decision to close the museum, Friedberg said he would, “but I would certainly have thought twice considering the [current] instability

of Brandeis Univer-sity.”

Student Chris-tine Del Castillo (GRAD), on the other hand, said she would not have come to Brandeis had the controversy surfaced a year ear-lier.

“I would not study museums at a university that thought so little of its own museum,” she said. “I would not have applied to the Cultural Pro-duction program.”

Del Castillo, who worked as an em-ployee at the Rose, described the in-stitution as “an es-sential part of my education, the kind that could not be learned in a class-room.”

She also ex-plained that in the context of cultural pro-duction, some of the risks the museum took – such as exhibiting shows curated for commercial galleries – exemplified a level of freedom not seen in other institutions.

Although Auslander described the pos-sibility of the Rose closing as “tragic,” he maintains the program will “still be attrac-

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

CULTURAL PRODUCTION: Brian Freidberg (GRAD) protests the Board of Trustees’ authorization for the university to close the Rose Art Museum at the Rose

tive to many students interested in muse-ums.”

He cited the strength of the faculty in the program, as well as the “good relations with many world class museums in New England” as reasons the program would remain attractive without a museum on campus.

Still, in his blog, Auslander makes clear that closing the Rose Art Museum would be a mistake.

“The Rose has been central to the real mission of this educational institution, to generate new ways of seeing the world and to disrupt conventional habits of thought,” he wrote.


Future of Cultural productions grad program uncertain

the illness was not food poisoning.Director of Dining Services Mike New-

mark said in an e-mail to The Hoot, “Din-ing Services has been in contact with the Health center and were assured that the reported student illness was not related to any food in Sherman…the rumors were not accurate.”

In addition, Ma-loney said that only three of the 29 stu-dents who went to the health center with the virus re-ported on their health records that they followed a Ko-sher diet, despite the fact that rumors had speculated that Kosher food was to blame.

Jenna Rubin ’11, who chairs the Student Union’s Dining Services Committee, said that she heard the rumors of food poison-ing from multiple students who, after be-coming sick, refused to eat food that came from the Kosher Dining hall.

“They wouldn’t eat kosher food, so they couldn’t eat any food on campus,” she said. “They were eating chips and fruit for two days because they were so afraid of it.”

Rubin, who said she heard about up to 40 students who fell ill with the virus, said that not all of those students went to the health

center.Maloney said that she wants to quell stu-

dents’ fears of eating in Sherman.“I absolutely would eat there, even on the

kosher side,” she said. “No one should be afraid of eating there.”

As for where the virus actually did origi-nate from, Maloney said it’s anyone’s guess, but did caution students to make sure they

wash their hands properly.

“It’s very important if you are sick or have been sick to wash your hands after you cough and wipe them with a paper towel after,” she said.

Maloney also sug-gested that students use paper towels to turn off the water faucets and open the bathroom doors in or-der to stop the spread

of germs.College campuses are especially vulner-

able to illness, Maloney said, because they involve high stress situations, which can weaken one’s immune system, and close living conditions, which can aid the spread of disease.

“It’s just really important that students take care of themselves and get enough sleep and eat their fruits and vegetables,” she said. “But above all, wash your hands wash your hands, wash your hands.

Sherman not involved in spread of G.I. bugHealth Center warns students to wash handsGI (from p. 1)

I absolutely would eat [in sherman], even

on the kosher side...No one should be afraid of eating there.

- Kathleen MaloneyNursing Director

4 The Hoot N E W S March 13, 2009

Vagina Week empowers women

am confident that we could come within the proximity to the $4,500 cost.”

“[The students planning the event] un-derstand and know that we are trying to facilitate this with the budget they have,” he added.

Collins is unwilling for his department to cover any of the security costs involved in bringing Ayers to campus in part because Campus Operations have already suffered budget cuts and layoffs.

“I cannot contribute financially to any speaker coming,” he said. “If I had money, these people wouldn’t be laid off.”

Regardless of promises to Collins, or-ganizers have not yet obtained the $2,500 honorarium requested by Ayers, which would need to be paid on top of the $4,500.

In the spring funding marathon, F-board allocated $1,500 to SDS for the Ayers event and $1,500 to DFA for all semester activi-ties. Prior to the UJ trial, DFA said it would allocate $400 to the Ayers event; it now has proposed to Collins that it will allocate $1,400, although the number could rise to as much as the entire $1,500 of F-board funding.

Outside sources of funding include $100 from the History Department , $100 from the Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Stud-ies Department, $400 from the Program in Social Justice and Social Policy, and a possible $500 from Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine, according to proposals submitted to Collins.

Another proposal has been to charge no more than $3 for admission to the event, which could raise almost $600, provided the event be capped at 200 students.

The sum total of these potential num-bers is just over the $4,500 that organizers have promised they would pay for security, but the clubs would need to finance Ayers’

$2,500 needed to cover the entire event.Another issue has been a question of

where and when to hold the event. The originally scheduled March 30 talk was to be held in Levin Ballroom; as Collins ex-plained, though, when the costs of hold-ing the event in Levin – which is a difficult building to secure – were compared to the $4,500 collected by organizers for security, “at the end of the day, there was still a mate-rial difference.”

In comparison, Collins said, “a smaller venue would seem appropriate to me.”

While organizers agreed to move the event, it is unclear how they will do so, as other locations have already been booked. Collins and organizers have discussed changing the date of the Ayers talk.

“We don’t know what we are paying, where the even will be, or on what day,” Hirschhorn admitted.

Brandeis is not the first university put into this bind.

Georgia Southern University cancelled a planned Ayers event scheduled this month due to financial constraints. Consider-ing the event at Georgia Southern would have cost $13,000 in security costs alone, according to the school’s newspaper, The George-Anne Daily, and in light of Georgia Southern’s own financial problems in this economy, the school chose to cancel the event.

Other schools, such as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, have also cancelled planned visits by Ayers.

As to another proposal to bring Robert H. King to campus, money for which was included in the senate money resolution that was overturned, it is unclear what or-ganizers intend to do in light of the finan-cial situation. Collins was clear the $4,500 in security was only for an event with Ay-ers, however. “I am only dealing now with Mr. Ayers,” he said.

UJ rules in Alterman’s favor

Lack of funding might stop Ayers visit

AYERS (from p. 1)

an SMR, which allocated $900 to bring Ayers and King to campus, should have been passed. The SMR was brought by Class of 2011 Senators Alex Melman and Hirschhorn, who are also members of De-mocracy for America (DFA), one of the groups sponsoring the Ayers event.

DFA received $1,500 out of the requested funds of $2348.18 from the F-board, not enough to fund both the speakers and oth-er club activities. As a result, DFA chose to apportion less than one third of its fund-ing, $400, towards the Ayers event. When combined with $1,500 from Students for a Democratic Society and $600 from univer-sity departments, the money added up to $2,600.

At the time, organizers of the Ayers/King event focused solely on raising the hono-rariums of $2,500 and $1,000 for the two speakers, respectively. While $3,500 falls short of the actual costs of bringing the speakers when considering costs of secu-rity (see “Funding for Ayers visit still up in the air on page 1), organizers believed at the time $3,500 would be sufficient. The SMR, then, seeks to make up the shortfall of $900.

When, as senators, Hirschhorn and Mel-man came to the Senate for funding, Alter-man argued they were acting as club lead-ers who needed money F-board would not provide. At trial, Alterman condemned the action, saying, “every club has to make tradeoffs. It should not be a privilege for club leaders who are also Senators to use what is essentially that loophole.”

“What I think is important to note is this is not an either/or scenerio,” Melman said at trial. “It was both a union project and a club project.”

The justices disagreed.“It is this Court’s determination that in

order to qualify as a union project, the proj-ect must, at the very least, represent a true collaborative effort between the Union and another individual or group. It is not nec-essary for the Union to initiate every idea or project its members work on, but they must be substantially and actively involved. In this case, it is impossible to parse exactly where Mr. Melman and Mr. Hirschhorn’s roles as senators left off and their roles as club leaders began, but this court believes that though senators were involved, this was not a Union project.”

Another issue that came up at trial was the final Senate vote on the SMR, which was 10-8, with Hirschhorn and Melman refusing to recuse themselves. Had they done so, the SMR would not have passed.

