ARTS PAGE 19
FORUM Support student interns 12
‘M. BUTTERFLY’
SPORTS Men’s tennis defeats Bryant University 16 THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
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Justice www.theJusticeOnline.com
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Volume LXII, Number 23
WELCOMING NEW STUDENTS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Board approves budget for 2011 ■ The Board of Trustees
also approved the Brandeis 2020 committee’s recommendations. By MIRANDA NEUBAUER JUSTICE SENIOR WRITER
At a March 23 meeting, the Board of Trustees approved a $356 million University operating budget for fiscal 2011 as well as the Brandeis 2020 committee’s recommendations that were accepted by Provost Marty Krauss. The budget for fiscal 2011 includes revenues from an increase of 100 in undergraduate enrollment, the second stage of the University’s plan to grow the student body that began with an additional 100 students in the class of 2013. According to last year’s academic restructuring plan, the University is raising enrollment by 400 students over four years. To close a projected deficit, the trustees voted to take $11.1 million out of the University’s reserves or quasi-endowment, which corresponds to a spending rate of 6.8 percent from the endowment, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Fran Drolette wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. In addition to restoring the University’s retirement contributions starting in July, the budget also includes a 2-percent merit raise increase pool for faculty and staff earning an annual base salary lower than $150,000. According to a March 26 University press release, the University projects that the deficit will drop to $6.3 million in 2012 and $1.8 million in 2013, with a $600,000
surplus in 2014. According to the press release, the budget projects $320,000 in savings from faculty reductions. “The projections in the University’s long-range plan include a reduction in the endowment draw rate each year, until FY 2013-2014, when it is expected to be down to 5%,” Drolette wrote in an e-mail. The budget also projects savings of $200,000 from renegotiated pricing for gas used for energy as well as savings of $90,000 from Library and Technology Services, which includes an initiative to implement hosted applications for e-mail and calendaring services. Also, part of the budget is a 3.9 percent increase in tuition and fees, with tuition set at $38,994, that together with average room and board fee puts the cost of attendance over $50,000 for the first time. The increase in tuition and fees will cover increased costs to the University, including financial aid, Drolette wrote. She explained that due to the Massachusetts adoption of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, the University could avoid going deeper into its reserves and instead continue to fund activities such as financial aid or salaries with endowments that have decreased under their original value, which the prior laws prohibited. Trustees approved the termination of the Master of Arts in Cultural Production, the Master of Fine Arts in Theater and external admission to the master’s program in Anthropology. They also approved
See BOARD, 5 ☛
Waltham, Mass.
ASHER KRELL/the Justice
FUTURE PROSPECTS: Gideon Grossman, a prospective student, interacts with Amy Mandel ’10 on Admitted Students Day.
Univ lowers acceptance rate ■ The University received
7,738 applications for the Class of 2014 in comparison to last year’s total of 6,815. By ALANA ABRAMSON JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
The University received the largest number of applications in its history this year and accepted 33 percent of those applicants for the Class of 2014 in comparison to last year’s acceptance rate of 40 percent. According to a March 25 cam-
puswide e-mail sent by University President Jehuda Reinharz, the overall number of applications increased from last year’s number of 6,815 to 7,738. Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that the Office of Admissions had accepted approximately 2,500 applicants and that she expected between 825 and 850 students to enroll in the Class of 2014. The enrollment figures, which were originally presented by Eddy at a March 23 Board of Trustees meeting, show that the number of international student applicants increased from 1,211 to 1,599.
Additionally, the number of “students of color” who applied increased from 1,706 to 2,111, according to Reinharz’s e-mail and Eddy’s presentation. Reinharz’s e-mail also explained that the mean SAT score for the accepted students had increased from 1392 to 1400. “I expect that a third of [admitted students] will … join us in August,” Eddy wrote. She also wrote that 1,500 students had registered for Admitted Students Day. Admitted Students Day took place yesterday in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center and included
See ADMISSIONS, 5 ☛
ACADEMICS
Five Justice Brandeis Semester summer courses canceled ■ Three of eight Justice
Brandeis Semester summer programs originally offered will be launched this year. By NASHRAH RAHMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
Five of the eight Justice Brandeis Semester programs originally offered for summer 2010 have been canceled due to alack of student enrollment and for administrative reasons, according to Dean of Arts
and Sciences Adam Jaffe. Jaffe said that each JBS summer program originally required the participation of eight students in order to occur but that all programs for which seven students signed up will still take place. The three programs that will run this summer are “Environmental Health and Justice,’’ “Health and Society,” and “Web Services and Mobile Applications.” Jaffe wrote in his email that approximately 30 to 35 students will take part in the three approved programs. Fewer than seven students signed
up for the “Beacon Hill Report,’’ “Collaborative Theater and the Theatrical Essay,” “Ethnographic Fieldwork” and “Inside Criminal Law programs,” according to Jaffe. Consequently, these programs will not run this summer. Another program, “The American Jewish Community,” will not be launched this summer “due to administrative and logical complications,” according to the JBS Web site. In an e-mail to the Justice, Jaffe explained that the curricula for the three courses that were to be offered as parts of the program could not be
worked out. The JBS Web site states, “Brandeis will continue to explore innovative ways to make the resources of the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program and the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies available to Brandeis undergraduates.” According to its Web site, a JBS is “an engaging, immersive academic program in which small groups of students explore a thematic topic through inquiry-based courses linked to real-world experiential opportunities.” The Web site also states that a summer JBS program
counts toward one of the seven semesters required for graduation, meaning that summer JBS students can graduate a semester early. The creation of a JBS was proposed by a subcommittee of the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee last year. “A couple of [the JBS summer programs] had very few students, and so we made the decision to cancel them soon after the deadline. A couple of the others were closer, so we waited to see if they might drum up a few
See JBS, 5 ☛
SKIN is in
Unique friendships
Student elections
■ Students modeled the latest trends with confident flair.
■ Local senior citizens form friendships with international students in the Heller School.
■ Candidates running for the Student Union Executive Board discuss their platforms.
ARTS 22 For tips or info call Let your voice be heard! Submit letters to the editor online (781) 736-6397 at www.thejusticeonline.com
INDEX
FEATURES 6 ARTS SPORTS
17 22
EDITORIAL FEATURES
10 6
OPINION POLICE LOG
11 2
COMMENTARY
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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THE JUSTICE
NEWS SENATE LOG
POLICE LOG
SEA representatives propose the creation of a sustainability fund
Medical Emergency
Representatives from Students for Environmental Action Hannah Saltman ’12, Matthew Schmidt ’11 and Matt Gabrenya ’13 presented a constitutional amendment proposal with the necessary 10 senator signatures to Union Vice President Amanda Hecker ’10. If approved, the amendment would add $15annually to the Student Activities Fee to help foster a Brandeis Sustainability Fund. The student body will vote on the amendment on Monday, April 26. Saltman said that similar “green fees” have been instituted in universities across the country and that the money would help create tangible sustainability initiatives on campus. The amendment would also form a secured group made up of students, faculty and administrators dedicated to allocating the funds. For a detailed article on the proposed amendment, see page 4. The Senate approved funds requested by Senator for Ziv Quad Ryan Fanning ’11, for food and games at a Ziv/Ridgewood social event. The Senate also approved funds requested by Senator for North Quad Andrea Ortega ’13 for the Social Justice Committee to bring the film The Cove to Brandeis. Senator for Massell Quad Linda Li ’13 received funds to order T-shirts and sombreros for the fiesta themed midnight buffet at the end of the semester.
Mar. 26—An ambulance transported a party to the NewtonWellesley Hospital for a voluntary psychological examination upon request from staff at the Mailman House. University Police assisted in the transportation of the party. Mar. 26—University Police received a report that an 18-yearold female with a history of heart conditions had a racing heart but was conscious and alert in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. BEMCo was dispatched, and an ambulance transported the party to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital for further care. Apr. 6—University Police reported a male with an injured wrist at the basketball court outside Sherman dining hall. BEMCo responded, and the party was treated and transported via ambulance to the Newton-
Wellesley hospital for further care. Apr. 6—An individual reported a male with a possible broken hand in the main lobby of the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center. BEMCo treated the party on-scene with a signed refusal for further care. Apr. 8—A reporting party in Massell Quad said his friend was suffering from severe abdominal pain. BEMCo requested an ambulance, which transported the patient to the Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
Vandalism Apr. 2—University grounds staff reported vandalism to the grass outside the entrance of Rosenthal Quad and Chapels Field. University Police compiled a report and took photographs. Closed-circuit television footage will be reviewed.
Larceny Mar. 2—A student reported that a bike was stolen from East quad. University Police compiled a report on the theft. Mar. 31—An individual went to the police station to report a stolen jacket. He later reported that he had recovered the property. Apr. 2—Individuals from the track team reported items stolen from their lockers in the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center.
Miscellaneous Mar. 30—Escort Service assisted the Waltham Police and the Waltham Fire Department with the evacuation of citizens from Linden Street. Apr. 1—A staff member in the Abraham Shapiro Academic Center reported an attempted email fraud. University Police compiled a report and Library
Governor Patrick seeks re-election amid challenge
A photograph in News misidentified a student. The student in in the photograph of Bubble Tea Night was Angela Chui ’12, not Karen Hu ’12. (Mar. 23, p. 4) The Justice welcomes submissions for errors that warrant correction or clarification. E-mail justeditor@ brandeis.edu.
theJustice The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods. Editor in chief office hours are usually held every Wednesday from 1 to 2 p.m. Main Line News Forum Features Sports Arts Ads Photos Managing
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Apr. 7—A staff member in Bernstein-Marcus reported harassment by e-mail. There were no threats made toward any community member, the school or its associations.
Disturbance Apr. 8—An individual reported a group of people being extremely loud in East Quad lot. The group said they were rehearsing for an upcoming show and agreed to disperse. Apr. 11—An individual in the Foster Mods reported several extremely loud parties outside the Mods. The parties were dispersed. —Compiled by Anya Bergman
Obama promotes the benefits of tax credits
AP BRIEF
CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
Harassment
AP BRIEF
—Clare Churchill-Seder
BOSTON — Gov. Deval Patrick kicked off his campaign for a second term on Saturday, saying he wants the chance to complete some of the governmental and social transformation he has begun. Patrick, a Democrat, said he expects a three-way election this fall will offer voters a choice between continuing with his efforts to improve the state, especially in implementing health care, education and transportation overhauls, and backtracking under the leadership of his Republican or independent opponents. He alluded to Republican Charles Baker and state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, a former Democrat running for governor as an independent, though he did not mention them by name. Christy Mihos also is seeking the GOP nomination, while Grace Ross is challenging Patrick for the Democratic nomination and Jill Stein is running under the Green-Rainbow Party banner. ``The challengers are good and decent people, but they want things the way they used to be,'' he said. Outside his first stop, at the Owl Diner in Lowell, Patrick was greeted by more than 100 local police officers and their supporters. They complained about his decision to replace uniformed police officers with civilian flaggers at some local and state road construction sites and to cut back on state funding for supplemental pay officers receive if they get advanced law enforcement degrees. Some police unions, including the one representing state police troopers, endorsed Patrick's Republican opponent in 2006, and since then he has heard other unions complain as he has combined agencies in a massive transportation overhaul. Since Patrick’s inauguration in January 2007 as the state's first black chief executive and the first Democrat to hold the post in 16 years, the nation has gone into a deep recession that has forced more than $3 billion in budget cuts. “We've had our setbacks, thanks mostly to a global economic collapse that nobody could have anticipated,” the governor said at Boston English. Baker, the former Harvard Pilgrim Health Care president who was budget chief in the administration of former GOP Gov. William Weld, has complained that Patrick has mismanaged the budget and not delivered on promises to create 100,000 new jobs or provide a property tax cut to residents. Former Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, said Patrick has done a commendable job, given the circumstances.
and Technology Services will investigate the matter.
ASHER KRELL/the Justice
Celebrating mixed cultures Yale professor of African American Studies Naomi Pabst discusses diversity with students at a Mar. 25 event sponsored by the Mixed Heritage Club and the Brandeis University Conservative Organization.
WASHINGTON—Just ahead of Tax Day, President Barack Obama is urging Americans to take advantage of tax credits for first-time homebuyers, college students and others. Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to promote some of the tax benefits in last year’s stimulus bill, saying they could save people hundreds or even thousands of dollars and were available to more than 100 million Americans. Even those who file before the April 15 deadline can amend their returns if there are savings they missed, Obama noted. “No one I’ve met is looking for a handout, and that’s not what these tax cuts are,” Obama said. “Instead, they’re targeted relief to help middle-class families weather the storm, to jump-start our economy and to bring the fundamentals of the American dream-making an honest living, earning an education, owning a home and raising a family-back within reach for millions of Americans.” Many workers have already received the “Making Work Pay'”credit of as much as $800 for couples and $400 for individuals through their adjusted witholding in their paychecks. For those who haven’t yet received the full amount due, they will get the additional money when they file. Those who already have the full amount must claim the credit on their return. Due to an IRS glitch, however, some workers will owe money; in some cases, withholding tables gave people more than they should have received. In their weekly address, Republicans accused Obama of raising taxes and expanding government too much with the health care bill and other initiatives. Arizona Senator Jon Kyl noted that taxes would rise Jan. 1, when President George W. Bush’s tax cuts expire. “So these are two Republican ideas: first, reining in Washington spending; second, keeping taxes at a manageable level. If we do these two things, private businesses and American families will be able to save, invest and plan for the future,” Kyl said. Obama wants to extend Bush’s tax cuts to those except for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making $250,000.
ANNOUNCEMENTS Nuts & Bolts of a Grad School Application Nancy Wagner from the Hiatt Career Center will provide a presentation about the importance of understanding goals for graduate schools and selecting programs. All are welcome, but the presentation is geared toward juniors. Today from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Hiatt Career Center.
From Brandeis to Wall Street The Hiatt Career Center, the International Business School Career Offices and the Business and Economics Undergraduate Departmental Representatives are cosponsoring an information session on finance careers. The information session includes a presentation from three Brandeis alumnae who are currently in the field of finance. Today from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Sachar International Hall.
Employment Workshop for International Students Ruth Brigham will provide an information
session for F1 visa holders interested in pursuing internships and/or post-completion employment. For more information e-mail rbrigham@brandeis.edu. Tomorrow from 3 to 3:30 p.m. in Kutz 215.
Study Abroad information session The Office of Study Abroad is holding an information session to explain how to navigate the study abroad process. The information session will provide tips for researching programs, the application process, getting credit for work off campus and information about financial aid. A general information session is mandatory for students wishing to study abroad for the semester or academic year. Today from 4 to 5 p.m. in Usdan Student Center room 122.
Honors thesis information session for social science/humanities majors A panel of faculty and fellow students who are working on honors theses will hold an information session for students interested in
writing an honors thesis their senior year. Tomorrow from 5 to 6 p.m. in the Student Financial and Academic Services Lobby in the Usdan Student Center.
The Soli Sorabjee Lectures in South Asian Studies Soli Sorabjee, the former Attorney General of India, will give a presentation titled, “Rule of Law: A Moral Imperative for South Asia and the World.” For more information email kdinces@brandeis.edu. Tomorrow from 5:15 to 8 p.m. in Rapaporte Treasure Hall.
Gov. Howard Dean Speaks at Brandeis Former Vermont Governor and Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean will discuss his career in politics and current national political debates. The Brandeis Democrats, Democracy for America, Gen Ed Now, ARC and the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life are cosponsoring the event. Thursday from 8 to 9:45 p.m. in the Levin Ballroom.
THE JUSTICE
SINGING THE PRAISES
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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ACADEMICS
Midyear options expanded ■ Midyear students will now
have the option to spend their fall semester abroad in London with other students. By FIONA LOCKYER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
ROBYN SPECTOR/the Justice
Remembering MLK The a cappella group Voices of Praise performed in the Shapiro Campus Center as part of MLK Week 2010: Legacy of a Dream. The fifth annual celebration featured Kennett Altidor ’10, with a special presentation of Martin Luther King’s speech “I’ve Been To the Mountain Top.” Another a cappella group, Manginah, also performed at the celebration.
STUDENT UNION
Union polls open for elections ■ The recently implemented
instant runoff voting system will be used in the Student Union elections. By FIONA LOCKYER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Polls open today for Student Union elections. The posts of president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and junior representative to the Board of Trustees are all open for election. Members of the Student Union Finance Board will also be up for election. This is the first election that will take place after the constitutional amendment to implement instant runoff voting, which will eliminate the need for students to vote in multiple rounds of student voting by utilizing a ranking system that requires students to vote only once in the elections. Daniel Acheampong ’11, J.V. Souffrant ’13, Matt Kriegsman ’11 and Sahar Massachi ’11 are the candidates for Student Union president. Andy Hogan ’11, the incumbent president, has decided not to run for re-election. In an e-mail to the Justice, Hogan explained, “I decided not to run because I wanted to dedicate my time to other things in my life next year,” such as applying to law school and working on a thesis. Acheampong, the current Union
Treasurer, defined the student body in an interview with the Justice as the “backbone of the University” and explained that one of his goals as president will be “to form a committee of students and administrators to work together on the renovation of [the Charles River Apartments],” as well as the Usen Castle. Kriegsman, in an interview with the Justice, said, “I want to leave Brandeis knowing that I changed something.” He plans to make the Union more approachable and deal with campus overcrowding, Usen Castle renovations and connecting students with administrators. Souffrant is running to improve the relationship between the Student Union and the students, focusing on academic mentorship, BranVan use and improving the use of facilities. He explained in an interview with the Justice that “one of the first things” he would like to do as President is to “talk to Facilities [Services], see if they need anything from administrators, [and] tell the administrators what the … needs” are within facilities services. Massachi, who previously served on the Constitutional Review Committee, is campaigning to make issues within the Union more transparent. Senator for the Class of 2012 and Massachi-supporter Abby Kulawitz said in an interview with the Justice that Massachi hopes to “increase communication between administrators students and the Union.”
In an e-mail to the Justice, Massachi wrote, “I’ve fallen in love with the idea of Brandeis, and I’ve dedicated myself to pushing it toward its ideals. We are a school explicitly founded to fight against discrimination and bigotry, and to this day we talk about our strong commitment to social justice.” Shirel Guez ’12 and Senator for Ziv Quad Ryan Fanning ’11 are running for vice president. “I’m frustrated and disappointed with a lot of things at Brandeis,” explained Guez in an e-mail to the Justice, also citing “unhealthy” dining halls, a lack of school spirit and overcrowding in dining halls as reasons for her frustration and disappointment. Fanning could not be reached for comment by press time. David Fisch ’13, Sophie Riese ’11 and Herbie Rosen ’12 are campaigning for the position of secretary. Rosen, a 2010 orientation coordinator, defined the secretary position as “one of the links between the Student Union and student body” in an interview with the Justice. Running for the junior representative to the Board of Trustees are Nipun Mawaha ’12, a former Union senator; Supreetha Gubbala ’12, former Student Union Director of Academic Affairs; and Marla Merchut ’12, a member of the Presidential Search Committee. “The main responsibility of this position is to bring a student’s perspective to issues that come to the board,” Merchut wrote in an e-mail to the Jus-
tice. Like other candidates running for office during this election season, Merchut has chosen to utilize social media in her campaigning. She said that she understands that students “are very available to mediums such as Facebook and Youtube for a campaign.” Other students running for office are Akash Vadalia ’12, member of the Finance Board who is running for treasurer. Savannah Pearlman ’12 is running for representative to the Alumni Association. Students running for membership to the F-Board include Paul Sukijthamapan ’13, Eitan Mosenkis ’13, Gabriel Weingrod Nemzow ’12, Sidak Pannu ’12, Jessica Preis ’13 and Makensley Lordeus ’11. Currently, the F-Board is staffed by seven student members, including the member for racial minority students. Students running for the member of the F-Board for racial minority students include Adhip Sacheti ’13 and Bo-Reum Lee ’13. In his e-mail to the Justice, Andy Hogan wrote that “Although all of the candidates certainly have merit, I feel that Daniel Acheampong, the current Treasurer, has the connections, experience, and motivation necessary to successfully continue the initiatives that we started and bring the Student Union to higher levels.” —Clare Churchill-Seder and Alana Abramson contributed reporting.
ADMINISTRATION
University restructures Office of Communications ■ Three staff members were
let go as a result of the restructuring; Bill Burger was appointed associate VP. By EMILY KRAUS JUSTICE EDITOR
As a result of restructuring in the Office of Communications, Assistant Vice President Ken Gornstein, Director of Media Relations Dennis Nealon and Operations Supervisor Sossy Megerdichian are no longer employed by the University, according to an e-
mail from Director of Integrated Marketing Audrey Griffin-Goode. According to an e-mail to the Justice from Senior Vice President of Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully, “The Communications Department has been restructured so we can be better positioned to reach the long-term communications and marketing goals that we’re developing for Brandeis. The changes are the result of an assessment I began when I arrived on campus in November.” Gully selected Bill Burger to serve as the associate vice president of communications after speaking with students, staff, faculty, alumni and
trustees about Brandeis’ communications needs. According to Gully’s e-mail, the biggest result of the restructuring revolves around Burger’s role in the office. He wrote, “The biggest change is that [Burger] is managing the entire staff on a daily, hands on basis, and has an office in [the] Usdan [Student Center] with the group.” Burger told the Justice that he began working at the University March 17. He worked for 14 years as an editor of Newsweek and has worked during the last 15 years in development organizations for a variety of companies.
