The Brandeis Hoot 11/15/2019

Volume 16 Issue 23

“To acquire wisdom, one must observe” www.brandeishoot.com

November 15, 2019

Brandeis University’s Community Newspaper · Waltham, Mass.

Climate survey details misconduct, harassment

By Celia Young, Rachel Saal and Victoria Morrongiello editors and staff

KINDESS DAY 2019

PHOTO BY CELIA YOUNG/THE HOOT

Happy Kindness Day 2019!

Kendal Chapman ‘22 elected vice president

By Celia Young editor

The single vice presidential candidate running in Thursday’s special election, Kendal Chapman ’22, was elected last night by a vote of 120 in favor to 36 votes of no confidence. Seventy students wrote in other candidates and 10 abstained in the vote.

Chapman answered questions from both The Brandeis Hoot and the Justice on Tuesday evening in the Shapiro Campus Center Multi-Purpose Room. No members of the student body attended the debate.

“On the whole I’m very excited to get started,” said Chapman in an interview with The Hoot after her election. “I’m excited to meet with committee chairs… figure out what my style is going to be and just to get to know everyone.”

Chapman has served on both the Senate and the Executive Board, starting on the Student Union in her first year—experiences she said prepare her for the role of vice president, a position responsible for communicating between Union branches and presiding over Senate meetings.

Chapman said on Tuesday that

Inside This Issue:

she hopes to create accountability in the Senate, clarify senator responsibilities and change the student body’s perception of the Union. Chapman hopes to portray the Union as a resource to the Brandeis community by engaging in more outreach, like with Union social media pages.

“The Union is seen in a very negative light,” said Chapman, “They [the student body] doesn’t know what we’re doing and how we can help them.”

The vice presidency opened up after the previous vice president, Guillermo Caballero ’20, resigned effective Nov. 1. Caballero’s resignation came after he and Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Zosia Busé ’20 brought complaints against Student Union President Simran Tatuskar ’21 to the Student Union Judiciary, according to an earlier article by The Hoot.

Chapman also wants to encourage students to come to Senate meetings to help create accountability. She said that she recognizes that the Union has faced conflict between branches and members in the past, such as the recent judiciary case, and wants to improve communication to diminish conflict.

News: Union president apologizes Ops: On Brandeis food Features: Kindness Week at Brandeis Sports: Just keep swimming EDITORIAL: Thank you staff

Page 2 Page 9 Page 8 Page 6 Page 7

Brandeis released the results of its second ever campus climate survey on Thursday, which described respondents’ experiences with rape, sexual assault, harassment, intervention in those situations and reporting.

The survey asked 1,148 students—or about 22 percent of the student body—about their experiences with harassment, sexual misconduct, knowledge of how to report harassment or assault, sense of community, bystander intervention and confidence in Brandeis responding to a crisis.

“What the survey shows about sexual harassment and misconduct is disturbing and deeply troubling,” University President Ron Liebowitz wrote in an email to the Brandeis student body re-

leasing the 237 page report. “The results remind us that preventing sexual assault and supporting survivors requires the focused work of all of us… importantly, they show how those in our community who belong to groups who have historically experienced more violence in our society are more likely to experience sexual violence, and are less likely to report it.”

The survey details that while 158 undergraduates and 21 graduate students who completed the survey had been raped, only 13 percent of undergraduates formally reported the rape and the number of graduate students who formally reported was too low for the survey to say.

“I want people to be angry reading this report,” said Provost Lisa Lynch in an interview with The Brandeis Hoot. “This is a problem that everyone on this campus has to engage with.”

See CLIMATE, page 4

Univ. working to fundraise, increase donor pool

By Victoria Morrongiello staff

Senior Vice President of Institutional Advancement Zamira Korff is leading a new campaign for university fundraising to foster new generations of support for Brandeis’ budget. In the most recent faculty senate meeting on Nov. 1, Korff proposed that the university switch its targeted au-

FUNDRAISING AT BRANDEIS

Hackathon

dience to alumni, international relations—potential donors from abroad—and the next generation rather than being dependent on trustees for donations, as Brandeis has been in the past.

The university has a legacy of dependency on trustees, said Korff, which has been great, but has also become too much of a safety net.