Associate Justice Judah Marans ’11 ad-dressed this issue in his opinion: “The issue is not whether the senators should neces-sarily have recused themselves as much as it is whether the Student Union involvement was disingenuous. Had this truly been a Student Union event, it may not necessarily have been unconstitutional for the senators to advance something that they, and a club of which they are a part, are interested in, an interest that happens to be manifest in leadership of that particular club.”

Ariel Wittenberg contributed to this report.

UJ (from p. 1)

When Tiffany Roberts ‘11 was asked what her vagina would wear, she answered “Spurs.” That makes sense, coming from the girl who helped kick off Brandeis’ eighth annual Vagina Week by teach-ing a self-defense class on Monday night.

In fact, the questoin of “if your vagina wore clothes, what would it wear?” That question, and its variants, has been posed countless times this week. Fol-lowing this past weekend’s per-formances of Eve Ensler’s Va-gina Monologues, the week has been filled with various vagina-themed programming.

The Vagina Monologues are about raising awareness of, and working to stop, gender based violence.

Roberts’s class was the per-fect complement to this mes-sage, teaching the 15 women who came to the class the Japa-nese martial art of danzan ryu ju jit su.

This type of ju jit su is par-ticularly suited to women, Roberts ex-plained because “the whole idea is that you use your attackers energy against them…its not strength against strength, but how to use [an attacker’s strength] against him-self.”

Roberts recently started a ju jit su club on campus, where she is one of only two female participants. For Roberts, the art is all about “teaching confidence.”

Roberts was not the only one teaching the vagina week crowds about themselves. Wednesday’s Orgasm Workshop was a dif-ferent type of female empowerment, teach-ing women how to take charge of their va-ginas.

Megan Andelloux spoke to a captivated and tightly packed crowd in Golding au-ditorium. The crowd alternated between fits of laughter and stunned silence as An-delloux gave her presentation, with the help of a power point and a vagina puppet named Victoria.

Andelloux, a professional sexologist, broached the topics that few others ever would and where traditional sexual health education has failed. She noted that tra-ditionally, in sexual education classes, the respective male and female reproductive systems are taught in distinctly different

BY ROBIN LICHTENSTEINStaff

PHOTO BY Yuan Yao / The Hoot

EMPOWERMENT: Tiffany Roberts ‘11 teaches ju jit su to a self defense workship as part of the Brandeis Vagina Club’s “Vagina Week.”

ways. Classes geared toward the female sexual system tend to focus on the “inter-nal” workings, whereas sexual education for males tends to focus on the “outside.”

Andelloux is working to fix that discrep-ancy and shed light on the mysteries of the vagina, and help vagina owners make the best theirs.

“I though it was really interesting the way that Megan got everyone to loosen up about the subject,” said Hannah Levinger, who is personally acquainted with the monologues and the week.

Levinger’s mother had been in a pro-duction of the Vagina Monologues, but Levinger was about 8 at the time, and her mother did not want her to see the play. Seeing the Monologues at Brandeis, and the activities of vagina week, was a positive experience for Levinger.

“[Andelloux] did not use euphemisms and was not beating around the bush (pun intended). She was very straight forward in a way that adults usually aren’t when talking about this subject, especially with younger people,” she said

If Brandeis had a vagina, what would it say? The answer to that question lies in a comment that Levinger, as well as every-one in attendance of the orgasm workshop, won’t soon forget: “Is lube kosher?”

Be sure to check outThe Brandeis Watch

at www.thehoot.netfor news analysis

March 13, 2009 The Hoot 5

E D I T O R I A L

Established 2005"To acquire wisdom, one must observe."

FOUNDED BYLeslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

Alison Channon Editor in Chief

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The Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the general community. Preference is given to current or former community members. The Hoot reserves the right to edit any submissions for libel, grammar, punctuation, spelling and clarity. The Hoot is under no obligation to print any of the pieces submitted. Letters in print will also appear on-line at www.thehoot.net.

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The Hoot is a community student newspaper of Brandeis University. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, rel-evant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

SUBMISSION POLICIES

After the Union Judiciary overturned a Senate Money Resolution that would help fi-nance a visit by Weatherman

Bill Ayers, sponsoring groups Democracy for America and Students for a Democratic Society once again find themselves with-out sufficient funding for the event. With the cost of security and the fee for Ayers, the event would total $7,000, a sum neither DFA nor SDS can produce on their own.

A visit by Bill Ayers would be wonder-ful. His involvement with the Weathermen and his reluctant role in the most recent presidential campaign makes him not just a controversial figure, but a deeply inter-

Getting the most bang for our buckesting one as well. There is no doubt that a visit by Ayers would be beneficial for the entire community.

For this reason, it is heartening that other university stakeholders have come to the table to help DFA and SDS finance the event. Brandeis Students for Justice in Pal-estine are considering contributing $500. The History department and the Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies Depart-ment are chipping in $100 each while the Program in Social Justice and Social Policy is prepared to donate $400. When every de-partment and club’s belts have been tight-ened to the last notch, it is precisely this form of collaboration that will enable the

community to continue to thrive.But the spending of slim budgets on the

Ayers event should be critically evaluated in light of Vice President for Campus Op-erations Mark Collins’ comment that the $4,500 DFA and SDS have promised for security was sufficient for an audience of 200 only.

Simply put, any money raised for an Ay-ers visit wouldn’t stretch very far. Times are tough and the university must learn to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. While an Ayers event would be immensely valuable, it seems the arrangement proposed will fail to get enough bang for the buck.

Resolving a conflict of interestIn student government, it is impor-

tant to avoid conflicts of interest. But on a small campus such as ours, parsing out what is appropriate can

get sticky. Last week, this paper condemned the attempts by Class of 2011 Senators Alex Melman and Lev Hirschhorn to use a Sen-ate Money Resolution to help finance an event for Democracy for America, a club to which they belong. More than flying in the face of constitutional bylaws, the act pre-sented a clear conflict of interest and was simply unfair. For this reason, the Union Judiciary’s decision to nullify the SMR was

proper.Though this particular case has been de-

cided, the real question at hand remains unanswered. How do we define a conflict of interest on this campus? Where does ad-vocacy on the part of a Union member end and bias and conflict of interest begin?

One option is to draw up strict bound-aries, a zero-tolerance policy of sorts. We could decide that no F-board member or senator may serve on the executive board of another club. We could also opt for a more nuanced approach in which we evaluate ev-ery Union member’s other involvement on

a case by case basis. The first option fails to acknowledge that Brandeis students are multi-faceted and the second is simply in-efficient. There is no easy answer.

But the absence of a quick-fix solution should not allow us to bury the question. Fairness and integrity are at stake. In the absence of an across the board policy for student government and other campus or-ganizations, we must not test how much we can game the system. Rather, we must ask ourselves how we can uphold the values of personal integrity and community obliga-tion.

The Brandeis Watch Brandeis Comedians Implications of the UJ decision Alums talk about life on stage

S P O R T S6 The Hoot March 13, 2009

This past weekend the Brandeis women’s basketball team accomplished a feat they have fallen short of for the past three years: advancing to the Sweet Sixteen.

With their 62-49 victory over Western Connecticut State University Colonials on Friday night and the nearly 30-point win over Mount Saint Mary’s College Blue Knights, with a final score of 79-52, Brandeis has earned the right to head to Amherst this weekend for the third round of play. When asked how she felt, Amanda Wells ’09 said getting into the Sweet Six-teen was, “surreal.”

In the game against Mount Saint Mary’s, there was never really a question of who the dominant force was. Brandeis started off the game strong and quickly jumped out to a 16-2 lead, hitting each of their first six shots in the first five and a half minutes of the game while forcing Mount Saint Mary’s to miss their first seven-of-eight. Both Jessica Chapin ’10 and Diana Cin-cotta ’11 were responsible for five points during the Judges’ opening run. From that point forward, the closest the Blue Knights would be able to get to tying the game was twelve points away.

The domination by Brandeis was im-pressive and also a bit surprising. Mount Saint Mary’s entered as the top-ranked de-fensive team in the country, holding their opponents to shoot 28.7% from the floor; Brandeis shot 55.3% on the night. Another contributing factor to the Judges victory was their 37-29 rebounding advantage. In addition, the Judges put up 79 points when the Blue Knights only allowed an average of 48.9 points per game. In an interview after the game Mount Saint Mary’s coach Randall Ognibene said he thought his girls did a good job trying to close the gap in the second half but “the board didn’t show that.” When asked about the effective col-lapse of his team’s defense he responded with, “What defense?... [Brandeis] was big-ger, stronger, quicker… They performed the best of any team we saw this year.”