During his time at Brandeis so far, Burger has been meeting with staff, administrators, faculty and students “to start learning what some of the issues are and the needs of the University from all the perspectives that these people bring to the table.” He also mentioned that he wants to better understand how students use University communication resources such as BrandeisNOW. Burger also told the Justice, “I’m very interested in the Web and how we can make the best use of the Web to tell the Brandeis story.” —Nashrah Rahman contributed reporting.
Beginning in the fall of 2014, all midyear students will have the option to spend their fall semester studying abroad in London through Brandeis and Arcadia University, a university outside of Philadelphia with a farreaching study abroad department. The study abroad option will consist of a program of only Brandeis midyear students, where, according to the Arcadia Web site, “Students will enroll in a minimum of four to five courses for a total of 16 credits and may choose Brandeis-approved courses from Arcadia University’s London NOW program offerings as well as approved courses at City University or Queen Mary, University of London.” The London NOW program is one of 22 programs that Arcadia University offers in and around the London area, in which students engage in “specialized Arcadia University courses taken with other London NOW participants and taught by expert British faculty,” according to the Arcadia Web site. This opportunity is being offered to all midyear of the Class of 2014 at a cost of $16,970, which will include tuition and housing, advising, orientation, homestay, postprogram follow-up and transcript, according to the Arcadia program description. Arcadia scholarships will be available for participating midyears. The scholarships, according to the Web site, are primarily need-based and range anywhere from $500 to $2,000 for the semester. According to Assistant Dean of Academic Services and Director of Study Abroad J. Scott Van Der Meid, no merit scholarships will be offered in the first year of the program. Students who participate in the program will be able to live in close proximity to either City University or the Arcadia offices near Hyde Park, Van Der Meid said in his e-mail to the Justice. J. Scott Van Der Meid, Assistant Dean of Academic Services and Director of Study Abroad, explained in an email to the Justice that “We surveyed previous midyear classes to learn about the types of activities that they enjoyed most during their fall before Brandeis. Being abroad and taking classes overseas was one of the highest-rated activities they identified.” Also, participation in the London NOW program would not preclude midyears from studying abroad again: Van der Meid stated that “all students who study abroad as a midyear before they come to Brandeis would still be eligible to study abroad for at least a full semester once they matriculated at Brandeis.” Applications for the program are due May 15th, and according to Van Der Meid, although “we have had good student interest so far, … it is too early to tell what the size of the first group doing this opportunity will be.” There is no enrollment cap on this program thus far. Maura Boughter-Dornfeld, an accepted midyear for the Class of 2014, is considering the study abroad opportunity. She wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that “The study-abroad option makes me more likely to choose Brandeis because it combines seeing the world and growing as a person with learning and essentially starting the process in the same way as others who weren’t accepted midyear will be doing.” Eva Chiu, an accepted midyear for the Class of 2014, is also considering participating in the midyear study abroad option. “You can get caught up on your studies … and you also get to experience the culture of being in another country,” she said. The Arcadia University Director of Strategic Development in charge of the Brandeis program was unavailable for comment by press time.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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THE JUSTICE
STUDENT UNION
Student body to vote on environmental proposal ■ Representatives from the
Students for Environmental Action club garnered the 10 necessary signatures from Union senators to create a sustainability fund. By ALANA ABRAMSON JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
The student body will vote Thursday, April 26 on a constitutional amendment that, if passed, would increase the student activities fee by $7.50 per student each semester to form a Brandeis Sustainability Fund, according to an April 12 e-mail Student Union Secretary Diana Aronin ’11 sent to the Brandeis community. Hannah Saltman ’12, Matthew Schmidt ’11 and Matt Gabrenya ’13, three representatives from Students for Environmental Action, brought the proposal with the 10 mandatory signatures from senators to the April 11 Senate meeting. According to the amendment proposal, a copy of which Aronin sent in her e-mail, the Brandeis Sustainability Fund would provide “financial support for Brandeis undergraduate students willing to undertake projects and/or activities to improve Brandeis’s environmental sustainability.” The proposal further explains that the funds would be administered by the Brandeis Sustainability Fund Board, which would become a secured organization if the amendment is approved. Saltman, the president of SEA, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that several members of SEA began campaigning to implement this fund for
the fall of 2009 after learning that several colleges and universities enacted similar “student sustainability fees” to help fund environmental initiatives. “This fee is the next step in this University’s commitment to sustainability and a step that brings sustainability to the doorsteps of students; allowing us to actively engage this money to shape the sustainable future of this University,” Saltman wrote. Saltman provided examples of hypothetical projects the board would fund, such as improving the bike-sharing program, installing more efficient lighting in University buildings and increasing the amount of recycling and composting on campus. Additionally, there will be two elected representatives to the Brandeis Sustainability Fund Board, and the representatives will serve yearlong terms. The proposal explains, “In order to maintain a year to year leadership cycle, one representative shall be chosen during the Fall Elections and one representative shall be chosen during the Spring Elections.” According to Saltman’s e-mail, the board would consist of the Union treasurer, the treasurer’s representative, two elected representatives, a representative from the Office of Facilities Services, the dean of Arts and Sciences or his or her representative and one faculty member from the Environmental Studies Department. Saltman explained that since it is too late to hold elections this semester, only one student would be elected to the board for this upcoming fall semester, and he or she would serve with the Student Union treasurer and the treasurer’s representative until the spring semester, when the elected representative would resume the yearly position.
Saltman wrote that students on the board can submit their own proposals but cannot vote on whether they will receive funding or not. She also stressed that while SEA brought forth this proposed amendment, “the Brandeis Sustainability Fund and its governing board are completely separate entities from SEA.” Student Union President Andy Hogan ’11 said in an interview with the Justice that he found the idea of a sustainability fund an “interesting proposal,” but was unable to discern the likelihood of its passage. However, Hogan also said that while very few students voted on the amendments proposed by the Constitutional Review Committee, he hoped that more students would vote now that only one amendment was up for discussion. “Most senators we spoke with were very supportive of the Fund and thought it was a great initiative to further Brandeis’s sustainability,” Saltman wrote, adding that SEA had met “extensively” with Hogan and Union Treasurer Daniel Acheampong ’11 to further work out the details of the fund, and is holding a Brandeis Sustainability Fund Informational Meeting this Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Village TV Lounge. Saltman also wrote that SEA had also met with Vice President of Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy, Vice President for Campus Operations Mark Collins, Vice President of Capital Projects Dan Feldman, Energy Manager Bill Bushey, Sustainability Coordinator Janna Cohen-Rosenthal ’08 and Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, all of whom supported the proposal.
—Anya Bergman contributed reporting.
BRIEF
Univ to increase parking fees and cancel sophomore parking An increase in University parking fees will go into effect in fall 2010, and sophomore parking will ultimately be eliminated to compensate for the increased incoming classes. The increase in parking fees is intended to discourage students to bring cars onto campus and eliminate the need for as many parking lots, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. Vice President of Campus Operations Mark Collins, told the Justice that the changes to sophomore parking will take place for the 2011-2012 academic year. Eddy wrote in her e-mail to the Justice that the goal of the price increase is not to increase revenue. Collins did not respond by press time to further questions about the amount by which the price will increase. “The proposed increase doesn’t produce a lot of money,” said Eddy. “As we are proposing increased shuttle service, we will probably spend more than what is collected from the increase.” Eddy wrote in her e-mail, “For a number of years the University has been trying to decrease the number of parking lots and add more green spaces. Fewer cars hopefully means more gathering space, more lawns.” According to the Department of Public Safety’s Web site, resident students of sophomore and higher standing are eligible to purchase a Resident Student Permit for $125 per year.
The Web site also states that “all vehicles bearing this permit are eligible to park 24 hours a day in their assigned area designated by the appropriate green Brandeis University sign.” Additionally, the cost of a Commuter Student Permit is $60 per year. There are currently 2299 parking spaces on campus and there will be no change in the numbers of students eligible for parking this coming academic year, according to Collins. Collins also said that there are currently 136 sophomores who park on campus. Nicole Nightingale ’13, a rising sophomore, said that she was not planning on bringing a car next year, but she knows people that were and was unhappy with the ultimate elimination of sophomore parking. “Most of the time we spend at school there is bad weather. I would rather be able to have my car than have more lawn space that we can’t even use most of the time,” she said. Student Union President Andy Hogan told the Justice that he wanted students to voice their opinions on this matter. “Moving forward, my goal is to make sure that students are represented in this discussion.” The increase in Brandeis’ parking fee is in keeping with that of other institutions. Other universities that have increased their parking fees include the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington. —Erin Doniger, Alana Abramson and Nashrah Rahman
THE JUSTICE
BOARD: 2020 proposals passed CONTINUED FROM 1 the termination of the Ph.D. program in Biochemistry and the Ph.D. program in Biophysics and Structural Biology, while authorizing the creation of a new Ph.D. program in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry as a replacement. At the undergraduate level, the trustees approved the termination of the Internet Studies minor and the Italian Studies major as well as the Yiddish and European Studies minor and the Hebrew Language and Literature major, both of which the Near East and Judaic Studies Department will incorporate as tracks. The trustees also voted to end the B.A./M.A. Programs in Anthroplogy, History, Physics and Politics. Other 2020 proposals only needed Krauss’ approval, such as the reorganization of American Studies as an interdepartmental program and the reorganization of the science departments within a Division of Science. The proposals are expected to save the University $3.8 million annually and result in the in a short-term cut of 12 to 14 full- and part-time staff and contract faculty starting in the summer of 2011. “The Board was very, very complementary about the work that had been done really over the last year. … They’re very very appreciative to the faculty that took this seriously and did a very difficult job,” Krauss said in an interview following the meeting. Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said that there would be further discussions with affected departments to implement the changes.
Jaffe said that one measure that the University will also re-evaluate over the coming year is the Justice Brandeis Semester program, which was approved during last year’s academic restructuring process as a way to accommodate increased enrollment by offering experiential courses with the option of a semester off later on and off-campus during the academic year. Five of the eight approved JBS courses did not receive the required number of eight applications and will not take place, according to Jaffe. “What we have realized is that we can’t count on the JBS as a major part of the strategy to accommodate the increasing number of students,” Jaffe said at an open forum yesterday. Faculty Senate Chair Sabine von Mering (GRALL) wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that the Senate welcomed the raise pool and the return of retirement contributions but that the broader implications of Brandeis 2020 will still need to be discussed including “the balance of graduate vs undergraduate education, the role of the professional schools, and such potential new initiatives as distance learning,” she wrote. For Rebecca Wilkof ’10, the financial challenges became personal when she found out that that the contract of her Spanish professor, Olmanda Hernandez-Guerrero (ROMS), had not been renewed. She started a Facebook group calling for Hernandez-Guerrero to remain at Brandeis. Hernandez-Guerrero, who started at Brandeis in 1999, said that since learning about the end of her contract, she had applied to many other positions, finding herself competing with 200 to
300 applicants. “During times like this we people who have contracts … have no security in our jobs.” But she added that she was very thankful that the University had honored its obligation to grant her sabbatical pay for the coming year even though she would not be able to return afterward. Department Chair Prof. Edward Kaplan (ROMS) explained that Hernandez-Guerrero was the only contract faculty member whose contract was up for renewal this year and that the department “did not have enough sections authorized in Spanish and she was not renewed for that simple financial reason. … There’s nothing extraordinary about the situation, except that it’s sad that it happens to a wonderful human being.” Jaffe said she was not part of Brandeis 2020 or the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee’s reductions but part of the University’s regular budgetary process. At yesterday’s open forum, students raised concerns about housing, academics, fundraising and the swim team in addition to concerns about the financial future of the University. Reinharz noted at the forum that it had been difficult to raise money for capital projects such as residence halls and added that he felt that it would be “more and more difficult to raise unrestricted funds.” Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy called it “the heartbreak of this year that we have not been able to come up with a solution that works” for the Lindsey pool. —Fiona Lockyer contributed reporting.
ROBYN SPECTOR/the Justice
Remembering the Holocaust Kevin P. Spicer, author of Hitler’s Priests: Catholic Clergy and National Socialism, spoke at an event sponsored by the Brandeis Catholic Chaplaincy last Thursday. Spicer’s lecture was followed by a panel discussion as part of Holocaust Remembrance Week.
JBS: Three programs will run this summer CONTINUED FROM 1 more customers before deciding it wasn’t going to happen,” Jaffe said. Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Elaine Wong said that the low student enrollment in the canceled programs can be attributed to the cost associated with participating in a summer JBS program. “I don’t think those students are realizing that it does count for residency and it actually is less expensive. If you think of it as one of your seven semesters at Brandeis, it actually is a discounted semester.” According to the JBS Web site, “The summer JBS program is projected to cost 75 percent of the fall 2010 semester tuition. It is estimated that tuition for the summer JBS program will be $14,636 with no fees.” “It shows that it was smart not to make [JBS] a mandatory program because students don’t necessarily seem to be wanting to do it. … We also still don’t know ... how it will affect the rest of [participating students’ plans] whether they’ll take the fall off, whether they’ll take the
spring off or graduate early, so we’ll just have to keep studying it,” Jaffe said. Jaffe said that students will be systematically polled in the future in order to assess what kind of JBS summer programs should be offered. Wong said that Jaffe and Senior Vice President of Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy will also meet with the student and faculty members of the JBS committee in order to make “preliminary directional decisions” on whether to offer summer or academic year JBS programs. “The whole fate of the program won’t be decided on for a while because we want to run the pilot for not only this summer but see what it’s like next summer to see if the interest is stronger next summer. … If the interest diminishes next summer that will be also telling of something else,” Wong said. Prof. Elizabeth Ferry (ANTH), who proposed “Ethnographic Fieldwork,” wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that between five and seven people applied for the pro-
gram but that it was “a little hard to calculate [the number of students who applied because] people were at different stages with the application.” Alex Huse ’12, who registered for “Ethnographic Fieldwork,” told the Justice that he was interested in the summer JBS because he wanted to learn how to conduct “ethnographic fieldwork in a structured hands-on way.” Huse said that he did not consider the program to be expensive, as he was considering taking a semester off, but that he could understand how the program would be expensive for students not following that plan. “I think the bottom line is that it is a pilot year for the program, we learned much and will regroup and revise for next summer,” wrote Prof. Adrianne Krstansky (THA), who proposed “Collaborative Theater and the Theatrical Essay.”
—Miranda Neubauer contributed
reporting.
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STUDENT LIFE
Phront receives $5,000 prize ■ The two finalists in a
philanthropy competition presented to a panel of judges last Thursday. By HARRY SHIPPS JUSTICE EDITOR
The Student Philanthropy Front has been awarded $5,000 as the recipient of the first Sillerman Prize for Innovations in Philanthropy sponsored by the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy, according to Director of Capacity Building at the Sillerman Center Claudia Jacobs. The runner-up, Give!, was awarded $1,500. A panel of judges heard presentations Thursday morning from the two finalists. According to the Sillerman Center’s Web site, the prize would be given to a “student led team(s) that can articulate a plan to build a culture of giving on college campuses.” Entrants into the competition were asked to create new and innovative ways to “increase philanthropy amongst college students and/or create innovative structures in which to accomplish this,” according to the center’s Web site. Applicants were required to submit a written proposal and make a public presentation. Jacobs said of the Sillerman Center’s mission, “It is important to spread philanthropic values on campuses because of the age group on campuses, adults who are developing their values and choosing how they will be civically engaged.” According to the presentation given by the Phront team, which consisted of Charles Francis (GRAD), Yuki Hasegawa (GRAD), Robin Lichtenstein ’11 and Julian Olidort ’11, their program will build on the existing model of the Phront at Brandeis. Olidort started the Phront as a club last year. According to the club’s Web site on myBrandeis, the Phront “helps raise funds from the community and donates to a cause per semester elected from the students.” Olidort described the Phront as Brandeis “latching on to a service project” or a student who already has a service project and brings funding to the “doorstep of fellow students.” The Phront at Brandeis uses several different methods to raise funds, including dormstorming and fundraising events, and it then allocates the money to a cause selected by students. The team hopes to expand the Phront idea regionally and then nationally in an effort to “raise cause
awareness and build habits of giving on campus through an annual leadership training conference.” During his team’s presentation, Olidort said that the point of innovation in expanding the Phront, first regionally and then nationally, is that by doing so they will be able to “build the trajectory of a giver by taking a budding philanthropist from precollege and tracking their growth all the way through into the professional field.” Eventually, once relationships with other schools have been established, the Phront’s efforts would culminate in an annual leadership conference, which would include high school, college and professional participants and would focus on developing a “social justice mission” and “promoting and evaluating campus philanthropy,” according to the presentation. Francis said, “I think that a lot of people from our generation, even people younger than me, really more than anything they want to be involved with something. They want to be a part of it. There is a real social experience to it, and I think the Phront does that really well. And then, once giving starts to become what you do, you become more aware of other causes and want to give more in the future.” Francis said that the first step in the proposal would be to reach out to other schools who might be interested in being part of the Phront and identifying what student structures and philanthropy organizations already exist. According to the presentation by Andrea Shaye (GRAD), Masoud Juya (GRAD), Elizabeth Wohlers (GRAD) and Beth Wolfson ’75, Give! is a proposed program that aims to use existing philanthropic and community service structures on college campuses, such as Brandeis’ community involvement fair, as well as social media to teach philanthropic values to students beginning in their first year of college. Shaye said that in the process of creating Give! the focus was on “how to bridge community service into that next step of philanthropy and … how can we work with existing structures but really build something new into it.” She said that the Give! team hoped to get first-years excited and engaged in philanthropy, that the focus every year would be the first-year class and that members who were committed could continue for their entire college career and into later life. She added that she hopes the culture of giving created by Give! would eventually spread to other clubs and organizations on campus.
ADMISSIONS: Record number of apps received CONTINUED FROM 1 several information sessions and panels to acquaint prospective students with the University. Jonathan Chabon, an accepted student from western Massachusetts visiting for Admitted Students Day, said that he was attracted to Brandeis because of the academic facilities and the campus atmosphere. “I really liked the open atmosphere of the campus and the science facilities,” he said, explaining that he was planning on majoring in Chemistry and Physics should he enroll. Chabon said he was unsure if he would enroll but that he was deciding between Brandeis and Wesleyan University. The expanded number of applications applied to the graduate schools as well, according to Reinharz’s e-mail. Applications to the Heller School for Social Policy and Management increased by 10 percent, and applications to the International Business School by
14 percent. Eddy attributed the rise in applicants to intensified recruitment efforts by the Office of Admissions. “I think we had a bit of bad publicity last year that we were mindful of. So the admissions team traveled a lot and reached out a lot to make sure incoming students knew that things are great at Brandeis,” she wrote. Eddy did not elaborate in her email on the bad publicity that occurred last year, but the University received a substantial amount of media attention as a result of the controversy surrounding the Rose Art Museum. The New York Times blog “The Choice,” which provides commentary and statistics about college admissions, reported on April 2 that several selective colleges such as Harvard, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College, Cornell University, Stanford University and Duke University had reported a rise in applications, which induced record-low acceptance rates.
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THE JUSTICE
features
VERBATIM | Bob Hope People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.
ON THIS DAY...
FUN FACT
In 1943, the Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth.
No president of the United States was an only child for his parents.