“From the start to really to today, we had such a heavy reli-

ance on our founder’s friends and trustees that we failed to explore new opportunities, and we failed to engage our alumni,” said Korff in the faculty meeting.

Korff crafted a three-part plan which arranges the steps the university should take to foster a new generation of support. The first step is connecting with untapped cohorts and networks, said Korff,

Number of constituents as compared to number of donors

Big week for ’deis theater

Codestellation brings hackers to Brandeis.

Two shows, two reviews.

NEWS: PAGE 3

ARTS: PAGE 14

See FUNDRAISE, page 2

GRAPH BY VICTORIA MORRONGIELLO/THE HOOT

NEWS

2 The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

IN THE SENATE: Nov. 10, 2019

Fundraising expands past trustees FUNDRAISE, from page 1

which includes the university’s international relations, women and the next generation of alumni.

The university has tried connecting with these groups through events like the Women’s Leadership Network Program and programs which are expanding in the United Kingdom and China to reach out to international groups. The university is looking to expand on the momentum these groups have created in other locations, Korff said in an interview with The Brandeis Hoot.

The next part of Korff ’s plan is to engage the new generation and philanthropists who are inspired by the university’s distinct strengths, Korff said.

“People in this political environment in this world more than ever are so focused on what essentially is the ethos of Brandeis.

They think about how one does justice and scientific research and how those things come together,” said Korff.

The final part is to leverage the demographics of the university’s alumni base which provides the potential to attract and build up a more traditional base of supporters, said Korff. The university has to move away from our unique

means of fundraising through trustees and move toward a more sustainable, traditional model of fundraising by using our alumni resources.

Brandeis has over 200,000 constituents—a word Korff used to describe potential donors, which can be broken down into 60,000 alumni; 65,000 people affiliated with the Brandeis National Committee (BNC) (a group that was founded the same year as the university to provide financial support for Brandeis and its libraries); 50,000 friends and 25,000 parents.

Out of the 200,000 consitutients, 36,150, or about 18 percent, end up donating to the university. That includes 15,300 alumni, 13,150 BNC affiliates, 4,000 friends and 3,700 parents.

There’s a lot of opportunity in that framework, said Korff, because not all 200,000 prospects will become donors, but there is always opportunity to gain more.

“The essence of fundraising is not actually about the money; it’s about what the money is going to enable us to do,” said Korff.

Faculty members are critically important to fundraising, said Korff, because they help convey the essence of the university to funders and investors. Korff

wants the Institutional Advancement division to partner with faculty to further collaborate with programs such as “Faculty in the Field,” a program which has faculty routinely speak on behalf of the university at local, national and international events to engage donors and highlight the work of the university.

The university’s last fundraising peak was in 2011, according to Korff. Following the economic crisis, the university took a plunge with fundraising money.

In the post-economic crisis period nation-wide, giving to research universities increased by 34 percent, while giving to Brandeis had decreased by 19 percent. Since 2011, the university has not invested in another fundraising campaign until this plan.

“This [data] shows that our pipeline dried up overtime, and we didn’t rekindle our investment in new donors, which is what we are focusing to do right now,” said Korff.

Korff wants the university’s funds to be replenished through the engagement of donors in long term, sustainable support with meaningful relations as opposed to our current short-term interactions due to a need for “shortterm dollars.”

Union president apologizes

By Rachel Saal editor

Student Union President Simran Tatuskar ’21 issued a mandated apology to the student body on Friday with the subject line “Update.” The Senate voted that Tatuskar issued the apology after a judiciary case found her guilty of ineffectively communicating and unconstitutionally deciding the role of the executive senator, according to the judiciary’s formal opinion.

“Hey Brandeis,” Tatuskar’s email begins. “As some of you might be aware, recently there was a Judiciary case that brought to light some institutional problems in the workings of the Student Union—mainly a breakdown of communication between relevant parties.

I apologize for the role that I played in perpetuating this cycle,

and want to make it clear that my focus moving forward within the parameters of my role is to ensure that these lines are strengthened via internal restructuring and overall policy changes.”