The Judges were paced by Chapin, who scored 13 of her 18 points in the first half. She also had a game-high seven as-sists. Two other Brandeis players reached double digits in points on Saturday, and, even more impressively, they were both rookies. Kelly Ethier ’12 had a career-high 13 points, going 4-of-7 from the field in-cluding two 3-pointers and nailing 3-of-4 from the line. Morgan Kendrew ’12 start-ed the game and contributed 12 points, hitting 3 out of her 4 attempted trifectas. Co-Captain Cassidy Dadaos ’09 expressed in a press conference after the game how proud she was of the freshmen stepping up the way they have. “[Their] confidence level is up… They’ve adjusted to the level we’re at.” Cincotta and Lauren Orlando ’09 both scored nine points during the game as well. One of the major contributors to

BY HANNAH VICKERSStaff

the Judges scoring was Amber Strodthoff ’11, who had eight rebounds, four of which were offensive.

The first round game against the Western Connecticut State University Colonials was much different than the sweeping victory the Judges had Saturday over Mount Saint Mary’s. For starters, Brandeis won this match up by thirteen points rather than the nearly thirty-point win they had Satur-day. Also, they had to come from behind in the second half to get the win. This was only the second time this season Brandeis was able to turn the game around and come back from a halftime deficit. In the first half, there were five ties and four lead changes. While Brandeis started off with a 12-5 lead six minutes into the game, some-thing changed with 7:48 remaining. From that point forward in the first the Judges missed their last nine shots and allowed six turnovers. The Colonial’s last eight points of the half came from the free throw line af-ter the Judges got themselves into foul trou-ble. At halftime the visitors held a 22-21 lead, with 12 of those points coming from the free throw line despite shooting only 4-for-20 from the field. “Some of [allow-ing them so many free throws] was us just being a little overaggressive,” said Brandeis coach Carol Simon after the game. “We were just too amped.”

Brandeis scored the first two shots of the second half with an Orlando lay-up and a three-pointer by Cincotta to give the Judges a 26-22 lead just a minute into the half. They couldn’t keep that momentum going, however, and Western Connecticut answered back by scoring 13 of the next 14 points of the game. Despite another trifecta by Cincotta with 13:09 left in the game, the Colonials held their largest lead of 40-30. It was here that the Judges turned things around.

Defensively, they finally got their game back together, allowing only three field goals for the rest of the game, as they got over their concern about getting into the same foul trouble they did in the first half. They also turned up the offensive pressure, hitting eight of their last 13. Cincotta tied the game at 41-41 with a lay-up with only 9:05 remaining on the clock. Western Con-necticut took their last gasp at regaining the lead off a three-pointer by Stacey Rob-erts ’09, but jumpers by Orlando and Cin-cotta over the next minute claimed the lead for good. They held the Colonials off from scoring for over three minutes while Or-lando tacked on another four points from foul shots. With 5:04 remaining, the Judg-es held a 49-45 lead and kept going from there, adding another nine points from the line as well as a lay-up by Orlando. In the last minute of play Western Connecticut made two lay-ups, but by that point the game was over, the final score standing at 62-49. In the second half Brandeis outshot Western Connecticut 41-27.

Every eligible player got off the bench for the Judges in the game and two of them,

Women’s Basketball Team Advances to Sweet 16Chapin and Cincotta, played the most minutes of anyone on the court with just under 40 and 36 minutes respectively. When looking at who contributed the most to the win, a lot of atten-tion needs to be paid to Orlan-do who scored 15 points in the second half, 12 of which came during the decisive run at the end. She was also responsible for snagging eight rebounds overall and five in the second. Cincotta was also very impres-sive during the game, scoring 12 of her career-high 14 points in the second half by going 3-for-3 from the line and 4-for-4 from the field. Chapin, who was no-ticeably tired after playing nearly the entire match up (and who can blame her?), kept Brandeis alive in the first half, leading all play-ers with eight points and seven rebounds. Overall, she had three steals, three blocked shots, 12 points, and nine rebounds, only one short of her third-straight double-double. Kend-rew and Strodthoff led the game with three assists each.

Brandeis outshot Western Connecticut 40.4% to 28.3% overall in the game and 24-8 in points in the paint, which again points back to how much those foul shots played into the game in the first half. The Judges also had their second-largest rebounding advantage of the season with 38-24. This come-from-behind victory certainly helped to build the Judges con-fidence. Once they settled in and took it one possession at a time, they got down to business and did what they had to do to win the game. A special guest to the press table was Chapin’s “Gram,” who shouted out encouragement to the girls throughout both games this past weekend. After the victory she told The Hoot, “It’s over and thank God we won” and went on to say how proud she was of Jessica, but also the team as a whole. In a post-game interview Chapin told the press how much having that support meant to her and told us, “She’s been there for every game of my life.”

Brandeis will face off against Muhlenberg College, who beat Bowdoin 58-57 last weekend to qualify, at Amherst College on Friday night at 5 PM. The win-ner will continue on to the Elite Eight Saturday night at 6 PM and play either Amherst or NYU.

BBALL: Brandeis’ Jessica Chapin ‘10 (No. 23, left) drives past Mount Saint Mary Center Chrissy Zrowka ‘10 (No. 20, right) during Brandeis’ NCAA tournament win last Saturday.

BBALL: Brandeis guard Diana Cincotta ‘11 (No. 15, right) defends against Mount Saint Mary’s Meredith Paggi ‘10 (No. 21, left).

PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot

After an entire year spent recovering from knee surgery, Anat Ben Nun ’09 finds herself making her third trip to the NCAA’s at Indianapolis. Ben Nun quali-fied for the NCAA’s in the triple jump back on

Track sends two to IndyBY ZACHARY ARONOW

Editor

January 17 against Bowdoin with a leap of 11.66 meters (38 feet, 3.25 inches). Ben Nun entered the NCAA qualifier on Febru-ary ranked fourth in the nation at the triple jump and left with a leap of 11.67 meters (38 feet, 3.5 inches).

“It feels great. If you’d ask me maybe a year ago if I had a chance to make it maybe I would have said no because I really didn’t think I would heal from my injury,Ben

Nun said about making Nationals. “I was really surprised because it hap-

pened the first time I competed this year. I didn’t expect to do as well, and I was just happy that all of the hard work of the rehab paid off and excited for another opportu-nity,” he continued.

Making her first ever trip is classmate and fellow triple jumper Alessandra “Ali” Sax ’09. Sax qualified with her first ever

qualifying leap of 11.67 meters (36 feet, 11.5 inches) against Tufts on Feb. 7. Four days later, Sax finished runner up at the NCAA qualifier’s, covering 11.26 meters (36 feet, 11.5 inches), which was good for runner up.

Ben Nun said about having a team mate joining her to Indy, “It’s so nice to have a team mate come with you, and seeing her improve over the years is really incredible.”

BBALL: Brandeis players after the clock hits zero on their 79-52 NCAA tournament win last Saturday.

March 13, 2009 S P O R T S The Hoot 7

Wide right: Season ends 63-64 to F&M

LANCASTER, PA – The ball came to Steve DeLuca’s (GRAD) hand with 1.4 sec-onds left in the game. After nine minutes spent cutting a 20 point deficit down to one, this was the last chance to extend his last season in college hoops. All that was running through his mind was catching the ball and getting the shot off before time expired.

“I didn’t really know how much time there was,” DeLuca told the reporters gath-ered, “because the rebound came kind of far and I was turned away from the clock, so I just tried to set my feet and shoot it - turned out to be a really tough fade away.”

Unfortunately, he knew as soon as the shot was off that it was heading right. It was, and the furious charge to keep the sea-son alive ended in a heart-breaking conclu-sion.

“To talk about the comeback, we have to talk about how we dug the hole,” Coach Brian Meehan stated after the game.

The game had all the makings of a rout for Franklin & Marshall as little seemed to go right for the Brandeis Judges. Led by the interior duo of James McNally, who had 13 points in the first half, and Mike Baker, the Diplomats converted 16-26 shots from the field. Their success also included going three of five in their three point attempts in the first half. Brandeis, on the other hand, missed their first four shots and wound up converting only 9-22 in the starting half.