Cross-cultural friendship By TESS RASER JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
On Saturday night, I walked into the Zimmer Forum in the Heller School of Social Policy and Management to find a different scene than usual. A man was standing at the front of the forum yelling into a microphone, instructing pairs to “swing their partners ’round and ’round.” Instead of seeing students studying in the school’s characteristic red chairs, there were international Heller students and senior citizens square dancing together. The enthusiastic dancing partners were made up of elderly Bostonians and international Heller students from everywhere from Vietnam to Tanzania. Before the dancing, I walked into what is usually a classroom to find the older dancers serving classic American dishes to the international students. Their plates were piled high with homemade food, including peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches. Saturday’s square dance reflected the idea of “common humanity,” that Sherbaz Ali Khan (GRAD), participated in the dance and frequently speaks of, as the students from all different ethnic backgrounds and the elderly, mostly Jewish, Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute members danced the night away together as if they were old friends. This event was just one of many for BOLLI’s International Friends Program, a program under the umbrella group which is a learning center for adults between the ages of 60 and 90. BOLLI is one of 122 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes throughout the country, according to its website. “This is our 10th anniversary. People come to learn, to make friends and be in a social situation,” says Sharon Sokoloff, BOLLI director. BOLLI members take courses in everything from current events to physics and also bring speakers to campus to talk at a lunchtime series they have on Tuesdays. The International Friends Program began six years ago in 2004 was created to facilitate friendship between international students in Heller and members of BOLLI. The program arose after BOLLI members voiced feelings of isolation from the rest of the campus. Lynn Wiener, the Friends Program founder, who came up with the idea to integrate BOLLI members with campus through pairing them with international students in a friendship program. “[BOLLI members] are there to let [the students] know, ‘I’m here, I’m here, I care about you.’ They have a challenge, they talk to their person. I think everybody wants to get outside his or her little world and culture. That’s why [BOLLI members] are here,” says Sokoloff. “I had heard of similar programs with people befriending [international students]. There was a program at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, [where there were] no responsibilities, no fiscal, housing, just friendship. Mutual exchanges of cultures,” says Wiener. Since then, there have been over 400 Sustainable International Development students in the program and about 75 BOLLI friends. The Heller students are all from abroad, and since their ages vary so much, some even have families they have left behind in their home country. “Our members serve the role as a family for folks,” says Sokoloff. At the beginning of the fall semester, BOLLI members and the Heller students get together for a meet-and-greet. “The members and students talk... and then the committee takes names and hooks people up. Every friendship is its own thing,” says Sokoloff. The committee is made up of BOLLI members who have experience in the International Friends Program. After this initial meeting, the friends go on outings together in Boston to give them a feel for life in the U.S., specifically in Boston. Friends have gone to museums, the beach, bowling and to restaurants. BOLLI maintains that the program is based on friendship, and BOLLI members do not act as mentors to the international students. “It’s not mentoring in the sense of professional or academic, it may be kind of life mentoring, just being a great friend because our members are in the wisdom stage of life,” says Sokoloff. If there is a problem with the pairing, there is
TESS RASER/the Justice
BRIGDGINGBARRIERS: The International Friends Program fosters connections between adults between the age of 60 and 90 and International students.
BOLLI members bond with Heller School of Social Policy and Management students
TESS RASER/the Justice
PROMENADE: A member of the Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and a student in the Heller School of Social Policy and Management dance at an event for the International Friends Program. board of BOLLI members that are there for the friends to deal with problems. “We train [BOLLI members] at the beginning of the year for common problems. [For instance], students will get into financial problems and will reach out to members, who should immediately contact us. It’s like no. [There’s] boundary. They are just friends,” says Sokoloff. In addition to the outings, BOLLI friends have their international friends over for holidays and
family events. Wiener, the program founder from Newton, never thought she would be sharing her Passover seder with students from places like Haiti, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. However, for the past five years, the seder table has been the picture of the International Friends Program. “We have them to the house, and I have children and grandchildren in the area, so everyone has a good time with that,” says Wiener.
One of her friends, Ali Khan, is in his second year in the Sustainable International Development program and has been Wiener’s friend since fall of 2008. Ali Khan, an outspoken man from Pakistan, says it is because of Wiener and her family that he has been able to learn so much about U.S. culture and history, and that he feels he would not have been able to learn without them. “We will not have learned so many things about U.S. culture, U.S. people, different festivals. If they were not here, we would not have known. Maybe through other ways but maybe not as interesting, and not through the real people. Reading [about] a place or going to a place, that’s fine, but you need real people,” says Ali Khan. Ali Khan and Wiener have shared holidays together and have learned about commonalities between them despite their religious and cultural differences. “[Wiener] is caring like a mother. She [always] asks how the weather is affecting [me], about our studies, caring like a mother but sharing like a friend. I say she is a friend with a motherly nature,” says Ali Khan. “My family and I are Muslim, but my thinking is that I believe in humanity that is the religion of all of us. I have been to church, mosque, [synagogue], for me it is a source of understanding each other. What I feel like in BOLLI in what I’ve seen, religion doesn’t matter but common humanity, and that’s why we are connected,” says Ali Khan. BOLLI members and their international friends have had generally positive experiences. However, the SID program that they are in is only two years long, and oftentimes, the students return to their native country upon completion of the program. Even though it is sad for the friends to separate, many remain in touch. Wiener maintains her relationships via e-mail. Two of her friends, now graduated, from Zimbabwe, have stayed in Boston and still attend holidays with her. “Wherever I go, I will be in touch with her. If I’m able to get a job here, definitely I will be in contact with her, or even if I go back to Pakistan or wherever I go, I have a relationship with them that is forever. It will not be over when my program is over. When I talk to students about my Heller experience I will tell them about Lynn. It has become an integral part,” says Ali Khan.
THE JUSTICE
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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Meeting Brandeis’ next top model
JESSICA CHRISTIAN/the Justice
A MODEL MIND: Alanna Drasin ’13 was a fashion model before starting her college career.
JESSICA CHRISTIAN/the Justice
Alanna Drasin ’13 speaks about balancing a college lifestyle with her modeling career Alanna Drasin ’13 is a midyear from Beverly Hills, California. While the 5-foot, 9-inch, slender, long haired brunette Politics major may appear to be a normal first-year who just happens to have impeccable style, she in fact has made her own part-time career out of fashion modeling for American Apparel and other companies. At Brandeis, Drasin is involved with the Sundeis film festival and is an active member of the Brandeis Zionist Alliance. Drasin tells the Justice about facing fashion stereotypes, her first semester at Brandeis and her modeling inspirations. justFeatures: How did you get into modeling, and how old were you when you started? Alanna Drasin: I was 17 when I began my modeling career. I began on a professional modeling Web site that connects models, makeup artists and photographers to collaborate on building each other’s portfolio. I got started in the industry on my own self-initiative because I always enjoyed hair, makeup and fashion. I really enjoy modeling for American Apparel, but I prefer high fashion modeling because it is more evocative. JF: What is your favorite aspect of modeling? AD: I absolutely love the people that you meet in the modeling industry! I love to meet professional [models] and to learn about each
of their stories. Growing up in Beverly Hills, I wasn’t that exposed to people from other walks of life. At photo shoots, artistically driven people from all over the world show up to collaborate on one final piece of art, which is a nice feeling. We are all working toward a common goal.
and different companies. After college, my modeling career will probably wind down because models tend to be younger, and I need to focus on a career-oriented path. However, I would love to continue to model as a hobby. I have not found many modeling opportunities in Boston, so I just model when I am at home.
JF: What is your least favorite aspect of modeling? AD: My least favorite aspect of modeling is the generalizations people make when I say that I am a model. People think that you are an anorexic, emotionally devoid human being. I understand that these generalizations are true for some models, so I usually just laugh about them.
JF: How does modeling affect you on a dayto-day basis at Brandeis? AD: When people find out that I am a model, they are supportive and curious. Nobody treats me any differently than anybody else. On a day-to-day basis, I take a lot of pride in my appearance. I have a quick makeup regiment that I do, but I also enjoy lounging around in sweatpants like any normal college student.
JF: Aside from American Apparel, what other designers have you modeled for? AD: I have modeled for a lot of LA designers such as Aurelio, Ximena Valero, The Battalion, Tristan and Trista and the Project Runway collection Smoke and Mirrors. This month, an art and fashion video [that I was filmed in] is going to be played at the De Young museum in San Francisco. JF: Do you see yourself modeling after college? AD: Over breaks, I go home and I model at home so I can keep in touch with designers
JF: Why did you decide to come to Brandeis? What do you think of your experience so far? AD: I really liked the people at Brandeis when I visited and the campus itself. I also liked the academic offerings and the Jewish atmosphere. JF: Were you worried about balancing modeling and school here at Brandeis? Did you model during your semester off? AD: I did a lot of modeling last semester in addition to taking classes and working in a law firm. I talked to another Brandeis student
who models before I came here, and she warned me that modeling opportunities in Boston are not very fruitful, so I decided to concentrate on school while I was on the East coast. When I am home on vacations, I do modeling shoots. JF: Where do you draw your inspiration from when you model? Who is your favorite fashion model? AD: My favorite fashion model is Brooke Shields because she has very prominent eyebrows just like me. I draw my inspiration from the high fashion spreads in Vogue. JF: Do you feel like the modeling industry put pressure on you to look a certain way? AD: The modeling industry has always been very accepting of me. I have never been told that I was too fat; if anything I was told to gain weight by the owner of American Apparel. JF: Besides American Apparel, what other clothing stores do you like? AD: I enjoy stores such as Urban Outfitters and boutiques. I really like pairing designer clothes with vintage clothes in the same outfit, i.e. a vintage dress that costs $5 and a designer belt.
—Interview compiled by Arielle Schwartz
THE JUSTICE
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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Better
Place,
Better YOSEF SCHAFFEL/the Justice
INNOVATIVE THINKER: Michael Granoff won an award for his work in clean energy.
World
Michael Granoff and Shai Agassi are given the Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship for their work at Better Place By ROCKY REICHMAN JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The modern-day world runs on oil. It fuels our cars, heats our homes and takes a large chunk out of most Americans’ wallets each day. Groups like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries possess bargaining power over even international superpowers like the United States, greatly affecting the positions our leaders take in foreign policy. According to the Web site NationMaster.com, which compares statistics between countries, the U.S. alone consumed 20,680,000 barrels of oil in 2007 per day. Now imagine a world without oil. No longer would people depend on foreign organizations like OPEC for how much they could afford to drive or where they could take their cars. Money paid for these and other needs might be transferred to United States companies and not overseas corporations. Better Place is trying to do just this. Better Place, a startup based in Palo Alto, Calif. with a presence around the globe, is trying to build an infrastructure to allow for the mass adoption of electric cars. On March 23, the Brandeis International Business School gave the 2010 Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship to Shai Agassi, founder of Better Place, and Michael Granoff, its first investor. The event took place in the IBS Thomas H. Lee Lecture Hall. Granoff, who is humble and possesses a calm demeanor, spoke at the event about the importance of Better Place in the environmental world. Agassi was not present at the event. Better Place, which was founded in 2007 and is the highest-funded green startup in history, produces services for electric cars. It is unique in its ability to produce the infrastructure and network necessary for mass electrical car adoption, and it allocates production of the cars themselves. The Asper Award is an honor awarded every year to “an entrepreneur who achieves outstanding success in the global marketplace through creative marketing and business strategies,” according to the IBS Web site. Granoff talked about how, up until now, a major obstacle to the mass adoption of electric vehicles has been the amount of time it takes to recharge a car’s batteries. But Better Place has developed a solution by creating a system that plants networks of charging stations throughout cities, allowing drivers to easily swap their old batteries for freshly-charged new ones without having to worry about recharging too often. It is no surprise that Brandeis has given this year’s award to a startup focused on the environment. Brandeis’ Students for Environmental Action, a student-run organization that promotes environmental sustainability on campus through initiatives that range from eating organic food to recycling and conserving energy, has done a lot of work for environmental issues to, like Granoff’s company, make the
DAVIDA JUDELSON/the Justice
GREEN SUPPORTER: Hannah Saltman ’12 supports endeavors like the Better Place startup that work to create realistic solutions to oil dependency problems. world we live in a cleaner place. When asked about Better Place, President of SEA Hannah Saltman wrote in an e-mail to the Justice, “It’s great they are developing economically feasible options to solve the problem of oil dependency.” Granoff had experience with energy and the environment prior to joining Better Place. He first became interested in energy security in 2004 after helping out on a political campaign. He then learned more about energy security from an organization called Securing America’s Future Energy, where he serves on the board. He spoke at the event about a war game simulation SAFE created to see what would happen if world events caused oil prices to rise to extreme heights. “The moral of the story was,” said Granoff, that “there are no short term fixes,” especially in scenarios like the situation in which “you have a major disruption in supply.” After that, Granoff “started delving deeper into this issue of oil and asking the question [of] what would realistically replace oil that could scale, be market-driven and did not involve a science project,” he said. Other fuel sources like hydrogen require new technologies to be developed or complex mixtures of chemicals, and Granoff did not think hydrogen would be transformed into a fuel source.
Ethanol, another alternative fuel source, has “huge water requirements [and] huge agricultural requirements,” he said. Granoff also believes that oil companies could help those in favor of alternative energy to achieve the same goal of making electric-powered cars. He thinks the big oil companies are rooting for Better Place to succeed because the oil industry is now in what he calls a “boomerang scenario.” A boomerang scenario occurs when the price of oil rises and decreases steeply, back and forth. This, explained Granoff, leads to super-spikes in the price of oil, which happened in 2008. Granoff believes the housing crisis occurred because of oil price spikes. People had to pay more to fuel their cars and heat their homes, which put a considerable strain on their abilities to manage their other finances like home loans. This entire boom-and-bust cycle, Granoff said, is not good for people in the oil business. Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said that for a company like Better Place, “A big issue is going to be to make sure it is economical and more effective to users over other options.” According to Granoff, Better Place has done exactly that. In an invite-only talk immediately before the event, he explained how Better Place has used economics and business and not new
technology or clever “science projects,” as Granoff called it, to create something innovative and profitable. “[Better Place] took the next step and pushed forward to lay the groundwork for electric car adoption,” said Saltman. However, Jaffe believes that the United States has to put in place policies that would make it profitable to be clean in order for Better Place and alternative energy to make a mark. “I think what has to happen [is] Congress needs to get its act together and pass legislation that would actually require or give incentives,” said Jaffe, “something like the cap-and-trade bill the house passed last year.” One improvement, said Saltman, would be, “if there was a gas tax for non-electric cars.” Alternatively, there are other roads to take down Electric Avenue besides through legislation. “The U.S. needs to use other transportation besides cars," she said, “whether that means upgrading public transportation or becoming more of a ‘bike culture.’” She adds that “ultimately, if it’s more economically better for consumers, they’ll adopt it.” As Granoff points out, solving this issue and getting electric cars adopted in the U.S. is “really not for Better Place to do; it’s for the United States government to do.”
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the Justice Established 1949
Brandeis University
HANNAH L. KIRSCH, Editor in Chief J OANNA SCHORR, Senior Editor B RIAN FROMM, Deputy Editor ANDREA FINEMAN, Managing Editor ANYA B ERGMAN, REBECCA B LADY, SHANA D. LEBOWITZ and MAX B REITSTEIN MATZA Associate Editors NASHRAH RAHMAN and HARRY SHIPPS, News Editors REBECCA KLEIN, Features Editor HILLEL B UECHLER, Forum Editor J OSH ASEN, Sports Editor SARAH BAYER, Arts Editor ASHER KRELL and ROBYN SPECTOR, Photography Editors B RIAN N. B LUMENTHAL, Layout Editor EMILY KRAUS, Copy Editor B RAD STERN, Advertising Editor
Kriegsman for Union president At this crucial time in our university’s history, the Brandeis student body needs a leader who will represent everyday student interests; connect students, club leaders and administrators; and establish a strong campuswide community. With this in mind, we endorse Matt Kriegsman ’11 for Student Union president. Kriegsman’s dedication to a unified student body and expanded opportunities for student involvement qualify him to lead the Student Union and make positive change. Kriegsman has experience in numerous leadership capacities. Thanks to his three-semester tenure as associate justice on the Student Judiciary, Kriegsman has familiarized himself with Union procedures while maintaining an outside perspective and open to new ideas for the Union. Furthermore, Kriegsman’s position as president of Chabad has allowed him to plan large programs that benefit hundreds of students. In that role, Kriegsman spearheaded the first-ever Shabbat United, a dinner for the Brandeis Jewish community that over 400 students attended, and he has expressed his passion for establishing a similar event for the entire Brandeis community in the true spirit of sharing and embracing diversity. Kriegsman’s platform seeks to improve student life in both the immediate and distant future. Kriegsman intends to combat the problem of overcrowding the University not only in the dining and residence halls but also, crucially, in classrooms in order to ensure the highest value for our respective degrees upon graduation. He plans to work with students to voice pressing issues facing the under-
Make your voice heard graduate experience to the administration and to work with the administration to effect positive change. Kriegsman has proposed several measures aimed at making the Union more accessible, including relocating the office hours of the president, senators and executive board members to the Shapiro Campus Center atrium for increased visibility. He will also encourage student leaders to establish relationships with senators, using the Senate as a resource to make the changes everyone wishes to see benefit our campus. Kriegsman also plans to reform Union expenditures, making more reasonable purchases in order to cultivate a relationship between the Brandeis community and the Union while also being more cost-efficient. While we endorse Kriegsman for president, we applaud all of the candidates for crafting excellent platforms and encourage the ultimate presidentelect to seriously consider the merit of those ideas. For example, J.V. Souffrant ’13 has suggested placing a new focus on students struggling academically; Daniel Acheampong ’11 has cited improving the connection between students and administrators as a chief priority; and Sahar Massachi ’11 has proposed applying community organization tactics to the Union and administration relationship to make change. All told, four talented individuals are participating in this year’s presidential race. While we extend our best wishes to each, we encourage students to cast their votes in favor of Kriegsman, who will undoubtedly prove to be an effective student leader.
Reconsider midyear London plan Despite across-the-board cuts, the University is making efforts to incorporate creative thinking leading to the addition of new programs. Starting in 2014, incoming midyears will have the choice of going to London for their first semester through a program run by Brandeis and Arcadia Universities. This idea is certainly a step in the right direction. But while we encourage the University to continue to add programs and give students more options for their Brandeis experiences, we hold some serious reservations regarding the London program. Brandeis, a small university, provides students with a unique and important feeling of community. Moving all the midyears into one building, beginning with the midyears of the Class of 2008, helped build a sense of community for incoming firstyears who did not have the benefit of starting their college experience with the rest of their graduating class. We worry that giving students the option of going to London for the first semester will take away from the feeling of solidarity that is particularly strong among midyears. These days, many students’ families are likely experiencing financial difficulties. Yet the new program costs $16,970, significantly more than the cost of living at home for the semester, and the cost of living in London is
Community at stake among the highest in the world. Not enough financial aid is being offered to compensate for these expenses. We fear it will be a bigger challenge for those who choose not to go abroad to bond with the rest of their midyear peers at the start of their first semester on campus. Decisions like this one put students between a rock and a hard place. While this type of program seems to have merit at larger universities, midyears are specifically seeking a small school with a strong sense of unity. Breaking up this group is a detriment to the Brandeis experience. Moreover, it would be unwise to send first-year students abroad for a semester when some have not yet had the opportunity to develop mature study habits and time management techniques. And at the end of the semester, midyear students will leave behind the close friendships they have formed with students at universities in London, which will negatively affect their first semester at Brandeis. We hope that the University continues to think outside the box in terms of finding ways to make the midyear transition as easy as possible while combating cuts with new and innovative programs, but we ask that the University consider student wellbeing above all.
A. ELI TUKACHINSKY/the Justice
Government should act to curb college suicides Hillel
BUECHLER AND SO ON
Recent legal responses to student suicide suggest a rather inconsistent way of thinking about the issue, especially concerning universities. But it’s time for the government to more closely examine student suicide and legally intervene with universities if necessary. As college students, the issue of suicide most likely evokes the recent fatal actions of students from Yale University, New York University and Cornell University, whose reputation for student suicides appears to be creeping up on it once again. These tragedies offer universities opportunities to find ways of preventing recurrences. Sometimes that involves upping safety measures—barriers around the atrium of the NYU library or guards on tempting bridges at Cornell. And perhaps more importantly, student suicide often forces universities to reflect on whether any institutional problems, from an unreasonably heavy workloads to lack of student support or psychological services, are to blame. Yet after a student suicide at a university, the discussion seems to revolve only around what the university could have done and what it should do regarding the protection of the physical and mental welfare of its student body. However, the legal issues surrounding suicide appear to be changing. The American legal system seems to increasingly suggest that one can legally hold another person responsible for another’s actions, especially concerning suicide. Last month, six Massachussetts high school students were charged with various counts stemming from their alleged causal involvement in the suicide of a fellow student. In 2002, a Connecticut mother was charged for her role in the suicide of her son after prosecutors determined that her neglect of her son was a key cause of his suicide. These types of cases are tough to contemplate. When a final action occurs at the hands of one individual, especially a suicide, it’s tough, if not impossible, to determine that others are deserve blame. But the discussion almost never appears to concern the legal ramifications of student suicide at a university, especially not on the level of that of suicide in the previously mentioned instances concerning younger students. Universities, of course, represent a different category altogether from high schools and parents. Namely, universities deal almost exclusively with individuals who are not legally minors. But should the law hold universities to similar judicial standards that it does high school students and parents? The causes for student suicides at universities vary, but there is no doubt that the high pressure caused by competitive and overwhelming environments, which are key features of many college experiences, contribute to a large number of cases. Different students handle such situations in different ways, but it’s difficult to examine the situation from any perspective other than one which finds the institution as the ultimate cause of the type of stress that would drive a perhaps predisposed student to such extreme, deadly measures. But ought state and perhaps federal governments seriously consider holding any university with a higher rate of student suicide criminally responsible for its institutional problems? If there is room for a university to improve its handling of such deadly situations, as it always seems there is, perhaps it is time for prosecutors or legislators to initiate such discussion. It’s a horribly complicated and tragically deadly issue, but our temporary solutions appear to be ineffective; it might just be time for a more permanent, legally grounded solution. Universities should not be getting a legal free pass for what might add up to negligence at another, reasonably comparable institution. The mere fact that certain universities have higher rates of student suicides, although itself a clearly multifaceted issue, shows that to some extent, universities craft their environments. And if those environments can prove themselves to be consistently conducive to student suicide, then it’s time for government to step in and more closely examine this pressing issue. This could be accomplished initially through a committee to examine the issue at large, but ultimately the most effective solution would likely be legislation that more clearly outlines the issue in order to keep universities in check. Student suicide is a fundamental dilemma of student welfare, one toward which state and federal government should show tangible concern.