Senator Scott Halper ’20 said during the Senate meeting that he received complaints about the content of Tatuskar’s apology.

He said that some students “expressed disappointment with the language.”

Halper said that he will be working with Tatuskar on her apology that she will make before the Senate to ensure that it is “done properly and timely.”

Former Vice President Guillermo Caballero ’20 and Senior Representative to the Board of Trustees Zosia Busé ’20 brought the original complaint before the judiciary and a public hearing was held on Oct. 15.

Caballero was also found guilty of violating the Union Bylaws and

not properly communicating his disagreements with Tatuskar.

“Our policies moving forward are all going to be focused on making sure this communication breakdown does not happen again both this year and in the future as a whole, and that we are doing everything in our capacity to exist for the students,” reads the ends of Tatuskar’s email.

Halper brought the judiciary censure against Caballero that condemned his lack of communication with his other Union members on Oct. 27.

Caballero resigned before the Senate during that meeting and his resignation was effective as of Nov. 1, according to an earlier Hoot article.

Caballero said that his resignation was unrelated to the censure, but the “being under the supervision of people that do not share the same values and visions,” he told The Hoot.

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Senator Skye Liu ’23 is trying to make Lunar New Year more recognized on campus and because it is “the most important holiday for Chinese students,” so Liu and Senator Janice Huang ’23, are looking into enabling the Chinese population to celebrate the Lunar New Year and have assignment extensions for next year.

Senator Scott Halper ’20 said that he has been receiving complaints about there being mold in Deroy and that students have been getting sick because of it. Senator for Massell Quad Dariel Jimenez ’23 said that he will look into the issue. The Brandeis Hoot reached out to DCL who said that they were aware of the complaints and that there is no mold in Deroy. Jimenez said that he is also contacting DCL to add a laundry machine in Deroy.

Senator-at-Large Nancy Zhai ’22 secured a Thanksgiving break continental breakfast on Nov. 27 from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and at the Stein from Nov. 28 to Nov. 30 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Senator Joseph Coles ’22 said that he plans to introduce secured club advisor amendment next week.

Senator for Charles River Apartments Oliver Price ’20 said that Monday would be a “Meatless Monday” and that he would be holding a tabling event in Lower Usdan. He also said that he is working on an initiative that would allowed secured club leadership to be compensated.

Zhai read a message from Senator-at-Large Josh Hoffman ’21 saying that the Health and Safety Committee is working with DCL to fix flooding in Massell basements. They have also been meeting with the new Head of Facilities to talk about restarting the tampon initiative by next semester.

Halper said that President Simran Tatuskar’s ’21 mandated public apology had been sent out and that she would be issuing an in-person apology to Executive Senator and Interim Vice President Jake Rong ’21 and writing an apology to former Vice President Guillermo Caballero ’20.

Halper said that there was also a “miscommunication” because Tatuskar said that the dean of students told her to not talk to Caballero or Representative to the Board of Trustees Zosia Busé ‘20, and she said that there had been a mutual agreement that they wouldn’t speak, but Caballero and Busé said they never agreed to postponing communication.

Senator Alison Leibowitz ’20 presented the Senate Money Resolution (SMR) for Midnight Buffet. She said that she is trying to eliminate costs and suggested not having spring rolls, which cost $407.21 for 200 spring rolls. The Senate decided to have the spring rolls but select less expensive, one-sided t-shirts.

The Senate voted on the SMR by roll call; the amendment passed 9-3 with Class of 2022 Senator Joseph Coles, East Quad Senator Priyata Bhatta ’22 and Rosenthal and Skyline Quad Senator Leah Fernandez ’22 voting against it.

Coles and Fernandez said that they thought the Midnight Buffet budget, which is about 40 percent of the Senate’s yearly budget of $20,000, was too high. Leibowitz responded to their concerns by saying that many students look forward to Midnight Buffet and that it positively reflects on the work of the Union.

Rong closed the meeting saying that he was sure that Director of Outreach Kendall Chapman ’22 who is the only vice presidential candidate will do a “great job.”