Franklin & Marshall outscored Brandeis 30-18 in points in the paint including an 18-8 margin at the end of the first half. McNally would finish with 19 points while Baker had a double-double of 16 points, and 13 rebounds.

“We got away from what we do,” Mee-han said, “and I thought we lost a little bit of trust in doing the things – we were get-ting the shots, we had a lot of shots in the first half go half way down and out and we uncharacteristically turned the ball over in the first half.”

“But again,” Coach Meehan continued, “that was when we broke off plays and just tried to do things on our own.”

Things only got worse in the second half as it started with a turnover and more struggles to get the basket. The challenges only mounted after Terrell Hollins ’10 and Christian Yemga ‘10 fouled out with 30 sec-onds of each other and little over half the game left. After a three pointer from Kevin Olson ’09 brought the Judges to within 8,

BY ZACHARY ARONOWEditor

Franklin & Marshall went on a 13-3 run over the next five minutes. With 9:23 left in the game, Brandeis found themselves down 57-37 on hostile territory and with a greatly reduced bench. What wouldn’t be known until later was that it would be the start of a dramatic turnaround.

“I think you all have to understand that I saw a couple of people leaving early,” Franklin & Marshall Head Coach Greg Robinson joked, “And we have a signal that we flash which is ‘miss free throws, let the other team back in it fast to pull in the crowd.’ And every guy got the signal and so we held the crowd and certainly made it an exciting finish.”

Coach Meehan summed up the situation facing his squad. “Going into the pressure we knew that we were probably only going to be able to go with six guys the rest of way, so we felt that if we were in trouble when it got to 10, that’s the point that we might have enough in the tank to go 10 minutes all out and we almost had enough.”

Switching to a full court press following a time out, Brandeis emerged a completely different unit; forcing turnovers and missed shots. The Diplomats could not crack that aggressive D, being held to 31 percent shooting in the second half. With turnovers and missed F&M free throws aiding the cause, the Judges came back from the edge with a 13-1 run. The Diplomats managed to push the lead back to 12 when Rich Magee’s ’10 lay up sparked another 13-1 run in the final three minutes. Following threes from Olson and Andre Roberson ’08, Steve De-Luca’s three pointer with 90 seconds left to go cut the lead to one and sent the Brandeis supporters (including former members of Amherst’s squad) into euphoria. For the first time all game, it looked like the Brandeis Judges were in it to win it.

However, Franklin & Marshall weren’t ready to wave the white flag. A missed jumper from DeLuca saw the Diplomats come down with the critical rebound, forc-ing Brandeis to commit the foul. After making the first shot, Brandeis could cor-ral the rebound following the miss on the second shot. With Magee in the middle of a scrum, barely having possession of the ball, Brandeis was forced to burn their last timeout and gathered for one last run to the basket.

“We were just trying to set that high screen that became successful late in the game for us.” Coach Meehan explained the strategy, “Give Dre [Andre Roberson] the opportunity to turn the corner and get to the rim or we felt that they probably drop

way off of him because he was turning the corner quite a bit and it would give him the jump shot or if he turned the corner and they came off trying to stop the penetra-tion, we might be able to hit somebody for three out on the perimeter.”

The final possession was not a thing of beauty for the Judges. With nobody open, no lanes to exploit, and the clock bleed-ing fast, Roberson ended up firing the shot with about five seconds left.

“I thought I had a good look at it,” Rob-erson said, “I could have set my feet a little more but I knew I didn’t have that much time because the defender was only going to be gone so long so I kind of rushed it but the look I got, it was pretty decent.”

Coach Robinson of the Diplomats gave credit to the play of his guards. “With all that we went through at the end of that game, when we really needed it, they came up with two huge defensive stops against a team that just made three threes and were shooting the ball well and had some really quick guards who could penetrate. In the end, our guards basically won the game for us against this very strong Brandeis team.”

Steve DeLuca finished his career with a game high 21 points on 7-22 shooting and secured his place in school history as the fifth highest leading scorer with 1,595, knocking Jim Houston ’56 down to sixth. Kevin Olson finished with 13 points and the undisputed number one three point shooter. His 58.3 percent success rate was sixth best in DIII history, and his 84 three pointers are the second most in school his-tory. Rich Magee fought valiantly, his ag-gressive play the center of the comeback as he finished with 7 points and a team high 6 rebounds and 4 steals. Playing on an in-jured leg, Andre Roberson finished the sea-son with 9 points and 8 rebounds. Overall, the team shot just 38.9 percent from the field.

Poor shooting had also troubled the Judges in their opening round match against Scranton as the Royals jumped to an early seven point lead. However, the Judges took control of the game, as Scran-ton committed 15 turnovers and no com-petition in the paint, leaving with the 74-60 win. Brandeis outscored the Royals 22-8 in points in the paint and held a 19-7 edge in second chance points, making the most of their 17 offensive rebounds.

“We were aggressive going to the glass” Coach Meehan said after the Scranton vic-tory. “They were guarding us a little tighter on the perimeter and that allowed us – we still took 16 threes, we don’t take many

more than that.”Kenny Small ’10, who would be referred

to as “the X-factor” by Scranton coach Carl Danzig, finished with 19 points, going 3-4 from the three point line, while Steve De-Luca finished one rebound shy of a double-double with 16 points, 9 rebounds. Terrell Hollins ’10 had one of his best performanc-es in a long while, coming off the bench for 14 points. Scranton was led by Paul Biagoli, who led all scorers with 22 points. Eli Lon-do and Ryan FitzPatrick each had 10, while their leading scorer coming into the game, Zach Ashworth, was held to seven points. Londo also had five blocks in the losing ef-fort.

In a lot of ways, the loss to F&M was rem-iniscent of the Judges entire season – a very poor start, opening with three straight loss-es and dropping five games overall in non-conference play; seemingly little chance to climb back after losing player and then launching a vigorous rally down the stretch that proved the naysayers wrong. The only difference was that this time, this come-back was not enough.

“We had a good run at the end and we really came together and started playing a lot better but your whole season matters and that’s the point you try to make to the guys,” Meehan said about the season. “We were very fortunate to get into the tourna-ment though we believed we belonged in the tournament but our schedule certainly helped us. But in order to stay closer to home and host, you have to win games through out the season.”

Brandeis finishes the season with an 18-9 record and looks to next year with a num-ber of questions. Most importantly, how this team will respond without their offen-sive dynamos, DeLuca and Olson. Coach Meehan had this to say about the departing players.

“They work hard everyday, they came, they improved themselves, they took advantage of all the opportunities that Brandeis offers academically and athleti-cally.” Meehan continued, “that’s what you hope for in players: guys that really appre-ciate the opportunity to be at a school like Brandeis and they take full advantage of it and they love to play the game and they get better and better because they work hard at improving themselves. We appreciate the fact that the two of them came off of ma-jor surgeries after last season and still had a great senior year.”

It is a very disappointing loss but if there is something to take solace in,it’s that they went down fighting.

The Deis BoardTEAM LATEST SCORES NEXT GAME

Men’s Basketball18-9, 10-4

Fri. Mar. 6 - v. Scranton @ Lancaster, Pa. (Franklin & Marshall) W 74-60 Sat. Mar. 7 - at Franklin & Marshall L 65-63

Women’s Basketball19-7, 7-7

Fri. Mar. 6 - v. Western Conn. St. (NCAA Division III First Round) W 62-49Sat. Mar. 7 - v. Mt. St. Mary (N.Y.) W 79-52

Fri. Mar. 13 - v. Muhlenberg @ Amherst 5:00 PMSat. Mar. 14 - v. Amherst/NYU (if necessary)

Track and Field Mar. 7 - v. UAA Championships @ NYU - MTrack 7th place - WTrack 4th place

Baseball 4-4, 2-1

Mar. 10 - vs. Washington (Mo.) @ Sanford, FL * W, 3-1 Mar. 11 - vs. Rochester (N.Y.) @ Sanford, FL * L, 7-2Mar. 12 - vs. Case Western Reserve @ Sanford, FL * W, 6-5

Mar. 13 - vs. Washington (Mo.) @ Sanford, FL * 11:00 AM Mar. 14 - vs. Rochester (N.Y.) @ Sanford, FL * 11:00 AM - vs. Emory @ Sanford, FL * 2:30 PMMar. 18 - at Bridgewater St. 3:00 PM