OP-BOX Quote of the Week “I’m very interested in the Web and how we can make the best use of the Web to tell the Brandeis story.” —Associate Vice President of Communications Bill Burger about future communications projects (See News, page 5).
Brandeis Talks Back What is the most important issue of this spring’s Student Union elections?
ADALIS LINING ’13 “I know someone is running with the Real Food platform, and that’s who I’m going to vote for.”
RAMYA KUCHIBHATLA ’12 “Better relationship between college student activities and the Student Union.”
ALISSA THOMAS ’11 “Everyone is promoting overcrowding.”
ANDREW SCHEINBERG ’11 “Health care.”
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HOOKED ON TECH
READER COMMENTARY Critique of discussion was incomplete In response to your article “Israeli-Palestinian conflict should have a greater role in campus discussion” (Forum, March 23): I commend Eitan Cooper on his call for serious and open engagement on such a controversial issue. I agree that the question of Israel/Palestine is noticeably absent from public conversations on this campus. Indeed, except in courses explicitly on the subject, even most professors avoid bringing it up in class. I agree, also, that given the nearand-dear nature of the issue to many of our hearts, and our student body’s social proximity to Israel-lobby organizations like AIPAC and J Street, our campus should be especially engaged in dialogue and mobilization around the issue. I disagree with Cooper, however, about the cause of the apparent muteness around the subject and what ought to be done about it. That the conversation about Palestine/Israel is so emotionally driven on campus discourages many students from confronting it openly. It’s not just a political question at Brandeis. Indeed, many American Jews conflate their position on the issue to their very identity. For this reason, many students choose to avoid confronting friends who may hold different views on the situation in order to avoid alienation and hurt. The relative muteness of arguments critical of Israel cannot be attributed simply to a numerical minority, as Cooper suggests. Rather, we who would criticize Israel often feel marginalized by the “mainstream” tendency on campus. Mainstream discourse, on the part of the administration and student body, imparts a sense that criticism of Israel is an oppositional view. At the risk of making a generalization, this tacit social pressure may not be apparent to those of the mainstream opinion, but it exists. When it comes to conversations on human rights, however, marginal and minority voices are the ones most essential to the dialogue. Finally, I disagree with Cooper’s suggestion that the University should “create more Goldstone/Gold-like, politically charged events in order to get our juices going and resuscitate the issue.” Events that evoke antagonism, like the Goldstone/Gold debate, discourage positive dialogue. They are adversarial spectacles, opportunities for students to pick a side and cheer on their man. Framing the dialogue as a “Pro-Israel vs. Anti-Israel” boxing match establishes an oppositional binary, whereby listening and reasoning are subverted by hostility. This violent mode is the norm for discussing Palestine/Israel here, as exemplified by the Carter/Dershowitz showdown. Encouraging these antagonistic spectacles will only generate more hostility, polarity, and marginalization. Instead, I propose we reinvent the practices of communication used to discuss the subject. Nonviolent, constructive and respectful conversations can be had if we avoid the oppositional binary. There are a number of students on this campus trained in the practice of Nonviolent Communication who are qualified to mediate serious dialogue. I agree with Cooper that the campus must discuss this subject more publicly, and I would espouse more activity on the part of critics of Israel, but we must maintain and strengthen the bonds of community if we are to positively engage one another. —Michael Laderman ’11
Permit undergrad TAs to give grades In response to your article “Changes proposed to undergraduate teaching assistant grading” (News, March 23): The University should allow undergraduate TAs to grade assignments. Undergrad TA experience is particularly beneficial for future graduate students, and an opportunity unique to a school like Brandeis. Giving undergraduate TAs more formal responsibility would further enhance the benefits of being a TA. As a senior at Brandeis I worked closely with a professor teaching a small seminar class. Even though I could not formally grade, I consulted with the professor on all written assignments. I gained a deep appreciation for the struggles and rewards of teaching, and also learned the material better myself in being forced to evaluate other students’ work. That experience helped me decide to pursue a Ph.D., helped me get into Northwestern University and today is my best background as I prepare to teach my own course at Northwestern. Even though I've been a graduate TA in various courses at Northwestern, I had more actual teaching experience as an undergraduate TA at Brandeis. I realize that my TA experience at Brandeis was unique and does not represent most undergrad TAs, but I think giving undergrad TAs more formal responsibility would benefit the program as a whole. Brandeis should capitalize on its ability to offer undergraduates an experience that not even all graduate students get. —Jeff Kosbie ’06
Write to us
The Justice welcomes letters to the editor responding to published material. Please submit letters through our Web site at www.thejusticeonline.com. Anonymous submissions cannot be accepted. Letters should not exceed 300 words, and may be edited for space, style, grammar, spelling, libel and clarity, and must relate to material published in the Justice. Letters from off-campus sources should include location. The Justice does not print letters to the editor and op-ed submissions that have been submitted to other publications. Op-ed submissions of general interest to the University community—that do not respond explicitly to articles printed in the Justice—are also welcome and should be limited to 800 words. All submissions are due Friday at 5 p.m.
SOPHIE KRUPP/the Justice
With new technology, privacy is dead By NICK IFTIMIA JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.” So reads a passage from George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell was talking about the dangers of totalitarianism, but his words could just as easily apply to our presentday society. It’s not just the government that’s to blame for the increasing erosion of our privacy—we too are at fault. The information age has radically transformed our lives—and not just for the better. Fifty years ago, there were no computers, no email, no Internet, no cell phones, no Facebook, no Google and no Twitter. If you wanted to talk to someone, you had to pick up the phone or send them a letter or, you know, actually talk to them. Remember, these were primitive times. And if you wanted to look something up, you went to the library—as in, physically walked. You get the picture. Fast forward to today. With almost 2 billion Internet users and 5 billion cell phone subscriptions globally, we’re more connected than ever. We regularly chat, text, e-mail and instant message and think nothing of it. Of course, these modern technologies are not really necessary—until you use them. It’s interesting that before GPS was invented, people drove around just fine. Now suddenly, everyone’s lost without one. Are we becoming slaves to our own tools? It seems that every day, we are becoming more and more dependent on technology. The sum total of human knowledge is not yet a click
The opinions stated in the editorial(s) under the masthead on the opposing page represent the opinion of a majority of the voting members of the editorial board; all other articles, columns, comics and advertisements do not necessarily. For the Brandeis Talks Back feature on the opposite page, staff interview four randomly selected students each week and print only those four answers. The Justice is the independent student newspaper of Brandeis University. Operated, written, produced and published entirely by students, the Justice includes news, features, arts, opinion and sports articles of interest to approximately 3,000 undergraduates, 800 graduate students, 500 faculty and 1,000 administrative staff. In addition, the Justice is mailed weekly to paid subscribers and distributed throughout Waltham, Mass. The Justice is published every Tuesday of the academic year with the exception of examination and vacation periods. Advertising deadlines: All insertion orders and advertising copy must be received by the Justice no later than 5 p.m. on the Thursday preceding the date of publication. All advertising copy is subject to approval of the editor in chief and the managing and advertising editors. A publication schedule and rate card is available upon request. Subscription rate: $35 per semester, $55 per year.
Fine Print
away, but we’re not too far off. Who needs to remember anything when you can just “Google” it? It’s as if common sense is optional when you’ve got the latest gadgets. In a news story last year, two preteen girls who were trapped in a storm drain used their cell phones to update their Facebook statuses instead of calling for help. Technology has become so ingrained in our lives that it has become a substitute for intelligence and personal responsibility. The more technologically dependent we become, the easier it is for our rights and privacy to be stripped away through the misuse of technology. At security checkpoints, airports have begun using full-body X-ray scanners that show revealing 3-D images of flight passengers, all in an attempt to “combat terrorism.” Besides being expensive and time-consuming, this technology does little to actually keep us safer. Retinal and fingerprint scanners; facial recognition and even so-called “mind reading” devices that can sense heart rate, body temperature and breathing are all in the works. When will it end? We must not let a false sense of security lead us into mandatory invasions of privacy and violations of basic human rights. This is the “doublespeak” that Orwell warned about. Video surveillance cameras are being installed in schools and on school buses, even in school bathrooms. Elementary schools are no exception. Red light cameras at intersections and speed cameras on the highway are used to monitor traffic. Programs like Google Earth or Street View make it easy to access high-resolution panoramic views of virtually any location in the world. RFID or “radio-frequency identification” tags are small printable sensors or chips that can be used to track and identify an object or person. The latest versions are less than 1/10 of a millimeter in size and practically
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invisible to the naked eye. Even Internet searches can be monitored to an extent. We are relinquishing our freedom in exchange for safety, and wisdom in exchange for information. All of these technologies have many practical benefits, and it would be paranoid to get rid of them all entirely. Nineteen Eighty-Four is the stuff of conspiracy theories. Yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to see where to draw the line, where the risks outweigh the benefits. In the wrong hands, any technology has the potential for abuse—does that mean we should revert to the Stone Age? Are we willing to make compromises? How much are we willing to give up? But the biggest threat to our privacy may not be the tools of a centralized government, but rather, ourselves. We carelessly share every detail of our lives then wonder what happened to our privacy. Putting your phone number or not-so-professional pictures of yourself on Facebook is not exactly the brightest idea. Strangers, employers and people you thought were friends can all use such information against you. Shocking, I know. Identity theft would not be nearly as much of an issue if people were more careful about their credit card and personal information. We are too quick to blame others when we should be taking more responsibility for our own actions. Never overestimate how much privacy you actually have. Low-cost surveillance and the equalizing forces of information technology mean that anyone can spy on anyone else. Video blogs, status updates, personal Web pages—unless you take active measures to protect your own privacy—are visible to anyone with an Internet connection. We are becoming a transparent society. Orwell was wrong. It’s not Big Brother that’s watching: It’s us.
Matt Lawrence, Ethan Mermelstein, Liz Posner, Leah Smith, Avi Snyder Sports: Quincy Auger, Jeffrey Boxer, Trevor Cohen, Max Goldstein, Jonathan Steinberg Arts: Rebecca Brooks, Wei-Huan Chen, Alex DeSilva, Elly Kalfus, Morgan Manley, Daniel Orkin, Alex Pagan, Bryan Prywes, Justine Root, Ben Serby, Sujin Shin, Shelly Shore Photography: Genevieve Armstrong, Maegan Bautista, Jessica Christian, Jaxson Dermer, Nathaniel Freedman, Davida Judelson, Rozi Levi, Yosef Schaffel, Shaefali Shandilya, Tali Smookler STAFF Copy: Danielle Berger, Rebecca Brooks, Jacob Chatinover, Senior Writers: Miranda Neubauer, Melissa Siegel Hilary Cheney, Jenn Craig, Camille Dolfen, Ariel Glickman, Senior Photographers: Julian Agin-Liebes, David Patricia Greene, Rachel Herman, Liana Johnson, Daniella Sheppard-Brick Kohlhagen, Mailinh Phan-Nguyen, Zane Relethford, Senior Copy Editor: Joyce Wang Marielle Temkin, Amanda Winn, Liat Zabludovsky Senior Illustrator: A. Eli Tukachinsky Illustrations: Rishika Assomull, Stacy Handler News: Clare Churchill-Seder, Erin Doniger Layout: Nadav Havivi, Nan Pang Forum: Hannah Goldberg, Rebecca Kellogg,
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
NEWS: Alana Abramson, Fiona Lockyer FEATURES: Tess Raser FORUM: Eitan Cooper ARTS: Bryan Flatt LAYOUT: Debra Friedmann ADS: Cody Yudkoff
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Appreciate globalization of college By LIZ POSNER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
Remember when you were a high school senior thinking about where you were going to apply to college? One of the factors in your decision was probably location— you probably wanted to consider schools in either the Northeast, Midwest, West Coast or the South. Maybe you even applied to a few Canadian universities. But you likely didn’t consider spending the four years of your undergraduate education in China, India or Eastern Europe. For future generations of American students, this may be a more viable option. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently profiled Study International, a Web-based company that offers students an alternative to mainstream American undergraduate programs. Through the Study International program, students can study at Nankai University in China for four years and receive their bachelor’s degrees just as they would at any four-year American program. The company’s main selling point is its flat fee of $12,750 per year, which even includes textbooks and airfare. Study International estimates that their Nankai program would cost a student 79 percent less than he or she would pay to attend a private American college or university. As a point of comparison, Brandeis tuition for the 2010 to 2011 school year is $38,994. Combined with additional expenses, a year at Brandeis costs some students over $51,000. You don’t need a college degree to see that this is quite a bargain. It is useful to examine, though, how Study International’s Nankai Program may point to a larger trend in the effect of globalization on higher education. For many years, the U.S. has been a bastion of academic excellence. Quacquarelli-Symonds World University Rankings, which ranks top 200 universities in the world, found that in 2009, 13 of the top 20 universities were American. International students have flocked to American universities for decades. In recent years, their numbers have grown and show no signs of slowing: Over 670,000 international students attended American universities in 2009.
STACY HANDLER/the Justice
However, gruesomely high and rising price tags for college tuition in the U.S. are prompting some students to consider studying abroad in places like Nankai permanently. Logically, this is consistent with basic economic principles. Higher education, like any market product, as this trend suggests, is subject to basic laws of supply and demand. If the price of attending college in the U.S. continues to rise, it is likely that more American students will begin to seriously consider leaving the country to continue their educations. There are many advantages to this globalization of education for both participating students and international universities. Besides the obvious financial savings, students who choose to study overseas would receive all the benefits typical of the more traditional junior year study-abroad experience, including exposure to a different culture and language. Undoubtedly, the popularity of
short-term study-abroad programs offered at many American colleges and universities has sparked interest in international education. Of the 200,000 foreign students hosted by China each year, most participate in semester-long studyabroad programs. Still, this number is indicative of Chinese universities’ zeal to attract international students. Other non-Western and developing countries are striving to draw in foreign students as well. 22,000 students from across the globe enrolled in Indian universities from 2007 to 2008, according to the Association of Indian Universities. The president of Study International stated in the Chronicle article that the company hopes to expand its programs to participating universities in Eastern Europe, where college expenses are relatively low. It does not seem inconceivable that African and South American countries in the near future will also
look outward to draw in international students. So does this mean that are we nearing the end of the era of the red brick-and-ivy American college experience? Probably not—at least not in the near future. Though expensive college tuition is a problem, there are still many simpler options for students who cannot afford private or even generally less expensive public institutions. Many students choose to attend community colleges and live at home to cut down on expenses. Some attend community college for a year or two before transfering to another university. Online education options like the University of Phoenix are increasingly popular and affordable. There is also the possibility of future government legislation that could ease the burden of college tuition for many American families. Though economical, unfortunately none of these options provide students with the full college
experience that studying abroad can offer. Ultimately, the trend of American students seeking education overseas probably speaks more to increasing globalization than the dire state of American universities. A student who chooses to attend Nankai University will probably not select the program as a last resort but because he has a sincere interest in studying in China. This trend may not prove to be directly responsible for the end of an era of American higher education but will likely grow as more programs like Study International expand their services. At least in the near future, though, I believe that, for the most part, American students will still want to attend American colleges. Despite the high cost of tuition and expenses at U.S. universities, American students are likely to remain willing to foot the bill thanks to their strong reputations and locations close to home.
Univ must fully support its student interns Ethan
MERMELSTEIN MIND OVER MADNESS
Summertime, And the livin’ is easy? Summer lovin’, Had me a blast? Not so much for those who plan to become part of the growing number of college students who take on unpaid internships. According to a 2008 study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 50 percent of college students graduate having an internship at one point during their college career. And that’s quite understandable considering that, according to a separate NACE study reported by the Washington Times, “experience from an internship—whether at their workplace or elsewhere—was the ‘primary’ reason for hiring a new worker.” In a strictly theoretical sense, the internship is a symbiotic relationship between intern and industry. The intern is afforded a glimpse into a world he or she may one day
choose to enter, and the industry has the chance to inspire, scout out and scoop up young talents. Too often, though, the reality of internships ends up being as close to “internship theory” as the farthest Starbucks is from the office. The intern is afforded an opportunity to go unpaid for three months and make copies, answer phones and mail letters, while the industry has the chance to get these essential—but menial— tasks done for free. And the truth is, for Brandeis students, internships are especially integral if we want to limit our postgrad Odyssey Years. What choice do we have? Yes, some programs and departments have been inching toward a “preprofessional” awareness. But these movements are often stilted and jammed into the ideals of a liberal arts education, damaging both the school’s ideals and the efforts of those trying to bring a sensitivity to post-grad anxiety. At least from personal experience and numerous anecdotes, it seems clear that the University’s party line on vocation’s relationship with education is that there isn’t one. Usually citing the University’s liberal arts philosophy,
Brandeis’ academics seem intended to inform life in general, skipping over the couple of years after commencement. This is nothing more than a cop-out. Now, Brandeis does not leave its students entirely alone. I would be remiss not to mention the Hiatt Career Center and its extensive and (mostly) well-oiled support system for students with the initiative to start the career search from within the Brandeis Bubble. But internship-wise, the support system ceases once the summer starts. How do we know if we are being treated fairly? Legally speaking, according to an Aug. 2 article in The New York Times, internships must satisfy six federal criteria in order for it to qualify as unpaid: “Among those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer ‘derives no immediate advantage’ from the intern’s activities—in other words, it’s largely a benevolent contribution to the intern.” According to an April 7 article in the Washington Times, “Interns—
the vast majority of whom are unpaid—do not enjoy federal legal protections against sexual harassment and discrimination.” (Anyone remember White House intern Monica Lewinsky?) According to The New York Times, “Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.” Some states such as Oregon and California have investigated some forms of misuse and underpayment, but where are Brandeis students— forced to find internships in order to compliment the University’s curriculum—to turn in instances of misuse or abuse? At the moment, the answer is nowhere (and if it is somewhere, it’s an extremely well-kept secret). But this can be fixed easily. Although my highlighting of intern abuse may suggest otherwise, last summer I had a fantastic internship at Dan Rather Reports that was both hands-on and free of sexual
harassment. Contributing to the success of my internship was an internship evaluation course I took through the Journalism department. The course met weekly via Skype chat and acted as a bragging opportunity for some and a therapy session for others. Led by Prof. Maura Farrelly (JOUR)—a journalist herself—we all received advice and context to help us make the most out of our experience. Something like this should be compulsory for anyone in an internship for the first time. The only sick thing about the class was the fact that we had to enroll in Brandeis summer school and pay to receive the credits (which I don’t really need), resulting in my incurring a loss of over $2,000 for an unpaid internship. A system like this (minus the cost) should be part of Hiatt services or part of the academic curriculum. The existence of the extensive services offered by the Hiatt Career Center seems to act as a way for advisers, professors and administrators to feel absolved from offering serious thought and consideration to profession-related anxieties. It shouldn’t.
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SPORTS TRACK & FIELD
Bernier ’10 and Capano ’11 finish in first ■ Suzanne Bernier ’10 and
Lucia Capano ’11 captured first-place finishes in Saturday’s meet. By JEFFREY BOXER JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
The Brandeis men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in the George Davis Invitational Track & Field Meet at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell on Saturday and came away with noteworthy finishes. The Judges’ top performances came in the women’s jumping events, including top finishes in both the women’s high jump and long jump. Suzanne Bernier ’10 won the high jump with a height of 1.60 meters. Lily Parenteau ’12 jumped 1.50 meters, which was good for ninth. Lucia Capano ’11 won the long jump, jumping 5.31 meters. Capano also finished third in the triple jump with a distance of 11.02 meters.