-Rachel Saal

Brandeis celebrates 10th annual Kindness Day

By Gavi Klein and Celia Young special to the hoot and editor

The Shapiro Campus Center (SCC) was decked out in pink and adorned with balloons spelling out the words “Be Kind” for Brandeis’ 10th annual Kindness Day on Thursday, where students, faculty and staff engage in different events that celebrate being kind to one another.

For Assistant Dean in the Dean of Students Office Stephanie Grimes, Kindness Day is a major pillar of the Brandeis community.

“If we aren’t being generally kind to each other,” she says, “how can we then have an expectation

that our community has integrity and is civilly nice to each other and can engage in dialogue, and can be all of the things that we hope and dream a community can be?”

Grimes was one of the deans attending Kindness with the Deans, where students could meet and drink hot cocoa with members of the Deans of Students office from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday.

Kindness Day was started 10 years ago by an active faculty member, said Grimes in an interview with The Brandeis Hoot.

That faculty member had a “vision to further connect Brandeis by promoting morale, building community and encouraging more small acts of thanks and

kindness on campus,” according to the Brandeis website.

In the SCC, students could give roses to their friends, pick up reusable water bottles from the Brandeis Sustainability Ambassadors and design buttons with the Fashion Design Club. The SCC was packed with students, many of whom began to do a few Orientation Leader dances Thursday morning to music playing over one large speaker.

Students could also write kindness cards to their friends, which would be deposited in students mailboxes. Many of the Kindness Day events involved community service.

Students could make dog toys to donate, package personal hy-

giene products with the Waltham Group—a large umbrella group for several community service organizations at Brandeis—and students could register to vote with Brandeis Democrats Thursday morning.

Grimes reflected on how much the event has grown over the past 10 years: “There has become more student involvement in the program... as well as a greater acknowledgement of a greater part of our institution. We want to make sure that all members of our community are recognized on Kindness Day, not just portions.”

Inclusivity is an important part of what makes Kindness Day at Brandeis so unique, said Grimes.

And Alex Rossett, assistant dean

of student rights and community standards, noted that Kindness Day is important to the Brandeis student body during midterms.

“Kindness Day highlights what’s best at Brandeis, really our core values. It can be a tough time of year with midterms and holidays, so it’s really important to key into the community,” said Rossett.

Kindness Day is sponsored by “Academic Services, Admissions, Community Service, Community Living, [the] Dean of Students Office, Graduate Student Affairs, Human Resources, International Students and Scholars Office, Sodexo, Spiritual Life, Student Activities and [the] Division of Student Affairs,” according to the Brandeis website.

November 15, 2019

NEWS 3

The Brandeis Hoot

BCC working to address increased student need

By Victoria Morrongiello and Celia Young staff and editor

The Brandeis Counseling Center (BCC) has seen an increased demand in students seeking help, especially for anxiety and depression, The Brandeis Hoot reported last week. To address this increased demand, the BCC will hire a new full-time therapist along with maintaining current therapy programs, according to the Director of the BCC Joy von Steiger.

The BCC’s increase in use is consistent with centers across the country and is seeing a 10 to 30 percent increase in demand, von Steiger wrote in an email to The Hoot. The total number of students being seen by the counseling center increased by 8.4 percent last year from the previous academic year, jumping from 1035 students being seen to 1122.

This year, 315 more students sought help at the BCC for a first-time evaluation, according to data presented by von Steiger at Brandeis’ last Faculty Senate meeting. That 315 student increase would be a 50 percent increase from 631 students in the 2017-18 academic year to 946 students in the 2018-19 academic year.

“This increase necessitates innovative, creative ways of caring for our students that look at forms of care other than individual therapy,” wrote von Steiger to The Hoot.

The BCC has also increased session lengths from 30 minutes to 50 minutes from the 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic year because the BCC wanted more time to work with and help students with their needs, wrote von Steiger.

The current model the university is using to treat student patients is not meeting the increased demands of students’ needs, which is why the BCC is responding

with increasing staffing and reviewing models of care. Vice President of Student Affairs Raymond Ou and Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Kim Godsoe are working with the Brandeis community to review the mental health needs on campus to make recommendations regarding a change in the models of care, wrote von Steiger.

The university may change its counseling model to mimic those of other institutions that set session limits or create a biweekly model for therapy treatment, said Ou in a recent Faculty Senate meeting, though these plans are not definitely set in place.