Softball 2-5, 2-3

Mar. 8 - vs. Ithaca @ Clermont, Fla. L, 6-3 - vs. Penn St.-Behrend @ Clermont, Fla. L, 13-0 Mar. 10 - vs. Emory @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * L, 3-2 - vs. Case Western Reserve @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * W, 8-2Mar. 11 - vs. Washington (Mo.) @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * L, 11-3 - 5 inningsMar. 12 - vs. Rochester (N.Y.) @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * W, 3-2 - vs. Emory @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * L, 6-2 - 9 innings

Mar. 13 - vs. Case Western Reserve @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * 10:00 AM vs. Washington (Mo.) @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * 12:30 PM Mar. 14 - vs. Rochester (N.Y.) @ Altamonte Springs, Fla. * 12:30 PM Mar. 18 - at Wellesley 3:30 PM at Wellesley 5:30 PM

Men’s Tennis5-2

Mar. 14 - vs. New York U. @ Middlebury, Vt. * 11:30 AMat Middlebury 2:30 PM Mar. 15 - vs. Connecticut Col. @ Middlebury, Vt. 9:30 AM

Women’s Tennis6-2

Mar. 14 - at Middlebury 9:00 AM - vs. New York U. @ Middlebury, Vt. * 2:30 PM

F E A T U R E S12 The Hoot March 13, 2009

Few people would honestly say they came to Brandeis for the athletics. But while the school may not be the powerhouse varsity teams of some bigger and older schools, Brandeis is far from devoid of athletic prowess. One look at the club sports pro-gram and it becomes evident that perhaps Brandeis’ athleticism, or lack thereof, has been criticized a bit too harshly.

With over 20 club sports and teams, Brandeis is actually home to quite a num-ber of talented teams that compete on the same level as the varsity, institutionally-funded teams of other schools. Whereas club sports rely on Student Union funding and their own fundraising efforts, varsity teams have a budget reserved specifically for their operation. Transportation, uni-forms and food are all covered.

With this kind of investment, schools seek out the players who will make the most of this pricey investment. Thus, var-sity teams are more highly regulated by organizations like the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the University Athletic Association, and control of a team is left to the professionals.

The Brandeis Crew Team is one of the older club sports teams, and is an example of how the word “varsity” is no indication of the caliber of a team. Founded in 1985, the team spent its early years building its fleet of boats, which now numbers seven, the newest of which, added in the fall, is named the Swift Justice.

The team paid for all its boats through their own fund raising efforts, as any Stu-dent Union funding is used to pay c-oaches’ salaries and the entrance fees for regattas, or crew competitions. The team organizes practices anywhere from five to six times a week, and has risen in prominence, despite the club sport title.

The success of the club teams can be at-tributed to the students themselves, ex-plained Ben White, the Club Sports Coor-dinator. White, who helps teams manage their budgets, hire coaches, and keep a record of practice and game schedules, ex-plained that club teams are, “entirely self run. They have their own [student] leader-ship structure, whereas varsity is all run by the coaches and administrators.”

The Club Sports division within the De-partment of Athletics is relatively new. with White was hired just under two years ago in June of 2007.

Before the distinction, club sports were chartered through the Student Union and had no administrator. To be considered a club sport, the chartered club must present

before the Club Sports Council. The club’s designation as a “club sport” lies in the hands of this seven student advisory board.

The men’s crew team did the club sport ti-tle proud when they raced a four man boat in the 44th Annual Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge back in the fall. The team also placed 25th out of 31 boats in the collegiate Men’s Fours division, their first time in the division that included the likes of first place teams from the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago.

There are even benefits to existing with-out the varsity title, and the regulations that come with it, including limiting practices and interactions with coaches. As Crew Team alumni coordinator Ashley Zibura ’11 noted, “ a lot of non-NCAA crew teams are more competitive because they can practice more.”

In fact, there is no men’s NCAA rowing because of that very reason. Teams want to be as competitive as they can, and that al-lows a club sport like Brandeis crew to gain some ground on other, more established, teams.

Zibura continued, “The only difference between Brandeis Crew and a team like Harvard is that we start from square one. We get people who find out about the team over the summer and have never done it before. Many people go to Harvard having rowed all their life, so their team starts from square ten.”

The Brandeis Equestrian Club, of which Zibura is the secretary, also competes at the varsity level despite the team’s club sport status.

The team triumphantly returned from the Rising Star Equestrian Center in Medway, Mass. where they co-hosted a competition this past weekend

The team’s treasurer, Beth Bowman ’10, was named high point rider for the event, the Equestrian way of saying she took first. Another team member tied for second, and the team overall is shooting up the ranks.

Each show has six divisions, each divided into three or four classes, and one rider is chosen for a division to be the point rider, the rider whose points will count toward the team standing.

For such a small team, ten members plus two riders currently studying abroad, Brandeis’ performance this past weekend is no small feat as filling all those divisions can be hard. But in the end, Brandeis came through despite not having a rider in each division.

“You need to have at least one person in every division because it’s all on a points system. You can get first in all the divisions you’re in, but if there are divisions that you

GAME ON: Brandeis' men's crew team sculls at the fall '08 New Hampshire Champs Regatta. They took 25th place out of 31 teams in their first showing in the men’s fours division at the Head of the Charles Regatta in the fall.

PHOTO COURTESY OF Haley Baron

BY ROBIN LICHTENSTEINStaff

Brandeis club teams prove you don't have to be varsity to be talented

PHOTO COURTESY OF Beth Bowan

They’ve got game

JUMPING THE FENCE: Equestrian club member Ashley Zibura ‘11 competes at Tufts last November. The Brandeis Equestrian Club co-hosted a competition last weekend at the Rising Star Equestrian Center. Beth Bowan ‘10 was named high point rider at the event.

don’t have people in, you just can’t get the points,” explained Zibura.

The Equestrian team, as well as most club sport teams, remains competitive in spite of certain factors that could complicate a team’s existence.

Teams in club sports are certainly grow-

ing in number, and they are becoming more recognizable on campus. Eventually, we may be getting e-mails to go out and support these teams, much the way we are being encouraged to go support Brandeis’ Women’s Basketball team as it advances to the NCAA sectional semifinals tomorrow

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I M P R E S S I O N SMarch 13, 2009 The Hoot 13

I wake up every morning ask-ing myself the same question: how far can the bottom go in rock bottom? No, I am not referring to the current economic crisis that has plagued the United States and markets around the world in the last few months. I am referring to the growing crisis in my home country, Pakistan, which seems to be crumbling towards an irrevers-ible and inevitable calamity. Ev-ery morning I wake up to a new benchmark of rock bottom, pour-ing through articles and news updates about a new disaster in Pakistan.

The recent terrorist strikes on the Sri Lankan cricket team hit me harder than any other recent disaster – it punctured an irrepa-rable hole into the one thing our nation still prided itself upon, the world of Cricket. For the first time in my entire life, I have found my eternal optimism turning into a hopeless and pathetic wish for improvement in my country.

Quaid-e-Azam (Muhammad Ali Jinnah), better known as the founder of Pakistan, said the fol-lowing in a famous address to the nation just two months after it gained independence from In-dia in August 1947: “My message to all of you is of hope, courage and confidence. Let us mobilize all our resources in a systematic and organized way and tackle the grave issues that confront us with grim determination and disci-pline worthy of a great nation.”

Sixty odd years down the road, every note of optimism in that message has been forgotten, or blatantly disregarded by narrow-minded and inept politicians who seem to be doing anything but tackling the grave issues in a systematic and organized way. The result: a nation left in turmoil where the average citizen cannot even turn to his or her govern-ment during times of greatest need.

As a liberal Pakistani, I echo the same sentiment that the ordinary citizen back at home would share. The so called name of “Islam,” which has been manipulated be-yond our wildest imaginations by the network of terrorists operat-ing in the Pak-Afghan border re-gions, has resulted in far reaching consequences around the world, and more significantly, in Paki-stan itself. I am writing this ar-

ticle because I want to share with you that we, as Pakistanis, do not want to see this violence continue. I would plead with my govern-ment to put aside its power trips and work with our neighbors to sustain peace and cooperation in the region. Yeah, sounds rather dreamy and idealistic right?

That is where our problem lies. We all seem to be resigned to the fact that we do not have any pow-er to influence a change in our government’s policies. We should have no room for people like Asif Zardari or Nawaz Sharif, both of whom have almost bought their way to domestic success, charged with corruption and fraud. We need someone who, first off, is educated and has completed at the very least a Bachelor’s degree, someone who can say no to any form of religious intolerance and promote a secular and liberal Pakistan, and finally, someone who can put history aside and make much needed peace with India.