“[Capano] is a really good jumper with great form. Everything is precision-cut, and it all really came together today,” sprinter Anna Sinjour ’13 said. The women were also quite successful in the distance running events. In the 1,500-meter race, the Judges placed two runners in the top five. Beth Pisarik ’10 finished third with a time of 4 minutes, 50.44 seconds. Marie Lemay ’11 finished exactly four seconds off of Pisarik’s pace, good for fifth. In the 3,000-meter race, the team took home three of the top four places. Alyssa Pisarik ’12 finished second with a time of 10:30.99. Ally Connolly ’10 took home third with a time of 10:33.48, and Kate Warwick ’12 finished less than a second behind her, good for fourth. The men’s distance team’s best performance came from Devon Holgate ’11. Holgate finished fourth in a competitive 1,500-meter field with a time of 4:01.14. “Devon has been running great recently, and he will continue to improve. He is definitely going to have
a breakthrough,” fellow distance runner Jake Newfield ’13 said. In the two-mile event, the men were paced by Marc Boutin ’12, who took ninth place with a time of 9.33.75 seconds. Also competing for the Judges were captain Dan Anastos ’11, who took 17th with a time of 9:50.65; Newfield, who finished 30th with a time of 10:15.65 and Raymond Chen ’10, who finished in 10:50.10, good for 42nd place. Ryan Cheng ’11 turned in an impressive third-place finish in the 3,000meter steeplechase event, finishing the race in 10.24.51. Arguably the men’s team’s most impressive individual result came in the 800-meter race. In a field of 62 runners, Aaron Udel ’10 finished third with a time of 1:56.45. “Udel has been very solid all season long,” Newfield said. “He’s hovered around the 1:56 mark all season long and has been edging closer and closer to breaking it.” Also competing in the race for Brandeis were Mik Kern ’13, who finished 19th, and Will Collins ’10, who
took 35th. The women’s 800-meter race had a surprise ending for the Judges. Runners Emily Owen ’11 and Erin Bisceglia ’12 both finished the race with a time of exactly 2:21.12, which was good for a seventh-place tie. “I had never seen two runners finish with the exact same time in a track and field event, let alone two runners from the same team,” Sinjour said. “It certainly was a bizarre ending to the race but was also pretty exciting.” In the women’s 200-meter event, Brandeis placed two runners in the top 10 in a field of 42 runners. Sinjour finished in fifth place with a time of 26.91 seconds, while Michelle Gellman ’11 finished in 28.08, good for 10th place. The women also had a runner finish in the top 10 in the 400-meter race and the 100-meter hurdles. Casey McGown ’13 finished eighth in the 400 with a time of 1:03.53. Kayley Wolf took 10th in the 100meter hurdles, finishing in 17.39 seconds. The women’s 4x100 relay team also fared well, finishing third. The quartet
BASEBALL: Team drops all four away games
FULL EXTENSION
CONTINUED FROM 16 where they scored a run on two WPI errors. Deshler, after reaching on an error by senior center fielder Cody McGregor, scored when senior Ryan Marques, who got the win, fielded a ground ball off the bat of right fielder Jon Chu ’12 and threw it past the first baseman. In the third, after scoring a run on three straight two-out singles from second baseman James Likis ’13, Chu and left fielder Chris Ferro ’13, the rally stalled when captain catcher Artie Posch ’10 stranded two runners with a groundout to short. Brandeis added an unearned run in the fifth on a Ferro RBI but could muster nothing more. Ferro continues to lead the team is several hitting categories, including batting average, slugging percentage and RBIs. Following the deflating firstinning scoring spree by WPI in game two, the Brandeis bats showed no hint of life until the last inning, when a leadoff walk of Posch
DAVID SHEPPARD-BRICK/the Justice
EYE ON THE BALL: Nick White ’11 stretches for a shot in the men’s tennis team’s victory over Bryant University on Thursday.
TENNIS: Men finish the week 1-1, and the women’s team wins both matches CONTINUED FROM 16 them.” The men also traveled to Hartford, Conn. to face No. 20 Trinity College on Sunday. Despite a number of close matches, however, Brandeis fell to the Bantams 8-1 and saw its three-match win streak snapped. The Judges fell into an early hole, losing all three doubles matches. In singles action, the Judges’ lone win came at sixth singles, where Rozenshteyn handled his opponent 6-3, 6-3. The Bantams earned their clinching points at the second and third singles, defeating Miller and Milo, respectively, in straight sets. At first singles, White, who transferred from Trinity last semester, faced a former teammate, senior Spencer Feldman. Despite a close second set tie-breaker, Feldman
prevailed, defeating White, 6-1 7-6 (7-5). On the women’s side, the No. 28 Judges traveled to New London, CT and defeated Connecicut College 72. The squad took an early lead, sweeping the Camels in doubles action to go up 3-0. Rachel Rosman ’11 and rookie Faith Broderick ’13 teamed up at first doubles to win 85. At second doubles, Mackenzie Gallegos ’11 and Sarah Richman ’12 won 8-5 as well, and co-captain Ariana Sanai ’10 and Nina Levine ’12 blanked Connecticut 8-0 at third doubles. In singles action, Rosman and Broderick shut out their opponents 6-0, 6-0 in first and second singles, respectively. At fourth and fifth singles, the Judges won the matches in close third-set super-tiebreakers.
of Capano, Gellman, Sinjour and Farrington finished the relay in 50.79 seconds. “We were really happy with how the 4x100 team did” Sinjour said. “It was our first time running together as a team, and we ran a really respectable time.” The Men’s 4x100 team also did well, taking home seventh place. The youthful group of Stanley Ye ’12, Mingkai Lin ’12, Brian Foley ’13 and Charlie Pino ’12 finished the relay in 44.75 seconds. Ye was also the top men’s runner in the 100-meter individual race, finishing 21st. Lin was the men’s top runner in the 400-meter race, finishing 16th with a time of 52.99 seconds. Rounding out the field events for the Judges was Desiree Murphy ’10’s 12thplace finish in the discus with a distance of 34.01 meters. Steve Melnik ’12 competed in the javelin for the men’s team and finished 11th with a distance of 46.78 meters. The Judges next compete at the Fitchburg State Invitational this upcoming weekend.
Gallegos recovered from a first-set loss to win 4-6, 6-3, 10-5 at fourth singles. Levine won her match 7-5, 2-6, 10-8. The Camels’ lone wins came at the third and sixth singles spots. Sanai fell at the third singles spot 61, 3-0 after withdrawing with a shoulder injury. At sixth singles, Richman faced rookie Jen Herbert in a hard-fought match. Herbert won the first set 6-4, while Richman won the second set 6-0. In an emotional third-set super-tiebreaker, Herbert defeated Richman 19-17 and earned the Camels the victory. Trailing 2-1 in doubles action against MIT last Tuesday, the women’s team came back to win the match 5-4. The women will next face Tufts University on April 13. The men will have a week off before facing MIT on April 20.
sparked a brief rally. Right fielder Joe Gally ’12 scored Posch from third on a two-out single. Another walk loaded the bases, but Deshler grounded into the last out of the game, dropping the Judges’ record to a lackluster 8-16 with their fifth consecutive loss. Lambert commented on the Judges’ need for timely scoring. “We just need to start performing, hitting-wise,” said Lambert of the Judges’ recent failure. “We’re getting hits, but guys aren’t scoring. We’re not getting timely hits. … Whether we can build on that or not, that’s kind of up to them.” Link knows that the time to build is soon, as the team faces a challenging schedule for the remainder of the season, including two away games against third-ranked Trinity College. “You always want to play good opponents,” said Link. “But it’s [going to] be a tough stretch.” The Judges head to Worcester State College todayat 3:30 p.m. to face another strong team, the Lancers, who have a record of 16-5-1.
SOFTBALL: Bowdoin stops the winning streak from extending CONTINUED FROM 16 Cagar, while Ross and Korp each hit one. In the second game, Miller matched her teammate with 10 strikeouts while leading the Judges to a 4-0 win. Offensively Brandeis took a 2-0 lead on a single by Specker that scored Korp an RBI groundout from Grimm. Those runs proved to be more than enough, but the Judges added on some insurance in the fourth on a solo homerun from center fielder Lauren Porcaro ’12 and a double from Specker, her second RBI of the game. “[Vaillette and Miller] both did extremely well [Saturday],” Johnson added. “Clark’s offense has been pretty productive all year, so they pretty much shut them down entirely, which was pretty impressive.” On Wednesday, the Judges’ bats were on fire as they swept a doubleheader from WPI 10-1 in six innings and 12-4 in five innings. Brandeis ended the game with a walk-off two-
run homer from first baseman Courtney Kelley ’11 in the bottom of the sixth that invoked the eight-run mercy rule. In the second game, the Judges batted around in the first inning and quickly went up 4-0 on five hits and one error. WPI then countered with a fourrun inning of its own off Miller in the top of the second, Brandeis scored four runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth to end it, with Kelley once again having the walk-off hit. Berg was the offensive star of the day for the Judges, hitting two tworun homers in the first game and adding three more RBIs in the second game. “I think we adjusted very well,” Korp said. “We had a week before where it was just practices; we really were focused on our hitting, and I think it showed once we finally came out and played.” The Judges will be in action tomorrow afternoon when they host a doubleheader against Wheaton College, starting at 3 p.m.
THE JUSTICE
ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
11 1 2 6 20
wins in the softball team’s last 13 games. The team tied Lasell College and lost to Bowdoin College during the stretch.
-match difference in the men’s tennis team’s victory over Division I opponent Bryant University on Thursday.
first-place finishes for the women’s track and field team at the George Davis Invitational Track & Field Meet at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell on Saturday.
th-place finish, tied with Nichols College, for the golf team in the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth Hampton Inn Invitational last weekend.
runs allowed by the baseball team in two losses to Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Sunday.
ASHER KRELL/the Justice
“I’m really focused on each batter and what I’m going to throw to them,” she said. “I try to not let anything rile me up and just stay calm.” The strategy proved to be successful: Vaillette’s six-strikeout game was her
team-leading 10th win of the season. Looking toward the end of the season, Vaillette hopes the Judges will continue to be victorious and win a coveted NCAA bid. —Quincy Auger
UAA STANDINGS Baseball
Softball
Not including Monday’s games
Rochester Case Emory Washington JUDGES Chicago
UAA W L 4 1 4 2 3 2 1 4 1 4 0 0
Overall W L 18 4 17 14 15 17 16 12 8 16 10 8
Not including Monday’s games Overall UAA W L W L Emory 6 2 19 13 Washington 5 3 24 6 JUDGES 5 3 18 5 Rochester 4 4 13 8 Chicago 0 0 16 7 Case 0 8 7 25
TEAM LEADERS Baseball (hits)
Baseball (runs batted in)
Third baseman Tony Deshler ’11 leads the Judges with 29 hits.
Left fielder Chris Ferro ’13 leads Brandeis with 20 RBIs.
Player Tony Deshler Sean O’Hare Chris Ferro Artie Posch John Chu
Player Chris Ferro John O’Brion Artie Posch John Chu Two tied with...
Hits 29 27 27 24 21
RBIs 20 15 13 11 9
Softball (hits)
Softball (runs batted in)
Third baseman Brittany Grimm ’12 leads Brandeis with 39 hits.
Catcher Stacy Berg ’13 leads the Judges with 29 RBIs.
Player Brittany Grimm Melisa Cagar Marianne Specker Stacey Berg Chelsea Korp
Player Stacy Berg Brittany Grimm Marianne Specker Erin Ross Two tied with...
Hits 39 27 27 26 26
RBIs 29 22 18 17 12
UPCOMING GAMES OF THE WEEK Softball vs. Wheaton College on Wednesday The softball team will play in a home doubleheader tomorrow starting at 3 p.m.
16
strikeouts in two appearances for softball pitcher Emily Vaillette ’10. The team won both games she started.
15
Golf team ties for sixth in first tournament of the spring season
■ The softball pitcher won two games against Bowdoin College and Clark University last week, striking out 16 batters. She pitched 14 innings and allowed only nine hits.
Judging numbers
TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
VARSITY BRIEF
Emily Vaillette ’10
The softball team, thanks in large part to the pitching of Emily Vaillette ’10, has a record of 18-5-1 after winning four of five games last week. Vaillette pitched seven innings in the first game of a doubleheader Saturday afternoon against the Clark University Cougars to spur Brandeis to a 7-2 victory. The Milford, N.H. native tallied a career-high 10 strikeouts in a single game while allowing only four hits and one walk in 124 pitches. Just one runner, in the fifth inning, advanced past second base with Vaillette on the mound. With four years of experience in the pitching rotation at Brandeis, Vaillette is pleased with her team this year. “I think this is the best Brandeis team I’ve had the opportunity to play on,” she said. “We’re really strong hitting … and … the entire [pitching] staff is doing really well.” Vaillette credits her successes to the strength of the Judges’ defense. “I wouldn’t be able to throw as well as I do without my defense behind me,” she stated. On Sunday, the Judges returned to the diamond against Bowdoin College. Vaillette threw seven innings to guide Brandeis to victory in the first game. She allowed five hits in the win. In preparation for the game, Vaillette retreats into her own “little zone.”
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Last season, Brandeis defeated Wheaton College by scores of 10-5 and 3-2 in an April doubleheader at Wheaton. This year, Wheaton will look to avenge last season’s losses when the team travels to Brandeis to face the Judges in another doubleheader. The Lyons are 17-13 on the year and won their last four games. They have won consecutive doubleheaders against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Smith College, scor-
ing a total 47 runs in the four wins. Before their four game winning streak, the Lyons lost nine consecutive games. Junior catcher Nicole DeRosa and junior shortstop Katy Salka lead the offensive attack for the Lyons. DeRosa leads the team with .346 batting average and a .419 on-base percentage. Salka has a team-leading 32 hits and 24 RBIs. She also has the most total bases on the team with 44.
The golf team started its spring season last weekend, finishing sixth out of 18 teams at the University of Massachusetts at Darmouth Hampton Inn Invitational. The team ended with a 83-over-par 659. Charles Sacks ’11 led the squad, finishing with a teambest 18-over-par 162, finishing 17th of 93 golfers. “I’ve been making good contact,” Sacks said. “I have a smooth swing, but I still think there’s a lot of room for improvement, like focusing on not trying to force things, getting the ball in the hole and making birdies.” Coach Bill Shipman was pleased with Sacks’ performance in the tournament. “He parred one of the hardest holes on the whole course, No. 12, that got him going a bit,” Shipman said. “He’s been hitting the ball very well. He’s been playing well. It didn’t show the first day; he had a bad hole or two, but [on the second day], his score matched his level of play,” said Shipman. Lee Bloom ’10 and Aaron Cusato ’12 tied for 25th overall, shooting a 20-over-par 164. Scott Beaulac ’12 finished 38th with a 25-over-par 169, while Kyle Managan ’12 finished 82nd with a 40-over-par 184. All squad members except Cusato improved their scores on the second day. The largest improvement came from Sacks, who improved his score from a 14-over-par 86 to a 10over-par 76. Overall, the team finished the day with a 50over-par 321. “Team-wise, it was really great that we all put together a great second day,” Bloom said. “Coming off winter break, it was good to come off of solid ground.” Despite the team not performing as well on the first day of competition, Bloom was still impressed with the Judges’ play. “We were very consistent. No one had a big number, and we were very fortunate we did not need a great number on day one to keep us in contention,” he said. On the first day, facing tough weather conditions, Brandeis finished the day with a 73-over-par 338, which, despite being somewhat high, was still one of the better numbers of the day. “The course played tough on Saturday,” Shipman said. “It was windy, the greens were kind of rough, [and] the scores were high, but we held our own on a tough-weather day,” said Coach Shipman. Cusato shot a team-best eight-over-par 80 on Saturday. Bloom followed Cusato, shooting an 11-over-par 83. The golf team has two tournaments this week. The first being the Western New England Tournament on Wednesday, and the second in the Johnson and Whales Invitational this weekend. —Max Goldstein
CLUB BRIEF Equestrian team sends Engel ’12 and Bowman ’10 to Zones For the first time, the equestrian club team sent riders to the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association Zones, the highest level before IHSA Nationals. Ali Engel ’12 and Beth Bowman ’10 competed with teams ranging from club level to Division I on Saturday at Mount Holyoke Equestrian Center in South Hadley, Mass. Engel finished eighth in Open Flat, while Bowman finished fifth in Intermediate Fences. Neither rider qualified for Nationals. “We certainly feel that we had a successful season, having made it further than ever in the history of the team,” Liz Wilsker ’11, the team’s outreach chair, said in an e-mail to the Justice. An equestrian coach places a rider in one of five following levels, which are, from least-experienced to most-experienced, Walk-Trot, Walk-Trot-Canter, Novice, Intermediate and Open. If a rider has competed in a rated equestrian show, he or she must compete at that level or higher in future shows. Engel, a competitive rider, started the season in Open and finished fifth overall in Region 4, which comprises of schools in Eastern Massachusetts, with 57 points. Fences and flat classes are scored separately in Novice, Intermediate and Open. Fences involve jumps, while flats do not. At Regionals, which were held on March 28, Engel finished third in Open Fences and second in Open Flat. Her finish in Open Flat qualified her for Zones. Bowman finished second in Intermediate Fences, which qualified her for Zones, and fifth in Intermediate Flat. In addition to qualifying for Zones, Bowman was named co-captain of the year at Regionals. “[It’s] a huge compliment and recognition for our team from the whole community in which we compete,” said Wilsker in an e-mail to the Justice. Brandeis sent six other riders to Regionals: Wilsker, Maia Belic ’10, Dan Lincoln ’10, Lisa Weinstein ’10 and Ashley Zibura ’11. The team also independently hosted its first show for the first time on March 20 at the team’s barn, August Farm in Holliston, Mass. Every competing equestrian team is required to either host or co-host a show. Members of the team arrived at the farm as early as 6 a.m. to prepare for the event. The team also had to fundraise and find people to help judge and assist with the show. “That was a huge deal for us this year. … Our show went very well, and after tons of work preparing, we were very proud to say that we had accomplished such an exciting undertaking,” Wilsker said in an e-mail to the Justice. With the team about to graduate four seniors, Wilsker stressed the importance of attracting new members, both experienced and inexperienced, to the club. “Recruiting will be a big part of how our team does going forward from here,” Wilsker said in an e-mail to the Justice. “It is increasingly important to find not only beginner riders but also advanced and intermediate riders, and this means not just getting people who like horses but rather finding those people on campus who are already riders.” —Josh Asen
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Sports
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AN EQUESTRIAN FIRST The equestrian team sent two riders to Zones for the first time in the program’s history, p.15.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Waltham, Mass.
EYEING THE PITCHER
BASEBALL
Squad loses all four road games over the week ■ The baseball team
dropped four games last week, being outscored by their opponents 28-6. By TREVOR COHEN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
ASHER KRELL/the Justice
IN THE BATTER’S BOX: Shortstop Chelsea Korp ’10 bats against Clark University on Saturday. The team defeated Clark 7-2 and 4-0 in a doubleheader played at Brandeis.
Team wins five of its six contests ■ The softball team won five
games in a row last week before falling to Bowdoin College on Sunday. By MELISSA SIEGEL JUSTICE SENIR WRITER
All good things must come to an end. After going 12 straight games without a loss, the No. 21 Brandeis softball team suffered a defeat on Sunday, falling 2-0 in the second game of a doubleheader against Bowdoin College. The Judges went 11-0-1 in their previous 12 games, including doubleheader sweeps against Clark University on Saturday and Worchester Polytechnic Institute on Wednesday. They now stand at 18-
5-1 on the year. The second game on Sunday remained scoreless until the third inning, when Bowdoin found all the offense they would need. The Polar Bears got two runs on RBI singles from sophomore left fielder Caroline Dewar and senior shortstop Shavonne Lord. Bowdoin junior starting pitcher Kara Nilan pitched a complete game five-hitter and allowed only one walk. Brandeis starter Caroline Miller ’12 pitched four-hitter and had just two walks, but the Judges’ bats were unable to solve Nilan’s strong pitching. The Judges’ best chance came in the first inning, when singles by first baseman Marianne Specker ’12 and left fielder Brittany Grimm ’12 gave Brandeis two players on base with one out. Rookie catcher Stacy Berg ’13 and designated hitter Erin Ross ’10 each popped out to
end the inning. “[Nilan] actually came in on us more than any other pitcher. … She did a great job, and we didn’t make the adjustments,” coach Jessica Johnson said. In the early game on Sunday the Judges came back from an early deficit. Bowdoin took the lead 3-0 in the third inning on four hits, but the Judges scored six straight runs to win 6-3. The Judges scored their first run of the game on a Bowdoin error in the fourth inning, one of four for the Polar Bears in the game. Brandeis then scored again the following inning to get within 1 when second baseman Melisa Cagar ’11 reached base on a sacrifice. The Judges pulled away in the sixth, scoring all three of their runs with two outs. The Judges tied the game in the sixth on an RBI single from right fielder Carly
Schmand ’11 and took the lead for good on a two-run single by Cagar in the same inning. “It’s always tough to play backto-back days, and especially [with] going away and having a long bus ride, we came out a little bit dead; but we came back in the second half of that game and we played really well,” shortstop Chelsea Korp ’10 said. On Saturday the Judges received two strong pitching performances on the way to sweeping a doubleheader against Clark University. In the first game, the Judges won 72, thanks in large part to the pitching of Emily Vaillette ’10. The senior had a career-high 10 strikeouts, including four in the fifth inning. The Judges didn’t need it, though, hitting four home runs in the game. Two came from
See SOFTBALL, 13 ☛
TENNIS
Men’s team defeats Division I Bryant Univ at Brandeis ■ The men’s tennis team
beat Bryant University and lost to Trinity College, while the women went 2-0. By JONATHAN STEINBERG JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
At the Rieger Tennis Courts on Thursday, the men’s tennis team upset Division I opponent Bryant Univer 5-4. Brandeis fell to Trinity College 8-1 on Sunday, while the nationally ranked women’s team defeated Connecticut College 7-2 on Sunday and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5-4 last Tuesday. Against Bryant, the first doubles
team of Simon Miller ’11 and Nick White ’11 won 8-5. Rookies Steven Milo ’13 and Dave Yovanoff ’13 handled Bryant at the second doubles spot, winning the match 8-0. At third doubles, Mike Tatarsky ’12 and rookie Fred Rozeshteyn ’13 held on to win their match by a close margin of 9-7, giving Brandeis the early 3-0 lead in matches. The Judges seemed to be cruising to an easy win when Rozenshteyn gave the squad a 4-0 lead with an impressive 6-4, 6-3 win at the fifth singles spot. However, the Bulldogs were not ready to give in. Sophomore Andres Orobitg put Bryant on the board with a 6-3, 6-2 win at sixth singles over Seth Rogers ’10. At fourth singles, Yovanoff
played well against his Bryant opponent, recovering from first-set loss to claim the second set 7-5, only to get blanked in the third set. With the match 4-2 in the Judges’ favor, the top of the lineup took the court to try and secure the win for Brandeis. At first singles, White faced Bryant junior Cristian Balestrieri, and after losing a hardfought second set tiebreaker, Balestrieri won 6-0, 7-6 (9-7). With Brandeis’ leading 4-3, Miller looked to clinch the match at second singles, but sophomore Juan-Martin Paredes won 2-6, 6-1, 6-4. Coach Ben Lamanna stated the importance of remaining mentally tough in those kinds of situations. “You just need to focus point by
point,” said Lamanna. “You need to remain mentally tough and focus only on the point and nothing else around you.” The most exciting match came at the third singles spot, where Milo faced Bryant senior Kevin Gardiner. After falling in the first set 6-4, Milo bounced back for a 7-5 second-set win. In the third set, Milo was able to take a crucial break point to go up 4-3 and proceeded to take advantage of a tired Gardiner and win the set 63, clinching the match for Brandeis. “Steve outlasted him, breaking his will by the end of the match,” said Lamanna. “He stayed mentally tough and played the big points well, the way that he wanted to play
See TENNIS, 13 ☛
While the rain that forced a second postponement of Friday’s game against Western New England College subsided on Sunday, the baseball team’s pitching could find no shelter from an unrelenting torrent of hits in their doubleheader at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. A total of 33 hits by the WPI Engineers proved too much for the struggling Brandeis bats to overcome as the Judges fell twice, 10-3 and 10-1. Earlier in the week, Brandeis, now 8-16 on the year, lost to Rhode Island College 5-1 on Thursday and 3-1 to Tufts University last Tuesday. In the Sunday’s opener against WPI, the Judges managed only six hits against WPI’s 15. The Engineers committed four errors, which led to two unearned runs. However, the pitchers were unable to minimize the damage as the staff gave up only one earned run and stranded seven Judges on base in seven innings. It was the Judges’ turn to experience trouble in the field in the second game, and they paid significantly. After junior left fielder Brian Watkins was thrown out at the plate in the first inning, starter Mike Swerdloff ’13 was poised to escape a two-out, bases-loaded jam unscathed when he induced a ground ball to third baseman Tony Deshler ’11. But an errant throw pulled first baseman Drake Livada ’10 off the bag, allowing the runner to reach, a run to score and the inning to continue. Two singles and a triple later, WPI had put up six runs in the first inning, dropping a dagger on the Judges’ hopes of pulling out a game-two win. “[Deshler] fielded it cleanly and he threw to first instead of just stepping on [third base],” Swerdloff said of the play. “After that, I was furious and … they had six runs before I knew it.” Assistant Coach Brian Lambert understood Swerdloff’s negative reaction. “It’s not even a rookie pitcher, it’s just any pitcher,” said Lambert. “You get frustrated when you basically get out of an inning and an error is made. WPI capitalized on all of that. That’s what basically boxed us back in.” “Mike was throwing well,” said fellow rookie left-hander Jesse Link ’13, who pitched a third of an inning in relief in the second game. “They got some ground balls through the holes, and once two or three runs get on the board— he trailed off.” “The wind just goes out of our sails,“ finished Swerdloff. The Judges were able to get off to an early lead in the first game,
See BASEBALL, 13 ☛
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April 13, 2010
ARTS Lingerie takes the stage at the SKIN Fashion Show, p. 21.
Photo by Robyn Spector/the Justice. Design by Andrea Fineman/the Justice.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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THE JUSTICE
POP CULTURE
INSIDE ON CAMPUS
18-22
■ A cappella honors 19 Two groups received awards in recent weeks.
19 ■ BTV premiere The student-run station debuted quality films. 19 ■ ‘M. Butterfly’ The Brandeis Players’ play was finely acted. 20 ■ ‘Prospect II’ JustArts got a peek into preparations for an exhibit by post-baccalaureate art students. 21 ■ Spring fashion Students sported trendy warm-weather looks. 22 ■ ‘The Front’ The movie, produced by Stan Brooks ’79, was screened on campus. 22 ■ IndieLouies Students inaugurated a new film festival. 22 ■ SKIN 2010 In the annual fashion show, students strutted down the catwalk sporting the latest styles.
OFF CAMPUS
23-24
23 ■ ‘CATS’ Broadway Across America will bring the longrunning Tony Award-winning play to Boston. 23 ■ Owen Pallett The artist formerly known as Final Fantasy will play at the Institute of Contemporary Art. 23 ■ ‘Coppélia’ Boston Ballet showcased world-class dancers in its production of the lighthearted ballet.
CALENDAR
INTERVIEW by Shelly Shore
When one thinks of the entertainment industry, often the first thing that comes to mind is “liberal Hollywood.” As someone who attends a liberal arts university in good ol’ Massachusetts, it’s hard to be reminded that not everyone is quite as accepting and open-minded as the students at Brandeis. This past week, PopEater.com named Modern Family’s Cameron and Mitchell as their “Best Couple on TV”—beating out the usual favorites: Meredith and Derek of Grey’s Anatomy, House and Cuddy from House and whatever couple is currently the favorite on Lost. For those who haven’t been watching (you really should, by the way, it’s a great show), Cameron and Mitchell are Modern Family’s lovable gay couple who recently adopted a baby girl, Lily. Unlike television’s usual drama-filled gay pairings (who remembers Queer as Folk?), Cameron and Mitchell are relatively low-drama, if a bit flamboyant—they’re domestic, entertaining and relatable, no matter what the viewer’s sexual orientation. Unfortunately, the reaction to PopEater.com’s announcement was less than pleasant. The article was flooded with complaints by readers who thought that choosing a gay couple as the best on TV was promoting an “abnormal” lifestyle as something that should be considered the norm or even something that could be considered “healthy.” Several users went so far as to quote Scripture in response. While most of those flames were countered by more accepting commenters (my personal favorite, Jim, responded with, “I hope you don’t eat any pork or shrimp or crabmeat or lobster. The rules in the Bible on that stuff I guess also still apply in this century, right?”), the posts raised an interesting question. What makes a couple the “best on television?”
‘Bee’ generates campus buzz ■ JustArts spoke with director Alex Davidson ’10 and actress Zoey Hart ’13 by e-mail about Tympanium Euphorium’s production of ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,’ which opens this week.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC MEDIANET
CONTROVERSIAL COUPLE: Partners Cameron and Mitchell resemble real-life parents. Cameron and Mitchell earned their place by being imperfect and realistic but still enjoyable. They lack the almost unbelievable drama of Meredith and Derek or the glamour of Chuck and Blair from Gossip Girl. Instead of hospital bombings, high-city fashion or stuck-on-anisland panic, Cameron and Mitchell provide a look into the same day-to-day life we live —going to the grocery store, bickering over the remote, locking their keys in the car. They are, in every—and I do mean every—way, normal. Sounds like the best couple on television to me.
What’s happening in Arts on and off campus
ON CAMPUS EVENTS Historical Fiction and the Jewish Experience Award-winning novelists Anita Diamant and Jennifer Gilmore ’92 will read from their newest books, Day After Night and Something Red, respectively, and discuss the challenges of writing historical fiction novels in this event sponsored by the Creative Writing program. Refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be served. Today from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the International Lounge in Usdan.
Take Me to Haiti The Department of Community Living, the Global Haiti Initiative, the Brandeis Haiti Relief Effort and the Brandeis Pluralism Alliance want you to come and let them take you to Haiti. “Take Me to Haiti” celebrates Haitian culture by giving students an opportunity to eat Haitian food; learn to speak Haitian Creole; hear firsthand accounts of Haitian history from natives; experience Haitian art and watch Haitian high schoolers from Boston public schools perform native dances, poems, songs and stories. There will also be testimonies by Haitian students recently displaced from Port-auPrince to Boston. Co-sponsored by many different groups, this event is a great way to share Haitian culture with the campus as well as generate on-campus support for Haiti. Today from 6 to 8 p.m. in the South Campus Commons.
Middle East Photo Gallery Volume Two Join members of the Brandeis community as they share their experiences of various countries in the Middle East from home, vacation, study abroad and more. Students are welcome to provide insight into their personal travel experiences. The gallery will run until April 20 in the Shapiro Campus Center Art Gallery.
JEWISHFILM.2010 The National Center for Jewish Film is putting on its 13th annual film festival this year. 13 films will be shown as part of JEWISHFILM.2010, many of which are premiering at the event along with newly restored classic cinema from around the world. The festival brings in many visiting filmmakers and special guests for questionand-answer sessions and for in-depth discussions of their films. The Boston Phoenix calls the event “one of the season’s cinematic highlights,” and it is sure to be an event that you will want to save the date for. Tickets are free for Brandeis students. Through Sunday, April 18 in the Wasserman Cinematheque and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Films showing at various times.
Laugh Your Ass Off Come hear famous comedian Michael Ian Black of VH1’s I Love the 70s/80s/90s and Wet Hot American Summer fame perform a stand-up comedy act as part of Student Events’ Bronstein Week. Tickets are $3 in advance at the Shapiro Campus Center box office and $5 at the door, and they must be
LAURA LANDAU/MichaelIanBlack.net
JOKING AROUND: Comedian Michael Ian Black will perform his unique brand of standup comedy in Levin Ballroom as part of the annual Bronstein Week festivities sponsored by Student Events. purchased with a Brandeis ID. Tomorrow from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in Levin Ballroom.
Friday from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.
Piano recital Pictures of Resistance During the Second World War, a group of Jewish people living in Europe under the constant fear of Nazi persecution joined together to secretly fight the Nazis. These people were called the partisans, and they stood for strong Jewish resistance in a time of fear. The exhibit will feature the wartime photographs of Jewish partisan Faye Schulman through a reception and will include a multimedia presentation by Zvi Bielski, son of Zus Bielski of the famous Bielski brigade that was portrayed in the 2008 Edward Zwick-directed film Defiance. Tomorrow from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Shapiro Campus Center Multipurpose Room.
‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ Set in the geographically ambiguous Putnam County Middle School, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a one-act musical following six quirky middle school students and three equally quirky adults through a middle-school spelling bee. The musical was nominated for six Tony awards and won two. Tympanium Euphorium is presenting the play as directed by Alex Davidson and produced by Jackie Feinberg, among many other Brandeis students running and starring in the production. Tickets are $5 and sold at the Shapiro Campus Center box office. Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater.
Junior Recital Matthew Cohen will sing songs in Italian, French, German and English as part of his junior recital.
Jared Redmond will perform the works of William Byrd, Ludwig von Beethoven, Lee Hoiby and Maurice Ravel for his graduate piano recital. The recital will be free and open to the public. Friday from 8 to 9:30 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.
Songs and poems of Harlem Directed by James Olesen, the Brandeis University Choir is performing both sung and spoken songs and poems by the likes of artists such as William Grant Still, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kem, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson and George Gershwin. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for the general public. Saturday from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall.
Painting the face of Russian Jewry Artist Marc Klionsky’s work is very unique. It can be described as Jewish political art that takes place in the context of the Soviet Union after the World War II. Only a few collections of Jewish artwork focus on the social struggle of the former Soviet Union that roots itself in the experiences of the Soviet citizens caught between the destruction of the Second World War and the upand-coming dream of Jewish nationhood rising from the dust. The dreams of a mobilized newly awakened Jewish self-consciousness in the Soviet Union and around the world are seen in Klionsky’s work. The event will feature speakers Julian Olidort ’11, Prof. Antony Polonsky (NEJS), Prof. Nancy Scott (FA) and Klionsky. Sunday from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall.
JustArts: How did you get interested in theater? Are you a theater major? Alex Davidson ’10: Growing up in New York City, I don’t remember a time where I wasn’t interested in theater. One of my older sisters was in shows throughout her high school years, my family like to attend Broadway shows, etc. It has always been part of my life and something I never wanted to stop doing. Whether I am watching shows, performing in them, or working on a show in some capacity, it is always nice to get away from the stresses and reality of life and escape to something new and imaginary. I guess you could say theater was my version of an imaginary friend. I started performing in plays in 6th grade in Middle School and never stopped. I started doing musicals in high school even though I had no musical training. Once I got to Brandeis, I tried a little bit of everything. One reason I chose to come to Brandeis was for its very strong undergraduate theater community. I didn’t apply to schools with the mindset that I would be a theater major and a struggling actor for the rest of my life. In addition to theater, my other main interest is science. I fell into HSSP here and have decided that I would be more likely to pursue a health profession as a career than a role in the theater community. However, I soon realized that there was a void when I was no longer studying theater, so I quickly picked up a Theater Arts Minor just so I could get my fix each semester. Had I realized this sooner, I may have decided to double major but there are no regrets because even as a minor I learned a lot about theater and acting that I hadn’t already known. Zoey Hart ’13: I am not a theater major, but, newbie that I am, I am not an anything majorso that’s subject to change. I always participated in my high school theater program, and come from a very theatrically inclined family so it was a little bit of genetics and a little bit of fate that brought me to the Brandeis stage. JA: How did you and the others at Tympanium Euphorium decide to do this play in particular? AD: Spelling Bee has been part of my life since 2005, when it opened at the Circle in the Square Theater on Broadway. I saw the musical accidentally. The other show I was supposed to see was sold out so my father and I decided to try and see this new comedy. Since cheap tickets were given away via a lottery system for $25, we decided to try it. It was the best accident to happen. Pretty soon, I was hooked on this show and went back several times to bring all my friends and family. This show is addicting. The music is fun, the plot is hilarious, and it is written to show off a great ensemble cast and everyone’s individual talents. I had always said that I wanted to be in this show, but throughout my 4 years at Brandeis, the rights to perform the show were never available. At least not until last fall. When Tympanium Euphorium was looking for a proposal for their spring musical, I decided to ditch my dream of being in the show. I realized what I wanted more was to recreate it and highlight what I love about it. I am so familiar with the show and know what parts people love and people come to see. I wanted to end my Brandeis years on a high and decided to put together an amazing top-notch production staff to pull it off. I proposed the show and my ideas the club, the proposal passed, and the rest is history. I have heard a lot of hype around campus about Spelling Bee. I think the reason it is exciting is because it is very different from the musicals one would normally see in the UTC. The show is very modern. It is a comedy. There are no moments in the show that require deep thought. The show is just fun. Spelling Bee is about six pre-adolescent kids who try to win a spot in the National Spelling Bee. What they don’t know is that their toughest obstacle to that goal is not their competition, but themselves and their hysterical and amazing quirks and absurdities. Each performance we call up four audience members to participate in the bee. This allows for the show to change each night, which adds more fun for the actors and the audience. Each performance is different, which keeps things fresh for everyone involved. My four years at Brandeis had been highlighted by all the fun I have had being involved with shows, and I wanted to emphasize that with this show. What better way could I highlight fun with quite possibly the funniest musical written? When you go to the theater, you go to escape real life and have a good time. I think that this show brings both these facets of theater together.
— Andrea Fineman
THE JUSTICE
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ON CAMPUS GENDER CONFUSION
FILM
BTV screens new films ■ Short, well-scripted films inspired confidence in future BTV cinematic productions. By JOYCE WANG JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
BTV has come a long way from Slice ’N Deis, the sitcom that first premiered in 2007 and that offered, with its own Brandeisian twist, a fairly conventional look at college life. In its 2010 screening of various short student films and trailers for upcoming TV shows last Thursday, BTV made a bold case for asserting its professional identity as an artistic and technical presence on campus. And it succeeded. A sizable crowd gathered in Cholmondeley’s the night of the screening. Directors, writers, actors and friends sat with apparent ease and familiarity as well as visible eagerness—this was one of the few student-run events I’ve ever been to that actually started on time. The first film, Still Alive, made clear that this was a very new BTV: this was one with different values, different motivations and a different intended audience. Directed, written and edited by Chris Lavery ’10, Dan Neal ’10 and Arun Narayanan ’10, it was filmed during Passover break and won the Best 48-Hour Film prize at this year’s IndieLouies film festival. Lavery stars as an unhinged man who discovers that he’s the only one immune to strange happenings around campus. As he wakes up one morning, he realizes that everyone he meets appears immobile and unresponsive, literally frozen into place. As the subject of an apparently momentous level of embarrassment and bullying by his peers, he greets this newly comatose world with joy and an emboldening sense of power, leading to some great visuals that drew laughter from the audience. Led by a visually promising and original storyline, Still Alive served as a jarring introduction to the set of student films, filled as it was not only with humor but also with a distinctly Lynchian sense of morbidity. Its frenetic pacing, disturbing content and consistent sense of impending horror engaged the audience on a level of suspense, while its stubborn refusal to offer any kind of explanation challenged viewers’ expectations. In addition to screening films, the evening also offered an opportunity for BTV to advertise trailers for upcoming TV shows, including Roomies and The Forsaken Road, in between films, mostly as humorous breaks. The second film, titled Quagmire, was written, directed and produced by Makensley Lordeus ’11, who also starred in it with Angcon “AP” Podder ’10, Mahpuja Sultana (an off-campus actor), Alie Tawah ’11, Darlene Zephyrine ’12 and Xu Zhang ’10, and was shot the previous week in just 24 hours. Zhang plays an unscrupulous bro who takes advantage of Zephyrine’s drunken state, only to be confronted by his angry girlfriend the next morning. Five weeks later, something not entirely unexpected happens, but the film manages to retain its light and satirical turn with a surprise ending, which prevented it from ending up as the cliché I had feared it would. Although not as challenging in subject matter as the previous film, Quagmire was entertaining, endearing and a great example of what students can achieve with just 24 hours on their hands. The third film, Art and Jealousy,
was written and directed by Leanne Ortbals ’12 as her debut film, marking the first year she has been involved with BTV. The film was co-edited and co-produced by Emily Salloway ’13 and starred Hillary Crum ’13 and off-campus actress Holly Travis. Crum plays a young art student who realizes her feelings for her female art professor. Of all the films, I thought this was perhaps the most consistently beautiful and best shot—various stills of the movie would have served as excellent examples of well-crafted, visually satisfying scenes. Although the storyline was very basic, great care was taken with the characters to make them empathetic, and the movie provided a solid and conclusive structure. In an interview with Ortbals after the show, she described it as an “amazing experience” and said, “Now I just want to make another one!” As multiple BTV veterans confirmed in conversation with me, the last film of the night, Pinch Me, a 22-minute epic, served as a culmination of sorts not only for the evening but for their time at BTV. Armed with professional equipment, adult actors hired from outside Brandeis and a complex premise, writer and editor Narayanan and directors Lavery and Avi Swerdlow ’10 allowed the story to unfold at a leisurely pace, providing various hints that would upend audience assumptions. Pinch Me begins with a typical office drone, John (Tyler Peck), who stumbles from sleepy contentment with his girlfriend Ash (Katie McRell) to the omnipresent murmur of the radio, only to waste time at work with an unsympathetic boss and vague, if deathly boring, commitments. What makes Pinch Me such a rewarding experience to watch is the details. It does not seem like a student movie. The great sound editing, subtle visuals and unhurried plot indicated the directorial desire to tell a story carefully and deliberately. In particular, I thought the sound elements were superb—the crinkle of a bagel placed on a paper bag, a printer shooting out sheets of paper with crisp rapidity, even the slow motion of a zipper notched upward—all indicated a true regard for detail. Pinch Me was a substantial step forward on many levels from previous BTV productions—the script was solid, the acting realistic and convincing and the editing professionally unobtrusive; it simply seemed like an expensive production with a great deal of thought and time invested. Swerdlow, president of BTV, declared, “In our freshman year, this could not have happened.” The resources and combined experience of its members simply weren’t there at that time. BTV may be known as the university’s student-run television station that trains students in production, but the overall quality of the films screened indicated that its strengths lie in more than just TV programming. One caveat: I do think that generally speaking, the technical aspects of the films—direction and editing—seemed to exceed the quality of the screenplays. It would be great if BTV were able to take on more challenging scripts in their production. However, the involvement of underclassmen despite the near-uniformity of seniors on the executive board indicates a growing presence on campus, suggesting no shortage of creativity for next year. If you ever worry about the current state of the arts at Brandeis, BTV should provide some measure of reassurance that it is indeed thriving.