It is easy for someone like me, sitting thousands of miles away in the comfort of a relatively stable country, to criticize the events un-folding back at home. This is be-yond criticism – this is the accep-tance of an unfolding crisis which needs effective and immediate treatment. The “it will get better” attitude that almost all educated and liberal Pakistanis seemed to have clung to for years is finally dying.

It will NOT get better – if any-thing, it will get so much worse that we may not even be worthy of being called a nation in the not so distant future. I present it so brutally because honestly, sugar coating the issue, like we have been doing for years, is nothing but an excuse for not standing up as a nation to an increasingly dev-astating and disgusting force.

The tide is shifting, and unless we as a people do not start to voice our concerns and get rid of reli-gious intolerance in our society, we may end up being ostracized from all forms of modern civiliza-tion. A place we once called home will be left as nothing but a distant memory full of unfulfilled hope, and the Quaid’s dream of being a “great nation” will be laughed at by generations to come when the history books of tomorrow are written. The time to act is now – I “hope” the citizens of our country can at least realize that.

Imagine a university. Now, step out of the shoes of one of the top university administrators, put on your administrator pajamas, and drift off to sleep. Dream admin-istrator dreams. Dream that the university is bureaucrat paradise.

What are you dreaming about? Origami palm trees made of dis-carded manila folders? Long, soft beaches of pencil sharpenings next to placid seas of black ink?

Are you dreaming of new build-ings everywhere, covering every square foot of grass and every parking space on and off campus, and even a satellite campus on the moon, each of them a brick-and-mortar testament to your fundraising job-well-done? How about campus peace, even world peace, brought about by calling a giant “town hall” meeting in-volving all six-and-three quarters billion people together? Do you envision inviting them to discuss any issue that’s on their minds, on the understanding that you and a few close associates have made or will make every decision your-selves anyway, notwithstanding their input? Do you assume that, in this administrative heaven, the meeting participants will never conclude that the meetings serve only to boost their self-esteem by letting them pretend that they matter?

Where are the people in your dream? Do they take human form, or do they exist only as numbers on a balance sheet? Other than alumni with money to give, can you shake hands with any of those people, or can they only be added or subtracted – or erased?

Where are the undergraduates? Are they customers, or are they cows that you can confidently as-sume will stay here giving milk until they finish their degrees?

Where are the arts and scienc-es graduate students? Do they appear to you to be young and financially fragile workers and students, who received promises regarding their employment and study that the university should try hard not to upset? Or, are they totally expendable and exploit-able, a group that has not orga-nized to protect its own interests and, consequently, deserves no respect?

Where are the staff and faculty? Are they people who bleed red blood, or liabilities that make the university bleed red ink?

Difficult economic times place real constraints on institutions like Brandeis, and dealing with those constraints is not exactly a bureaucratic paradise. Even the best administrator, tasked with al-locating insufficient funds, is go-ing to leave someone disappoint-ed, and should not be blamed simply because there’s not enough money to go around. But admin-istrators have kept too many im-portant decisions to themselves, and the financial downturn has muted questions as to whether this concentrated form of deci-

sion-making power is a good idea.“Transparency” in administra-

tive decision-making and the fate of the Rose Art Museum has been at the center of student discussion of the administration’s decisions. It shouldn't be.

Students enjoy, at best, only weak input into university deci-sion-making, and only on some issues. They can participate in so-called “town hall meetings” – a misnomer for these stale ques-tion-and-answer sessions, given the name’s evocation of the direct democracy characteristic of some New England towns. Students with opinions have had to vie for the podium with the uninformed and with groups pressing for changes relating more to policy than to people, such as science professors calling for an inte-grated science-business program. Speaking at these meetings, moreover, has seemed to achieve little. Hearing an administra-tor or committee representative respond with similar banalities to everybody gives participants the impression, whether well-founded or not, that the meetings distract and disempower par-ticipants, rather than give them a meaningful say.

Another form of student input involves student representatives sitting on some of the university’s proliferating committees. Many of these bodies have only an ad-visory or consultative role. And many student representatives have no vote on their commit-tees. Moreover, in no commit-tee, including the most important ones such as the UCC, do stu-dents have control or the power to choose, veto, or even propose policies.

Arts and Sciences graduate stu-dents are a case in point. At two meetings with administration representatives held earlier this semester, administrators spoke at length about aspects of the gradu-ate programs that wouldn’t be changed, leaving students to raise issues they were actually con-cerned about in the limited time allotted for questions and an-swers. Administrators from IBS and the Heller School also took precious time to discuss how, save for funding a few scholarships, those schools did not face serious financial problems.

However, the questions on many GSAS students’ minds – whether and how Brandeis would try to compel students to remain in Waltham and work as unpaid teaching fellows for lon-ger than they initially agreed to, and whether their programs were among those slated for elimina-tion – were not clearly answered. The administrators assured those assembled that graduate students would have a representative on two committees. But the student representatives would be unable to vote, and administrators, rather than the committees, would keep all decision-making power. The writer recalls with some bitter-ness that an administrator at the first meeting laughed as he dis-missed the prospect that graduate students would be allowed a say in “decisions” affecting them – as though the question that another student asked him raising this possibility could only have been meant as a joke.

So many committees now ex-ist that even the most earnestly concerned students cannot fol-low all their activities. Students can’t provide the kind of feedback to student representatives that would allow them to function in a truly representative capacity.

In this situation, transparency won’t prevent the administration from making decisions against students’ interests. Transparency is nice, but what’s really missing is power for students (and, for that matter, for those staff and faculty members who may be concerned about recent changes). Behind the curtain of secrecy that some have complained about is a bureaucrat-ic paradise, a place where people are inconveniences who exist only in quantified form. They amount to nothing if they have nothing to give. To change that, students and others need decision-making power, not mere transparency.

The museum, for its part, was of concern to only a few people on campus before announcement of its closure dramatically raised its profile. For many, the Rose had been a rarely visited building that entered one’s consciousness only on the infrequent occasions when a visitor to campus asked how to get to it. The Rose’s closing has

BY NADIR DAUDISpecial to The Hoot

BY CHRIS BORDELONColumnist

The Pakistan Disaster Students need a seat and a vote

See TRANSPARENCY, p. 15

PHOTO from Internet Source

PHOTO BY Judy Kaufman/The Hoot

Borde-nough

14 The Hoot I M P R E S S I O N S March 13, 2009

In a turn of events surprising no one but herself, my friend Sara got into law school. She is going all the way to New York, so I am sad because I am codepen-dent. On the bright side though, she is going to be a lawyer, so I can stop worrying about some-one finding the bodies. All joking aside (we hope), it seems rather mind blowing that she gets to start such a big new ad-v e n t u r e , while I am here, count-ing down the days until Ire-land. Maybe I shouldn’t be so jeal-ous since she worked very hard, but I can’t help feel that some unhappy things may be go-ing down in the future.

I am a little bit worried about my job. I worked in the Ger-stenzang Science Library all summer and have continued since then; obviously I kind of like this place. Not being a sci-ence person, I have no real use for any of the materials at my disposal, but it is fun promis-ing myself that I will someday read all about the principles of quantum mechanics. Under the staircase is a large bronze bust of John F. Kennedy, which is possi-bly my absolute favorite thing on the Brandeis campus, and really puts the drippy “Louis Brandeis as Albus Dumbledore” statue to shame.

A friend once needed help on a project involving genetics and intelligence, and I was able to find a wealth of materials in close proximity. If you are doing research and writing long, de-tailed, scientific papers, it makes sense to have pertinent works

condensed into a semi-private and thoroughly quiet location like the Science Library, with-out the broad interference of an unfocused collection. Yet some strange and ominous harbingers of change are evident. First, the reference librarians were moved up to the main library, and I did not say anything. Then stu-dent workers were forced to take hourly statistics to try to prove to some authority that people ac-

tually come here, and I did not speak. But now, there are boxes everywhere, b o o k s are being packed and shifted and sent back to the Farber/

Goldfarb, and I feel I must speak.In spite of evidence to the con-

trary obtained through my ob-servational research, I am hoping that LTS or the administration, or someone, is not planning on closing down Gerstenzang. We just got that fancy pointy new science building; surely there can be no excuse about needing work space, like with another recent debacle. Also, the space would be rather odd to put a lab or a classroom in, since there is a giant hole in the center of the structure; supplies natural light, yes, conducive to teaching, no. If the issue is about usage, with the thought being that no one comes here and uses the collec-tion, I must vehemently disagree. You cannot judge usage by the number of books checked out or how many people are recorded in a head count. For the people who use the library, the appeal is in its status as a hidden, semi-secret location, where one can honestly sit all day without being interrupted. This comfort also lends itself to lower check-out

On Monday, an important Bush-era restriction came to a timely end at the hands of Presi-dent Obama.