DAVID SHEPPARD-BRICK/the Justice
SECRET LOVERS: Actors Daniel Liebman ’12 and Dani Gurfinkel ’13 play lovers Gallimard and Liling in the play ‘M. Butterfly’.
Actors soar in ‘M. Butterfly’ ■ Strong character acting and marvelous set design complemented the tale. By ELLY KALFUS JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
“Why, in Chinese theater, are women always played by men? Because only men know how women should act.” As Song Liling (Dani Gurfinkel ’13) tells us, gender roles are not always clearly defined. M. Butterfly is a show fraught with confusion and deception that culminates in the question of what it means to be in love. Beautifully portrayed by the Brandeis Players, directed by Aaron Arbiter ’10 and produced by Asya Bashina ’12, it tells the tragic story of Rene Gallimard and Song Liling. The story of M. Butterfly is likely familiar to most audience members since it is an adaptation of the Italian opera Madame Butterfly, in itself a spinoff of the musical Miss Saigon. The play, written by David Henry Hwang in 1988, was inspired by the true story of Mr. Bouriscot and Mr. Shi, two men who were put in jail for treason against the Chinese government in 1986. Although the two men were together for 20 years, Mr. Bouriscot claimed he had not known that Mr. Shi was a man, due to his disguise as a Peking opera singer, provoking great disbelief throughout the world. M. Butterfly takes these two men’s relationship even further, exploring the boundaries of love and explaining the ambiguities of their romance. Before the play even begins, Rene Gallimard, played by Daniel Liebman ’12, draws the audience’s attention by sitting downstage, staring off to the side as if in deep thought. Gallimard then proceeds to address the audience, explaining sardonically that he is being held in a French prison. He then takes the audience through his memories, tracing the path he took to get to the jail. We follow him to the first time he met Song Liling, the man whom he came to call Butterfly. Gallimard, a French civil servant, is a guest at an ambassador’s party when he encounters Song, who is performing as the
title character in the opera Madame Butterfly. Mistaking Song for a woman because of his costume, Gallimard proceeds to flirt with Song, soon becoming enamored of him. Gallimard, a man who never found love in his Western life and is trapped in a loveless marriage, is intrigued by Song’s Chinese ways and lives out his fantasy of having a submissive Chinese mistress over whom he has complete power. The dynamic relationship between Gallimard and Song (Liebman and Gurfinkel) is a pleasure to watch, and the two convey a feeling of passionate, controlling and yet tender love quite convincingly. Gallimard becomes more and more preoccupied with testing the limits of his control over his seemingly subservient mistress, while unbeknownst to him and to the audience as well, Song exerts control over him as well. In an interruption from Gallimard’s retrospective narrative, Song reveals that he is acting as a spy for the Communist Chinese government, seducing Gallimard in order to uncover classified information. However, Gallimard does not become aware of this betrayal until 20 years have passed and their relationship has progressed to the point that Song presents him with a son whom he claims to have borne. In the end, the Chinese government punishes Song for disloyalty to the country when they discover he has been engaging in homosexual acts with Gallimard, and for enjoying the luxuries of being an actor while his peers labor all day in the fields with little to show for it. He is sent to a re-education camp and then told to return to Gallimard in order to get more information from him. Gallimard is put on trial for treason against the French government and Song testifies against him in court. He states that Gallimard passed on information about the French government to him although he cannot answer when he is asked whether Gallimard knew at any time what he was doing, or whether he was aware of Song’s gender. In the final scene, after Song strips naked for Gallimard, admitting what Gallimard has suspected all along, that Song is a man, Gallimard rejects Song, claiming he doesn’t love him but loves Butterfly, his ideal woman, who exists only his
mind now, and stabs himself, choosing fantasy over reality. The stage, with a minimal set of Chinese screens along the background and sides, and a few pieces of furniture, increases the tension we feel at seeing Gallimard alone onstage, speaking directly to us. The hugeness of the space was apparent, as well as the clash between old-world Asian culture and new-world imperialist European culture, brought to life by the juxtaposition of furniture and the set. The costumes added to the realism of the show as well, giving it a very authentic feel and staying with the theme of the clash of cultures. The moving story is told mostly from the point of view of the jailed Gallimard with interjections from Song and his colleague, Comrade Chin (Cathy Messier ’12). The entire cast does a great job of establishing characters and conveying the theme of the feuding old and new world cultures, with a great distinction between Gallimard’s European friends and colleagues (Bryan Belok ’12, Leila Stricker ’13 and Adam Patterson ’11) and the Asian characters (Messier, Rishika Assomull ’13 and Jessi Fixsen ’12). Gurfinkel presents an intriguing, disturbing view of Song, the calculating, deceptive man who remains aloof throughout. Praise must also be given to Fixsen’s portrayal of Helga, Gallimard’s wife, who embodies the well-todo politician’s wife and puts up with Gallimard despite the horrible, neglectful way he treats her. Another actor who brings great life to his character is Patterson, who plays M. Toulon, Gallimard’s laughably pompous and insensitive boss, among other roles. Liebman shines as Gallimard, carrying the show through his portrayal of Gallimard’s multiple facets; he is at all times the awkward, insecure little boy of his childhood, the suave womanizer, the cruel sadist and the unwitting fool. Liebman does a terrific job throughout, and so the ending, when he takes his own life and transforms himself into the Butterfly, putting on Song’s wig and traditional Chinese performance makeup, is entirely moving and true to character. Editor’s note: Rishika Assomull is an illustrator for the Justice.
MUSIC
VoiceMale and Starving Artists achieve national a cappella honors ■ On-campus a cappella
groups receive recognition for performance excellence. By BRYAN FLATT JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Most schools tend to have one big activity that is dominant on campus. For many colleges that activity is sports, for others it is theater, but for Brandeis it is a cappella. With 10 groups on campus (and the number expanding each year) there certainly is no shortage of instrument-free fun for performers and listeners alike to enjoy. Just like col-
lege football and basketball playoffs, there are opportunities for Brandeis’ vocal groups to compete on a national level. For Starving Artists, getting picked to compete on such a high level was a huge honor, but to advance to the level they did was an even greater reward. Nicole Izbicky ’11, a member of Starving Artists, recounts the group’s experience, saying, “It all started with an application we sent in. We were required to send in a CD of three songs completely unedited. A month or so after sending in the application, we were informed that we had been picked to compete in the quarterfinals, and that this year had one of the highest
number of applicants ever.” They performed in the quarterfinals at Wellesley College on Feb. 27 against six other schools and came in second place, with vocalist Ross Brown ’10 winning the Outstanding Vocal Percussion award for the song “Angels.” Coming off this momentum, the group went to the semifinals at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to perform the same set that brought them to that round. While they did not reach the top three places required to advance, Izbicky said, “We are extremely proud of ourselves and we did reach our goal of advancing from quarterfinals to semifinals. … The whole thing was a great learning experience for us,
[and] we were performing to our highest possible standard. That really brought us together as a group.” Starving Artists was not the only group to have a shot at national a cappella glory. VoiceMale, an all- male a cappella group, was recently honored with four nominations for the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards, including Best Male Collegiate Album, Best Male Scholastic Original Song, Best Male Collegiate Song (nominated for the second year in a row for the song “Where’s the Love”) and Best Male Collegiate Solo (also a second consecutive nomination). In each category, only five groups are nominated, so to be selected for multiple categories
is testament to the group’s talent. The group won Best Scholastic Original Song for their song “Time (Bring it On)” and runner-up for Adam Levine’s ’11 solo on “Lately” in the Best Male Collegiate Solo category—all the more impressive because the nomination is such a huge honor. With so many groups, it is easy to get lost in the basses, altos and tenors, but it is great to see a school like Brandeis, which prides itself on its small size, continue to flourish on a nationally recognized level. While we will almost certainly never have a Division I football title, many students would prefer a strong placing in ICCAs and a great finish at the CARAs any day.
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JULIAN AGIN-LIEBES/the Justice
SOURCES: “I start working from fossils. They’re my starting point, and then they evolve from there,” said Kelsey Elverum, whose work is pictured above. “The only way that you can actually be successful in this program is do it a little bit without thinking.”
JULIAN AGIN-LIEBES/the Justice
EXPLORING SEXUALITY: “I’m exploring in my paintings ... the movement of bodies and sexuality and how sexuality is closeted,” said Nichole Speciale ’09, above. “I was an undergraduate here, and originally I was doing both chemistry and art with plans to go into art conservation, which I haven’t necessarily given up yet. ... [The post-bac program] is my little taste of art school.”
Expressive art By ANDREA FINEMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
Brandeis’ graduate students in studio art will show off the fruits of their labor beginning tomorrow with “Prospect II”, an art exhibition in the Dreitzer Gallery at the Spingold Theater Center. The show, which is the second installment of a two-part se-
ries of exhibitions, replaces “Prospect I”, which closed yesterday. The exhibition will feature the work of Maria Alvarez, Jean-Jacques du Plessis, Kelsey Elverum, Mathiew Greenfield, Jonathan Kindness ’09, Molly Ledbetter, Erin O’Leary and Nichole Speciale ’09, all students in the post-baccalaureate program in studio art. The program hosts art students at varying points in their
careers—many students enroll in the program for one or two years between their undergraduate studies and moving on to a higher degree in studio art. Organized by Prof. Sean Downey (FA), “Prospect II” will open with a reception tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. and runs through Sunday, May 2. —Julian Agin-Liebes contributed reporting.
JULIAN AGIN-LIEBES/the Justice
MIXED MATERIALS: “I like to draw on things; I just find myself wanting to mark things a lot,” said Molly Ledbetter, whose work is pictured above. “I like materials,” she continued, “I like figuring out how to use something exactly how I want it.”
JULIAN AGIN-LIEBES/the Justice JULIAN AGIN-LIEBES/the Justice
ABSTRACTION: Erin O’Leary’s work in the Prospect II show, above, consists mainly of abstract paintings in a variety of color palettes.
RENEWAL: Jonathan Kindness ’09 “used to be a painter, but I started moving toward these big installations and drawing from the installations and working from that, and I started writing and coming up with this story that went along with everything.”
THE JUSTICE
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
Fashion springs eternal
Sunny days return, bringing bright trends pring’s here—kind of—and Brandeis students have been waiting to display their spring fashions. The weather, however, has been a bit temperamental and has forced Brandeisians to incorporate a bit of fall fashion into their spring outfits. While the white tents of New York’s Fashion Week came down back in February, the trends showcased in them are hitting our campus now. Bright flowing tops and dresses were very popular with designers, who accentuated their outfits with oversized belts. The trendsetters sported colorful maxi dresses as well as chic and sleek angelic ruffles, creating pseudo-spring outfits which could be categorized as “hippie-preppy.” Also at Fashion Week, BCBG’s models wore “balloon” skirts that swathed the female curvature—a look that some of our own Brandeis women have employed. Blue is back this season for both men and women. Nautical trends from nearby Cape Cod have made their way to the runways of New York in collections like those of Kate Moss and Karen Walker. Annifreed Sinjour’s ’13 striped polo paired with white shorts is a perfect example. The fashion-forward Brandeis female can be seen in striped shirts, sailor shorts and boat
S
shoes as modeled by Rachel Miller ’13 (far right), who also highlights the revamped jean look of the spring season. Designers such as Ralph Lauren lined the runways with cuffed and roughed jeans, but denim this season is in no way exclusive to pants. Some Brandeis men, like Julian Olidort ’11 (top center), sport the classic jean jacket, while others, like David Robles ’13 (top left), prefer rolled-up denim pants with a cardigan sweater. So while spring this year has been a bit temperamental, Brandeis students have easily acclimated to the changes and are producing some very creative, comfortable and unique looks. Boldly printed scarves by Rodarte, similar to the one shown on Jiyun Li ’11 (top right), and blazers for both men and women by Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren also made their way down the runway. Ankle boots are also sticking around, with the combination of leggings or tights underneath shorts as seen on Mariam Akbar ’11 (above).The fashions have hints of both fall and spring, which together have created a distinctive style of clothing which could easily be deemed “the Brandeis look.”
—Robyn Spector and Jessica Christian
Photos by Robyn Spector and Jessica Christian ■ the Justice
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CATWALK FASHIONISTAS
FILM
Cornwell comes to Deis ■ Patricia Cornwell spoke
at a screening of a film based on her novel. By ROCKY REICHMAN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
ROBYN SPECTOR/the Justice
SPORTING SNEAKERS: Original designs of items like shoes and lingerie were creatively modeled during the SKIN fashion show.
Students strut in SKIN ■ In the fun annual fashion
show, student models showed great confidence. By JULIA JERUSALMI JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The pre-frosh sitting next to me couldn’t stop his mouth from dropping open in awe as a parade of lingerie-clad girls scampered down the runway. “So,” his first-year host asked him with a sly grin, “think you wanna to come to Brandeis next year?” SKIN, the highly anticipated fashion show that the Brandeis Asian American Student Association puts on once a year was in full swing, and the answer was yes, the pre-frosh was definitely choosing Brandeis. The SKIN fashion show is a part of the month-long celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and its goal is to demonstrate the talents of Asian American designers while celebrating diversity by using student models from different races and ethnicities. All of the proceeds of the night were donated to The Hunger Project, a non-profit organization striving to end world hunger by implementing programs that encourage people to lead more self-reliant lives. Though these are all important and serious goals, the SKIN fashion show was
anything but serious. Gorgeous Brandeis students sashayed down the catwalk to the pulsing beats of electronic hip-hop, some with more skill than others, but all with an excellent sense of fun. Cat calls such as “Take it off!” and “Ow oww!” could be heard from the enthusiastic crowd, which only further encouraged the already confident models. The clothing displayed ranged from casual wear, to formalwear and lingerie, with additional accessories such as sneakers designed by the talented Ari Tretin ’12. Though the exaggerated hair and makeup that the models wore was extremely high-fashion, most of the clothing was both stylish and wearable. Students modeled colorful cropped jackets, bright bubble dresses, impossibly high heels and beautiful scarves and ties by designer Rachel Park. One of the most surprising aspects of the event was how blatantly sexual it was. Male models walked shirtless with lipstick marks on their necks and knowing grins on their faces that practically screamed, “I know I’m sexy!” Meanwhile, the female models strutted down in lingerie that was so risqué it made me, an avid Cosmopolitan reader who doesn’t color easily, blush! Still, it was very entertaining watching the models pout, kiss and wink their way down the aisle, pulling scarves out of their bras and at one point even pulling underwear out of
a pair of cargo shorts. I wondered if my Jewish Orthodox background (where in high school I would have been sent home if I wore a skirt above my knees) might have affected how surprised I was; but guessing by the looks of shock and delight in the crowd, I wasn’t alone. Though the event itself wasn’t a complete success, (the crowd was sparse, at points the models looked like they didn’t know what they should be doing and there were long interludes where the crowd was left staring at a blank runway) it was still a very fun show to watch, and by the looks of it, a very fun show to be a part of. During the longer intermissions, the crowd was entertained by two amazing dance performances: one artistic number performed to Jason Mraz’s “Details in the Fabric” by Nika Vizcarra ’10 and one entertaining hip-hop performance by Brandeis dance troupe Kaos Kids. But the real entertainment stemmed from watching your friends and that hot guy you always stare at in math class be transformed into models. For a school that is notorious for having unattractive students (ever hear the term “Brandeis Goggles”?) SKIN proved that Brandeis is hotter than people think. Coordinator Stephanie Lau ’11 perfectly sums it up, stating, “There are confident, attractive people at Brandeis who know how to work a catwalk!”
Patricia Cornwell is one of the most popular crime writers in the world, but until recently no one had ever adapted any of her works to film. That is, until Emmy awardwinning Brandeis alumnus Stan Brooks ’79 and his partner Jim Head took a stab at it with Cornwell’s novel The Front. A screening of The Front in Wasserman Cinemateque was sponsored by the interdisciplinary program in Film, Television and Interactive Media with the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fund and coordinated and organized by Prof. Alice Kelikian (HIST). According to Kelikian, “Patricia Cornwell stands as the 21st-century heir to the tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. That Brandeis is hosting the first screen adaptation of her work, a film produced by a distinguished Emmy-winning alumnus, gives the event tonight a particular importance.” The Front follows the story of Massachusetts State Police Investigator Win Garano (Daniel Sunjata), a smooth, strapping veteran cop in Boston, a perfect setting given the location of the screening. Garano is reluctantly recruited by District Attorney Monique Lamon (Andie MacDowell) to solve a 20-year-old cold case. Partnered with fiery personality Sykes (Annabeth Gish), the two officers join forces when another murder occurs, this one an exact copycat of the cold case. Pursuing a murderer who always appears to be two steps ahead of the detectives, Win and Monique have to figure out who the murderer is, what he is after and who will be his next target. The Front succeeded in creating powerful effect without big explosions or excessive violence. (There was plenty of romance, though.) Conflict and tension excited the contrasts and traits of the characters, and the movie moved at a quick pace with a few cliffhangers that even Dan Brown would be proud of. Although the plot tended to jump too quickly between steps in the story, the film climaxed without error. The film always risked becoming predictable at times, and at at least two points throughout the film characters performed actions that did not seem believable given the traits they were originally endowed with. Despite this, the movie built up logically, and ultimately its powerful performances overcame any unbelievable qualities. One of Cornwell’s inspirations for a character named “Nana” in The Front was in the audience. This reporter had the privilege of meeting with this curious charac-
ter, a woman that bore an incredibly strong resemblance to the character named after her. She grabbed my hand, mulled over something in her mind, and then proceeded to produce a prophecy for me, saying that everything I needed to accomplish “would be in six years.” She then prophesized it would have something to do with the event’s guests, most notably Stan Brooks’ co-producer Jim Head, who was sitting close by us. One question that filled many people’s minds was, “why the long wait?” As Patricia Cornwell puts it, there were many times prior to The Front where producers had optioned her book and tried to adapt it into a movie. But this was the first successful adaptation. Cornwell’s books are known for their impeccable research and excruciatingly accurate details. The author is a self-made literatus who learned about crime the hard way. She covered the police beat for the Charlotte Observer. She also worked as a computer analyst and technical writer at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Va. And she did all of this before becoming a published author. In an interview with the Justice, Cornwell advised aspiring novelists and other people to “go out and experience things.” When asked for advice for writers, her response was simply to tell them to write. Cornwell herself says she never plans her stories and does not always know how they will end. Cornwell is a model not only for her forensic knowledge and writing accomplishments, but because she does not take “no” for an answer. She told the Justice when she first started out at The Charlotte Observer, they had her updating their television logs. So what did she do? “I would go in every morning at 4 a.m., and by noon I would be finished with my eight hours of updating the TV magazine, and then I’d spend the rest of the afternoon going to every newsdesk begging for stories nobody wanted to write.” Equally notable is Brooks’ advice. When speaking to the Justice, he emphasized the importance of a broad liberal arts education and how it helped him succeed. Brooks spoke about his work as head of student programs as being the “perfect training” for working in the film industry. Back then, said Brooks, the closest thing Brandeis had for students interested in film was American Studies. Brooks’ partner, Jim Head, is a screenwriter and said that how “content will always be king,” and the story is ultimately what makes a project success. When asked how it felt to have her book made into a movie, Cornwell responded, “it’s really an overwhelming experience; it’s surreal. It’s so strange when you see something you did, and suddenly it’s acted out in front of you and it makes it so big.”