Obama signed an executive or-der ending the restrictions on fed-eral funding for embryonic stem cell research, which had originally been put into place by President Bush on Aug. 9, 2001.

This is a huge win for Ameri-cans who have been hoping to see their country take the forefront in medical research once again, not to mention those who have been sick to death of the radical Bible-thumpers who ran the show for the past eight years.

Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to literally revo-lutionize modern medicine in several ways. For one thing, sci-entists believe that these cells—which are found within early-stage embryos and eventually develop into the many different types of adult cells—may be used in “cell therapy” to replace dam-aged cells in the human body. This could mean cures for a whole host of conditions, including blindness, diabetes, cardiovascu-lar disease, and neurological dis-ease.

But that’s not all. Embryonic stem cell research may also help scientists better their understand-ing of certain types of cancers that are thought to be caused by “de-fective” stem cells. This in turn could lead to more effective can-cer treatments for thousands of patients.

Sounds great, right?Unfortunately, thanks to Bush’s

draconian restrictions, we have not yet realized the potential ben-efits of this research. Throughout his presidency, federal funding was only allowed to go to stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001, and out of those lines, only about 20 or so were actually vi-able. Which meant that for years, little progress was made.

Now that Obama has issued his own order, however, the number of lines eligible for money should rise into the hundreds, provid-ing scientists with more data at a much faster rate.

Of course, despite all the

promise that this research holds (and despite the fact that Bush is spending a quiet retirement in Texas), there is still a great deal of opposition from the Repub-lican Party and its overactive (and oversized) religious right wing. Just after Obama signed the order, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) signaled his opposition by stating, “The president has rolled back impor-tant protections for innocent life, further dividing our nation at a time when we need greater unity to tackle the challenges before us.” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) was more blunt, calling Obama the “abortion president.”

I must admit, their line of think-ing doesn’t exactly make sense to me. But then again, my liberal, non-believing self doesn’t see embryonic stem cell research as destroying “innocent life.” There is a world of difference between a small cluster of cells and a human being, and I don’t believe that the former is developed enough to be considered a sentient being. To me, the phrase “innocent life” brings to mind images of ordinary people suffering from presently incurable afflictions. You know, the people we could be helping by putting serious money into em-bryonic stem cell research.

But what I find even more infu-riating is that fact that right-wing critics are attacking a research process that they don’t seem to fully understand. Yes, the embry-os are destroyed in the process; that is undeniable. But they are not “aborted,” as Rep. Smith sug-gests. Most are leftover embryos obtained from fertility clinics and would have been destroyed re-gardless. This is simply a chance for them to serve a purpose before they go, and it would be a terrible waste not to study them.

If the right-wing radicals want to lecture us about fire and brim-stone (or whatever it is that sup-posedly awaits liberal sinners), let them waste their breath. Hope-fully, in the near future millions of Americans—both liberal and conservative—will benefit from this research. And so, all I have to say is, well done, Mr. President. Continue to stand up for science and the people who depend on it.

rates, because who needs to take out a book and risk a fine when you can read all you want here at a nice desk tucked away in a corner. Having spent countless hours wiping down the stacks with a damp cloth, I feel quali-fied to say that the books and people at the Science library are happy there and do not want to be moved.

One thing I would just like to take issue with while on the topic is the matter of the art that is lo-cated in Gerstenzang. There are some very interesting, vaguely science-related paintings that are just rotting here, tucked behind bookshelves in broken frames, presented in a less than optimal manner. As I said, Kennedy is gathering dust under the stairs. Maybe instead of fiddling with the books, someone could take a look at what is on the walls and see if something could not be done to increase the aesthetic ap-peal of the space. Although just to be safe if the library ends up closing, I call dibs on the JFK bust.

I know I am sort of preemp-tively striking based upon ru-mor and speculation, but it really can’t hurt to remind people of the value of Gerstenzang Science Library, especially since so many people who might be interested in using it do not know that it ex-ists. There are many complaints about lack of quiet work space on campus, yet here is a quiet work space, with many available computers, that could be lost soon. Obviously it is necessary to cut back on amenities during difficult economic times, but a li-brary is definitely a necessity. Re-moving a unique element in the realm of the sciences would also hurt our reputation as a research institution. So in short, I am say-ing to those who have power and may be thinking of such things, please don’t close the Science Li-brary. I like my job; I don’t want to look for another one.

BY BRET MATTHEWEditor

BY EMILY MASKASStaff

The Hoot accepts submissions to the Impressions section on any topic of consequence to any member of the campus community. Our mission is to give every community member a voice. The views expressed in the Im-

pressions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hoot's editorial board.

Save my job, please don't close the Science Library

Finally, some science:Funding stem cell research

I am hoping that LTS or the administra-

tion, or someone, is not planning on closing down Gerstenzang.

Book of Matthew

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

PHOTO from Internet Source

ARTS AND SCIENCES: This bust of JFK sits in the Gerstenzang Science Library.

March 13, 2009 I M P R E S S I O N S The Hoot 15

been understood as a mishan-dling of public relations, but the administration found a pretty pearl in that ugly oyster. The museum’s plight distracted many from other decisions that directly affected people.

It’s hard to know whether life imitates art or art imitates life. But it’s certain that money-motivated changes at Brandeis will have an impact on our lives. Lives – undergrads’ lives, GSAS students’ lives, the lives of facul-ty and staff – should concern us more than art.

Lives should also be of primary concern to a university that treats social justice as its mission.

The administration has forged ahead with building projects and fundraising for them. At the same time, it has fired staff and faculty. It has begun compelling faculty members to tell graduate students that the terms to which the stu-dents agreed to when they came to Brandeis don’t mean anything.

And it has toyed with ways of making undergraduate students pay more money, including the idea of extracting a summer se-mester’s tuition from them and by increasing enrollment through a new undergraduate business program (which appeared to sup-ply academic cover to an effort to bring in more warm, tuition-pay-ing bodies).

Administrators have made decisions under financial pres-sure, but they have made deci-sions nonetheless. They were not forced to make the choices they made. Rather, they allo-cated scarce resources that could have been allocated differently, and might have been, if others at Brandeis had some power to de-cide as well as to discuss. More might have been invested in the university’s people and less in bricks and mortar. Building proj-ects can await the next economic upturn. People cannot.

The administration has made its choices with good motives in

I’ve always had a problem with realists. It’s not exactly that I live in a bubble of denial; it’s just that I prefer to see the bright side of most situations.

It’s not that realism is a bad thing. There are, after all, many times when you really need someone to just give you a reality check. Case in point: somebody you know clearly got dressed in the dark and is about to go out-side wearing some hideous getup. This is when you might want to tell them they forgot to turn the light on while getting dressed. But in a nice way.

The issue is essentially like the classic “angel/devil” over the shoulder debate. Should you be the nice one and sugarcoat the truth to be a people pleaser, or should you be blunt and say what you want to say?

So many people seem to think it’s all or nothing. But there’s a happy medium that people could and should find. There’s a differ-ence between being realistic and being nasty, and instead of taking the blunt, realist route and po-tentially being nasty, perhaps the next time we face such a situation we should all consider adding a little bit of sugar to our sour at-titudes.

We all need to learn to take criticism; it’s one of life’s many important learning experiences. But criticism doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing; the mes-sage is all in the delivery. You could deliver the most insight-ful, important piece of advice to someone, but if you deliver it in a nasty way that you pass off as real-ism, people are likely not going to listen to you.

Let’s face it, people like sweet things. They like to add it to their coffee, they like a little piece of chocolate; it just perks us all up. And when there’s not even a sugar substitute around, people don’t function as well. The same thing goes with attitudes.

We run into this issue every day but often don’t think twice about how we interact with others. Take the economy, for instance. Is tell-ing the American public the ex-tent of the damage that’s plaguing our economy the utmost goal, or is telling the public how they can deal with and potentially improve the situation more important?

Such is the dilemma our gov-

ernment currently faces. In this case, shying away from or sugar-coating the truth doesn’t serve any of us in the end because that would only create denial. In other words, we know there’s a disaster out there and you can’t lie to us about it.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider that people are people and as such, they are vul-nerable to bad news. Framing the news in a way that gets the point across while still being consider-ate to the viewer’s feelings is al-ways the best option.

On another note, let’s consider realism as related to the world of academia. If a student makes a mistake, should the professor au-tomatically blurt out “wrong!” or should they say something to the effect of “well, that’s an interesting point of view, but…”?

In my own experience, I’ve al-ways responded kinder to lighter words of criticism and it’s the teachers who’ve made the effort to encourage their students who, I feel, will stick out in all of our minds 20 years from now.

I had a teacher in high school who called all of her students “great one.” She was kind and patient and didn’t sugarcoat any-thing. She was honest and told us if we were being irrational, but she also understood that we were a group of 17 year olds and that we weren’t going to respond kind-ly to a dose of reality.

By treating us kindly and en-couraging our academic thoughts rather than tell us we were “wrong,” she fostered an envi-ronment in which we felt free to express ourselves without fear of judgment.

Though it might not be the professor’s intention, in calling a student out on their mistakes in they essentially embarrass them, if only the tiniest bit.

The same thing goes for friend-ship and family as well. It even applies to people you randomly meet.

People say that it’s necessary to be a realist and that it prepares you for life in the “real world.” But that doesn’t mean you need to go about it in a way that discourages people.

After all, who can really define what is “real”? Is brutal honesty always the best policy? Perhaps in the end, realism is just evidence of a negative attitude. Maybe it’s the realists who need the reality check.

I would like to warn my read-ers right at the onset, that this article is a little different from the previous pieces I have published in The Hoot. Oftentimes, I relate my somewhat controversial opin-ions in this column, and stand by them adamantly. Here, however, I am going to convey the senti-ments that I once had, and re-late how I have been convinced against these prior beliefs. I have never, in any of my previous ar-ticles, relayed my opinions con-cerning religion. I used to have sentiments against the institution, and believed it to be disingenuous and wrong. In addition, I once believed that many religions had descended into mere social clubs, and thought that this was delete-rious to the real purpose of the institution. Now, however, I have different sentiments about reli-gion. I would like to share these previous beliefs, and chart the journey I took to my new phi-losophy.

I deem myself somewhat of an agnostic, a person open to the concept of God, but not entirely convinced by it. One thing that I used to be convinced of, however, was that most religions were truly harmful institutions. In order to choose which ones were worse than others, I constructed a two question “religion test.” The first question was whether or not a religion cost money. I hated re-ligions that sold tickets to their services as one does to a concert. I also hated religions that pressure individuals to pay fees in order to support the institution. If religion is genuinely concerned the sin-cere exaltation of god, than this shouldn’t matter, and I despised (and still somewhat despise) re-ligions that cost money. The sec-ond question asks whether or not a given religion is proselytizing. I very much dislike religions that, like viruses, seek to convert the

masses. There is an underlying annoyance with this characteris-tic and it turns me off from many religious institutions. If a religion was guilty of both faults (like Sci-entology) then I considered it to be bad. If it was guilty of one fault (like Christianity or Judaism) I considered it to be less bad. If it did not violate any fault (like some forms of Buddhism and other Eastern religions), I considered them to be good. I guess I some-what still hold these beliefs, but it matters less due to the revelation I had that I shall discuss later.

I also did not like how religion has become a social club, an as-sociation more concerned with fostering social connections than with the genuine exaltation of god. I used to see people going to Hillel or Chabad, and believed that they went not because they wanted to pray, but because they desired to be with their friends. I saw individuals more concerned with schmoozing at temple than with praying. And at many other religious social events, I saw peo-ple more concerned with baking cookies and wearing costumes than understanding the religious implications at hand. This sick-ened me, as it seemed religion

took on the character of a social club, a means to bond primarily on that level rather than through a mutual exaltation of god.

However, more recently I have taken a new position about such aforementioned gatherings and about religion in general. Social interactions are a vital component of Judaism, as they are with other religions as well. The Jews are all one people, connected despite massive divides of language, time, and space. Religion is the bond that unites all members of the group, and keeps us together as one people. Not to be bleak here, but one of the reasons why I took on this position is due to what one of my good friends from home said to me. He asked me what re-ligion I was, and I responded with something like “well…that de-pends.” He said, so long as there is someone out there who wants to kill you for your religious identity, you ought to protect and promote your religious affiliation.

Now the reason why I now sup-port Judaism and other similar re-ligions is not exclusively because I don’t want our institutions to die out, but rather because I see the worth and value of a mutual, and somewhat social, religious connection. I now go meta on the issue of social interactions vs. genuine exaltation of god because it really doesn’t matter. What is important is that people from similar backgrounds are bonding, individuals are forging valuable social connections, and our com-mon identity is being promoted. I praise those who are promoting our values through social events and activities. I respect those who have committed themselves to en-suring that Jews are made aware of their heritage, whether it be through religious services or so-cial events. I may still be agnostic, but my revelation has, neverthe-less, allowed me to see the value and righteousness of social activi-ties in religious institutions.

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

BY JORDAN ROTHMANEditor

mind, and people at some of the meetings that I’ve attended who implied otherwise were wrong to do so. But while administrators have opened avenues for par-ticipation, their decision-making structure has remained largely closed to everyone else.

Administrators, although well-intentioned, have trouble escap-ing their own roles. They run a big institution in the real world; unquestionably, their work would be easier in a bureaucratic para-dise, where the university’s people could be treated as numbers that could be reduced or erased at will. But running Brandeis as if it existed in a bureaucratic para-dise would probably not always produce the best results for the university or for its mission of promoting social justice.

It is the administration’s diffi-cult challenge to renounce para-dise. They should give others a role in real decision making, not just in ineffectual talking.

Transparency meaningless without a vote

Religion not so bad after allOne Tall Voice

A problem with realistsDon't discourage people

Shopping for Truth

Got an opinion?

Then write for The Hoot Impressions!

E-mail [email protected]

TRANSPARENCY(from p. 13)

ILLUSTRATION BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

W E E K E N D16 The Hoot March 13, 2009

Are you a fan of the Irish punk scene? Then, you should definitely go see this band in concert at the House of Blues. Known for their rowdy concerts, this is a performance you don't want to miss.

Spotlight on Boston

Friday to Sunday, Mar. 13-1515 Lansdowne St., Boston

What's going on at Brandeis?

Murder Mystery:Friday, Mar. 13, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.Levin Ballroom

Think you're the next Sherlock Holmes? On Friday the 13th, the perfect time to solve a crime, watch a murder mystery improv show and try to catch the killer. Drink vanilla chai tea while you ponder the clues.

Dropkick Murphys:

www.hob.com

48 Hour Film Contest:Friday to Sunday, Mar. 13-15SCC Multipurpose Room

By Ian Pricelaughingwarlock

Sleazy By Matt Kupfer

The Pain and the Itch:Friday to Sunday, Mar. 13-15527 Tremont St., South End

You haven't had a Thanksgiving this terrible. Check out this controver-sial dark comedy about a family din-ner gone sour. Bruce Norris' play is a biting satire on class and race. $15/ticket.

www.bcaonline.org

Pachanga:Saturday, Mar. 14, 10 p.m to 2 a.m.Levin Ballroom

The biggest dance of the year. Sure to be exciting, sure to get you on your feet. Make sure you get your tickets in advance before they're sold out!

Bad Grammer Show:Saturday, Mar. 14, 9 p.m. Cholmondely's

Appreciate the comedic stylings of these Brandeis alums. Get a cup of hot chocolate, sit down, and enjoy an evening of laughter.

By Grace Alloy-RelihanFloppsiePhoto courtesy of G&A Scholers.

Comic Strips

Photo courtesy of event website.

Photo courtesy of Marija Rajkovic.

To kick off SunDeis, get a group of your friends and produce a short film in two days. Don't have equipment? No problem, some will be available in the Getz Media Lab. Are you up for the challenge?

Unless otherwise noted, photos are from Google images.

Author's Note: So long, and thanks for all the fish! -G

Photo courtesy of Mario Trejo..

Your comic could be

HERE!e-mail [email protected]

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