FILM
IndieLouies debut with abundance of amateur films ■ Screenings spanning an
entire weekend composed the new student film festival. By WEI-HUAN CHEN and ALEX DESILVA JUSTICE STAFF WRITERS
Last weekend marked the first annual student-run film festival IndieLouies, which ran over the course of two days. Organized by the Brandeis Film Collective, the festival came into being as a response to administrative changes to this spring’s SunDeis. According to the festival’s Web site, the main goal of IndieLouies “is to have fun and to bring the student film community closer together.” For the first day, seven of the longer offerings (each were 20 to 30 minutes in length) were screened at Schwartz Auditorium. One standout was Aiden Own, by Ben Harel ’12. Arun Narayanan ’10 plays Aiden, a struggling single young man who meets a former love interest. The film was named Best Film and also received a
Best Cinematography award at the awards ceremony on Sunday. AnnaBelle Lee, credited to Ilan Amouyal ’11, Kelly J. Frydman ’11, Angcon Podder ’10 and Stephen Robinson ’11, is a disjointed portrait of a man following an ex-girlfriend through a dream world, shot in large part in black and white and reverse motion. The film earned a Best Editing award. The team submitted another film, Severance, one of the few offerings in the horror genre. In the film, a man known as the “Craigslist killer” has the tables turned against him when the sister of one of his victims takes revenge in his own house. Then there was the zombie-thriller inspired The End, filmed by a group of students called Old Smoky’s Rebellion. It was created for the 48-Hour Film Contest, where students are given a line, a prop and a character to incorporate into a film in the span of two days. One of the highlights of IndieLouies was a performance by comedy duo BriTANick, which consists of Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher. You may know them from their viral video spoof
“Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer,” which has received about 3 million views combined. They began their show at a tightly packed Cholmondeley’s with an assortment of hilarious live sketches, one of which featured Kocher making a lap around the coffeehouse while half-improvising a variety of ridiculous characters. Besides live performances, there were also screenings of their comedy shorts, one of which was McElhaney’s senior thesis for NYU, “Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses.” To close, each gave an impressive stand-up comedy routine and even involved some Brandeis students in a slow-motion epic choreographed fight. Following BriTANick, the second day of screenings began with ParaDeis Lost and The Maltese Dodo, both from Anthony Scibelli ’09. The latter was named Best Comedy. Following this was Best Screenplay winner Park Pros, from Misha Sundukovskiy, a student at NYU, which told the story of an ambitious parking attendant trying to romance his high-powered businesswoman customer while trying
to get along with his foul-mouthed, unhinged and ridiculously duty-bound boss. The comedies continued with Sherman Shopping and Still Alive, the winning 48-Hour Film Contest entry, comically chronicling the only mobile person on campus after a virus leaves everyone frozen. This was followed by Michael J. Gomez’s dramatic off-campus submission Eulogy, concerning a man who must deliver his father’s eulogy after years of avoiding him. For their work on the film, Gomez and actor Stephen Radochia won Best Director and Best Actor, respectively. There was also a profusion of art films at the Saturday screenings. The Secret is Free From Prudishness was a sexual look at self-mutilation. Actress Kacie Leblong received Best Actress for her performance in the movie. Director Kelly Brannon (also not a Brandeis student) screened two deeply personal films: Fusion, a monologue inter-cut with interviews with truckers with whom Brannon hitchhiked, and Stories of My Friend: Ron, a narrative look at a friend’s arrest and eventual suicide. Among the fascinating movies pres-
ent were the two “true life” films presented on the second day of the festival. The first, Everybody Has Their Miracle, was a more traditional documentary. Shot in Buenos Aires, it looks at the use of religion as business in the forms of Santeria shops, street vendors and even a Holy Land theme park, with the mix of faith and commerce cumulating in the Día de San Cayetano festival. It was named Best Documentary of the festival. The second movie, The Fens, was much less traditional. Entirely filmed from inside a guitar, it records director Erica Russo as she meets people and plays her guitar in the park. Though short, it made for an entertaining concept, with charming results as Russo meets and sings with random passersby. The Fens picked up Best Sound and Best “Artsy” Film. Following the screening was an awards ceremony hosted by Scibelli and the festival’s organizers. On top of the previously mentioned honorees, Best Animation was given to An Exercise in Subtlety, which due to technical problems was not able to be screened at the festival.
THE JUSTICE
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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OFF CAMPUS MUSIC
BROADWAY IN BOSTON
Owen Pallett to bring violin, vocals to ICA ■ Indie rocker Owen Pallett
will perform songs from his instrumentally solid song catalogue at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston on Tuesday. By ANDREA FINEMAN JUSTICE EDITOR
PHOTO COURTESY OF G CREATIVE
FEROCIOUS FELINES: The musical ‘CATS,’ arriving in Boston this week, is known for its high-energy musical numbers.
‘CATS’ out of the bag ■ Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
musical ‘CATS’ is coming to Boston’s Colonial Theater this week with its uniquely talented mix of young and veteran cast members. By BRYAN PRYWES JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
“Memory, all alone in the moonlight!” Anyone who is the slightest bit familiar with musical theater is sure to know these famous lyrics: They are, of course, from the song “Memory” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical CATS. The musical is based on the book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot and is the winner of seven Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards (London’s equivalent to the Tony Awards), held the title of longest-running show on Broadway until 2006 and still holds the title for longest running show in London. That’s quite a list of accomplishments. And now, this award-winning, record-breaking production is opening tonight at Boston’s Colonial Theatre for a quick one-week engagement that you are sure not to want to miss.
Billed as “The longest running, most popular North American Touring Production in history,” the show has been dazzling audiences of all ages since the early eighties and has not stopped since. No other show has adhered so strictly to the original production, managing to thrill audiences for decades since its initial opening on Broadway on Oct. 7, 1982 without changing its original director (Trevor Nunn), designers (John Napier & David Hershey) or choreographer (Gillian Lynne). What is unique to this particular tour is the amount of talented young actors fresh out of college and high school, though it is not short of high-quality, seasoned professionals. Broadway Across America, the production company responsible for booking the tour, is renowned for bringing Broadway shows to cities that may not otherwise have an opportunity to host the musicals and occasionally also staging plays of New York’s Broadway District. With this production, because it has not changed hands over time, it is as if the audience is seeing the same production that originated almost three decades ago. CATS brings the audience down to the level of mere alley cats set in
a larger-than-life junkyard. When the show begins, the Jellicle Cats, the main focus of the show, come out to celebrate the Jellicle Ball, inviting their new audience companions to join them in celebration. Focusing on the untold stories of the lives of street cats, this show is sure to have you feeling for them one minute and singing along the next. The show is composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the master of some of Broadway’s catchiest tunes from some of Broadway’s most famous shows, including Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and, of course, The Phantom of the Opera (the current record holder for longest running Broadway show). With music written by such a stellar composer, CATS is sure to be a memorable performance for all who attend. The show runs from tonight until Sunday. Student rush tickets may be available one hour prior to the performance on the day of the show, depending on availability. CATS has been seen by millions of people throughout the world. Now, isn’t it time you go down to Boston’s Colonial Theater to see what all the fuss is about?
It’s easy to draw parallels between Owen Pallett, the singer and violinist who formerly performed under the stage name Final Fantasy, and other popular indie musicians and bands. Pallett first gained recognition for arranging the strings on Arcade Fire’s breakout 2004 album, Funeral . He has a live performance style that incorporates violin, vocals and electronic loop pedal (a Yak-Bak-like device that allows performers to play a short passage and then repeat it while layering new passages over the original passage), quite similar to Andrew Bird, another violin-playing singer. Pallett has often discussed his love for the band Xiu Xiu, an art rock band led by singer/songwriter Jamie Stewart, a musician who, like Pallett, incorporates homosexual themes into much of his music. It’s hard to really get at Pallett’s work with these verbal comparisons, however. As one might expect given the stage name he discarded this past December, Pallett’s music is filled with imagery from the world of video games. References to the Legend of Zelda series and, of course, the Final Fantasy series litter his lyrics. In “Illusion Song,” a live favorite that resurfaced as the title track to Pallett’s 2006 album He Poos Clouds , Pallett sings: “Gotta fulfill the seven prophecies/ Gotta take care of my grandmother/ Gotta rescue Michael from the White Witch/ Gotta find and kill my shadow self/ Gotta dig up every secret seashell.” Listeners might catch the references to C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia (“the White Witch”) and the Nintendo Game Boy title The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (“secret seashell”); this sort of thing is par for the course with Pallett’s music. It’s no surprise that Pallett’s stage name, which he gave up because of copyright disputes, would be the title of a cultishly popular fantastical role-playing game. I’m
certainly happy to see Pallett lose the videogame mask, even if his game-obsessed youth still inspires much of his music. The theatrical, wispy vocals and videogame lyrics belie Pallett’s age and experience—at 30 years old, Pallett’s first album, Has a Good Home , was released in 2005. Since then, he’s released a second and a third album (January’s Heartland), performed with orchestras and contributed instrumental arrangements to albums like Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House (2006), Beirut’s The Flying Club Cup (2007) and the Mountain Goats’ The Life of the World to Come (2009). Though a collaboration between an indie musician and an orchestra may seem contrived when it comes to some rock stars, Pallett’s background in string arrangement and violin performance (he studied classical violin for much of his childhood) makes him an ideal bridge between the indie realm and the world of classical music. This coming Tuesday, Pallett will perform at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Snowblink, a folky Canadian band, will open. (The online events magazine Flavorpill.com offered a description of the group, saying, “As Snowblink, songbird Daniela Gesundheit makes hushed and eerily gorgeous music with a rotating cast of musicians, backup singers, and assorted whisperers.”) Some concertgoers may be put off by Pallett’s somewhat infantile fantasy novel lyrics; his skills as a musician and composer make up for poetic weaknesses. And though it may not be the avant-garde parlor trick it once was, the use of live tape loops is truly fascinating to watch. If you have $18 and some free time on Tuesday night, the ICA will be the place to be. If you’re like me, you may be tired of arriving early to standing-room-only rock clubs like the Paradise Rock Club in Boston in order to get a good spot, then suffering through a dull opener on your feet with dozens of fellow concertgoers crowded around. The ICA, whose current building was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and completed in 2006, has a beautiful auditorium with glass curtain walls along two sides cantilevered over the harbor. Most importantly, although the show is general admission, the auditorium is seated.
BALLET
Graceful choreography enhances ‘Coppélia’ ■ Boston Ballet created a
light but fulfilling production of the work choreographed by George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova. By SUJIN SHIN JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
The enjoyment of the ballet Coppélia begins with the venue. The Boston Opera House is a beautiful and lofted hall with white stone carvings and a color theme incorporating rich reds and golds. One understands that he or she is going to be watching the elite; the Boston Ballet is one of the largest ballet companies in the world, and only the top dancers are invited to perform here. Coppélia story begins in Galicia with the introduction of the two main characters: Frantz, a village swain, and Swanhilde, a young girl who loves him. Frantz spots a beautiful and lifelike doll on the balcony of Dr. Coppélius’ study and falls in
love with it. Swanhilde, jealous of Frantz’s attention to the doll, decides to enter Coppélius’ home and discover for herself what the doll, named Coppélia, had that so entranced Frantz in the first place. Coppélius re-enters his study a little after Swanhilde finds the doll, but as he enters, she hides and discreetly switches places with Coppélia. Frantz also enters Coppélius’ study through the balcony but then is drugged by Coppélius with a potion. Coppélius then brings out the now-transformed Swanhilde and tries to steal essence from the unconscious Frantz, thinking that his Coppélia would come to life. Suddenly, Coppélia (now Swanhilde) springs up, and after Frantz awakes from his slumber, they leave together. The doctor is left a broken man, finding that Coppélia really was not alive but is just an empty husk. Then the two lovers celebrate the Festival of the Bells with the rest of the town and are married by the burgomeister. The ballet ends with a great finale in which all the residents of the town
come out in joyous celebration to dance and make merry. Coppélia is borne on the tiny shoulders of Misa Kuranaga, a principal dancer from Osaka; seemingly lighter than air, she weightlessly captures the spirit of Coppélia in every leap and pose. And she gracefully transitions from charming and clever girl to poised and elegant woman with the rise of the third act curtain. Complementing the small and light Kuranaga is the solid and statuesque Nelson Madrigal. Confident and strong, his carriage is more substantial but still unforced in his execution. Boyko Dossev’s Dr. Coppélius is funny, slightly menacing and a definitive character of the ballet. His exaggerated animation made his every moment on stage one of laughter. The perception of the music of Coppélia is influenced greatly by its genre of performance. As a ballet is slightly less demanding of a viewer (one doesn’t have to wade through the affected syllables and vowels of an opera singer or strive to glean sig-
nificant dialogue), the music takes a backseat to the dancers. But in no means does it become a soundtrack. Its orchestration is sensitively attuned to the emotions and moods of what was happening on the stage, and the marriage between the choreography and the music itself is one of real artistic symbiosis. The choreography evolves gracefully with the storyline as well. Act I is marked by great joyous group dances and cheerful, leaping pieces. Act II, inside Dr. Coppélius’ studio, is marked by a decidedly smaller performance area and therefore requires much more exaggeration in terms of emotional expression. In any other case, the combination of reduced dancing and increased cartoonisms would hurt the performance, sending it more towards tackiness than art. But choreographers George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilova understand that in the case of Coppélia, understating the emotions would create more foolishness than the alternative. This story is a fairytale, and to be presented as anything less would ruin
the lighthearted and fanciful feel of the tale. Keeping in stride with the fairytale like atmosphere of Charles Nitter’s book, the settings are in the style of European countryside cutouts. Each background of each act feels like an illustration in a children’s fable book and highlights the uplifting music, dance and lighting. The colors of both the backdrops and clothing are dazzlingly rich, almost to the point of gaudiness, but they aren’t unpleasant. Understanding that this ballet was adapted from stories written by E. T. A. Hoffman and that the source materials were whimsical in nature, the bright colors and lighting bring to mind a fable-like fantasy, perfect for Balanchine’s premise. Coppélia is lighthearted, fun and uplifting. A ballet of whimsicality and lighter-than-air dancing and music, it is enjoyable at every minute. Two-and-a-half hours seem to pass by in a flying instant and not once does one feel pressed into the seat with fatigue. Every minute of Coppélia is a quick-paced affair.
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TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2010
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THE JUSTICE
TOP of the
ARTS ON VIEW
TRIVIA TIME 1. In which U.S. state is the topsecret military facility known as Area 51 located? 2. What is the more common name for a contusion? 3. What is a group of turkeys called? 4. Who was the Green Hornet’s sidekick? 5. Who was the first president to fly in an airplane while in office? 6. What does the Russian term “perestroika” mean? 7. Which entertainer once said, “Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.” 8. What does the abbreviation D.D.S. stand for, professionally speaking? 9. Who designed the pyramidal addition to the Louvre Museum in Paris? 10. What is the Arabic equivalent of the Roman numerals DXC?
CHARTS Top 10s for the week ending April 13 BOX OFFICE 1. Date Night 2. Clash of the Titans 3. How to Train Your Dragon 4. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? 5. The Last Song 6. Alice In Wonderland 7. Hot Tub Time Machine 8. The Bounty Hunter 9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid 10. Letters to God
WBRS
RISHIKA ASSOMULL/the Justice
SPRINGLIKE SCENE: Painted for FA 103b: Intermediate Drawing, this watercolor landscape depicts the wooded area outside Goldman-Schwartz using a palette restricted to the colors purple and green.
1. Nevada 2. A bruise 3. A rafter 4. Kato 5. Franklin Delano Roosevelt 6. Restructuring 7. Will Rogers 8. Doctor of dental surgery 9. I.M. Pei 10. 590 ANSWERS
CROSSWORD
SHOWTIMES 4/16 - 4/23 Date Night Fri-Sun 1:50, 4:20, 6:30, 9 Mon-Thurs 2:50, 5:10, 8:20 The Runaways Fri-Sun 1:20, 4:00, 6:50, 9:30 Mon-Thurs 2:20, 4:50, 8:00 Clash of the Titans (2D) Fri-Sun 1:40, 4:20, 7:20, 9:45 Mon-Thurs 2:40, 5:10, 7:30 Greenberg Fri-Sun 1:30, 4:10, 7:10, 9:35 Mon-Thurs 2:30, 5, 8:10 Kick-Ass Fri-Sun 1:10, 3:50, 7, 9:40 Mon-Thurs 2:10, 5, 7:50 The Ghost Writer Fri-Sun 1, 3:40, 6:40, 9:25 Mon-Thurs 2:00, 4:50, 7:40
The Embassy is located at 18 Pine Street in Waltham
ACROSS 1. Chicago lyricist 4. Sailor’s septet? 8. Alpha follower 12. Sticky stuff 13. Radius companion 14. Congregant’s cry 15. Branch 16. Classic sitcom 18. Opening night 20. Moray, e.g. 21. Mineral-hardness scale name 24. Buzzing instrument 28. Simon & Garfunkel song 32. Carvey or Delany 33. Egg cells 34. Frighten 36. Ultimate, in a way 37. Allen and Conway 39. Uncle Sam’s claim 41. Use 43. Old dagger 44. Ball prop 46. Charlie Brown’s sister 50. Tony Martin hit 55. Nay undoer 56. Exceptional 57. Stare open-mouthed 58. Aries 59. Culture medium 60. Mongol tent 61. Trio from Cincinnati? DOWN 1. “Zounds!” 2. Drill 3. Flop on stage 4. The Bachelorette contestants 5. Blueprint add-on 6. “I’ll take that as —” 7. Rescue 8. Love song 9. Outback bird 10. Sleuth (Sl.) 11. Whatever number 17. “A mouse!” 19. Ms. Thurman 22. Kachina doll maker 23. Garbage barges
1. Phantogram – “Mouthful of Diamonds” 2. Grandpa Elliot – “Another Saturday Night” 3. Communist Daughter – “Speed of Sound” 4. Codeine Velvet Club – “Hollywood” 5. Erykah Badu – “Window Seat” 6. Shakura S’Aida – “Gonna Tell My Baby” 7. Johnny Moeller – “Well Goodbye Baby” 8. These New Puritans – “Three Thousand” 9. The Apples in Stereo – “No One in the World” 10. Local Natives – “Sun Hands”
COLLEGE RADIO 1. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach 2. Hot Chip – One Life Stand 3. Yeasayer – ODD BLOOD 4. Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me 5. Broken Bells – Broken Bells 6. Beach House – Teen Dream 7. Spoon – Transference 8. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor 9. Liars – Sisterworld 10. Vampire Weekend – Contra
BILLBOARD
25. Wild and crazy 26. Aware of 27. Waikiki locale 28. Greek vowel 29. Tel — 30. One of the Three Bears 31. Zen paradox 35. Israel’s legislature 38. Grandma, sometimes 40. Afternoon get-together 42. 27-Down souvenir 45. Nervous 47. Muse’s instrument 48. Slender 49. Thanksgiving veggies 50. George’s brother 51. Joke 52. Historic time 53. Water (Fr.)
54. Spring mo.
Album information provided by Billboard Magazine. Box office information provided by Yahoo! Movies. Radio charts provided by CMJ.
STAFF PLAYLIST
“Beyond words” By BRIAN FROMM JUSTICE EDITOR
Solution to last issue’s crossword.
King Crossword Copyright 2010 King Features Synd., Inc.
STRANGE BUT TRUE ■ It was French writer and film director Marguerite Duras who made the following observation: “I believe that always, or almost always, in all childhood and in all the lives that follow them, the mother represents madness. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.” In Colorado, it is illegal to mutilate a rock in a state park. Those who track radio statistics say that Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” is the mostrequested song in the United States—and this despite the fact that the song was never released as a single on this side of the Atlantic. If you use Listerine to freshen your breath, you might be interested to know that its original formula is 26.9 percent alcohol by volume—that comes out to 54-proof gargle. There are lots of sports fans out there, and a lot of sports to enjoy: football, basketball, soccer, base-
1. Usher – Raymond V Raymond 2. Justin Bieber – My World 2.0 3. Various Artists – NOW 33 4. Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh 5. Lady Antebellum – Need You Now 6. Monica – Still Standing 7. Alan Jackson – Freight Train 8. Justin Bieber – My World (EP) 9. Lady Gaga – The Fame 10. Black Eyed Peas – The E.N.D.
ball, hockey ... olive oil wrestling? OK, maybe there aren’t a lot of oiled wrestling events here in America, but in Turkey it’s the national sport. Kirkpinar, as it’s known there, has been popular since the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish town of Edirne has been hosting the annual tournament since 1361. It was in Kitchener, Ontario, in 2006 that the world’s largest smoothie was made. Over the course of 3 1/2 hours and using seven blenders, the folks there made a whopping 195 gallons of the fruity beverage. Thought for the Day: “Infatuation is when you think that he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen and as athletic as Jimmy Connors. Love is when you realize he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford—but you’ll take him anyway.” —Judith Viors
Today’s popular music revolves around the vocals, but I prefer music that focuses on instruments—and what better way to illustrate that than songs with no lyrics at all? These instrumentals, mostly metal and progressive rock, allow musicians to use their skills rather than hide behind a vocalist. “The Pot” actually does contain vocals, but I included it because the singer’s voice acts as an equal instrument in the mix, which makes for a pretty kickass song. THE LIST 1. Rush – “YYZ” 2. Metallica – “The Call of Ktulu” 3. Tool – “The Pot” 4. Liquid Tension Experiment – “When the Water Breaks” 5. Nine Inch Nails – “Just Like You Imagined” 6. Russian Circles – “Youngblood” 7. Dream Theater – “The Dance of Eternity” 8. Iron Maiden – “Genghis Khan” 9. The Fucking Champs – “I am the Album Cover” 10. Planet X – “Ignotus Per Ignotium”