The BCC has several programs that can help Brandeis community members, including community therapy, healing circles and Resilience, Information, Skills and Experiences (RISE), wrote von Steiger to The Hoot. RISE provides small groups with Brandeis faculty and counseling center clinicians where students can learn

Goldfarb celebrates 60th anniversary

By Tim Dillon staff

The Jacob A. and Bertha Goldfarb Library celebrated its 60th anniversary on Tuesday, Nov. 12.

Librarians, faculty and students gathered in the Brandeis National Committee Tribute Room of the library to celebrate the anniversary.

Those present spoke of the library’s history and those who had made it possible, and afterwards shared a cake in honor of the occasion, after singing “Happy Birthday” to the building. After the event University Librarian Matthew Sheehy and Senior Facilities Coordinator Martha Barry spoke to The Brandeis Hoot about the library’s history and future.

According to Barry, the library, first built in 1959, was funded by the Goldfarbs, prominent philanthropists who made their money from Jacob Goldfarb’s company, Fruit of the Loom. Fruit of the Loom is a clothing manufacturer, with emphasis on underwear and sports equipment.

The library was built to replace the old library Brandeis University inherited from Middlesex

University, the school which previously occupied Brandeis’ present location. Sheehy and Barry also spoke about the role of the Brandeis National Women’s Committee, now the Brandeis National Committee, in assembling the library’s collection of books.

Sheehy also spoke about the library’s evolution. The library has changed significantly in both function and purpose over the six decades it has existed, said Sheehy. In addition to the main building, Goldfarb Library has been added onto with the Rapaporte Treasure Hall, the Robert D. Farber Archives and the construction of the adjacent Farber Library. Sheehy also spoke about the transition from a card catalog to a digital system, the addition of computers, and recently the addition of 3D printers.

Sheehy then described the changing nature of the library’s function for students. Due to the ease of finding information on the internet, the library no longer needs to serve as a repository of information, and librarians need not be the gatekeepers of said information, said Sheehy.

Instead, he said, the library can

serve as a place for students to work, study and learn, while librarians can help students with research and accessing the unique archives possessed by the library.

In addition to its academic functions, Sheehy highlighted the library’s collection of books for recreational reading. Sheehy described the collection as “eclectic,” as a result of the library’s policy of buying a wide variety of books, not just best sellers.

In addition to the library’s collection, which exceeds one million books, Sheehy mentioned the library’s recent collaboration with several other networks of local libraries, allowing students access to several millions more books.

When asked about the future of the library, both Sheehy and Barry stated that it would certainly continue to evolve, though neither provided any specific information about planned changes.

Both Sheehy and Barry encourage students to go by the library, introduce themselves to the librarians and check out books.

PHOTO BY RACHEL SAAL/THE HOOT

time management, goal setting and skills to cope with stress.

Creating a sense of social integration and belonging, wrote von Steiger, is crucial to decrease stress and depression.

“We will continue to offer treatment to students who are in need of short term therapy and stabilization,” wrote von Steiger to The Hoot. “We will be offering students who are stabilized or who have reached their treatment goals referrals to the community or an opportunity to do further work at the center in group treatment.”

The BCC will also hire a new full time therapist, said von Steiger, which is part of President Ron Liebowitz’s springboard funding plan to stabilize Brandeis before launching a large fundraising campaign.

“We will be hiring a new fulltime therapist at the center who will help us to address current clinical needs,” wrote von Steiger to The Hoot. “In order to enhance

our capacity to be accessible to all students, we will be prioritizing candidates who are from underrepresented communities.”

Students seeking help most often come to the BCC with anxiety and depression, The Hoot reported last week. These conditions are common, von Steiger said, especially among young adults.

“Depression and anxiety are mental health conditions that are often the result of ongoing stress related to trauma, a sudden negative event or events in one’s life, or chronic overwhelming stress related to daily living and coping,” von Steiger wrote to The Hoot.

“Long term stress and strain can cause many health problems, among them mental illness. Living in today’s world is especially stressful for young adults.”

The BCC is making it a priority to develop a clear scope and model of care, said von Steiger, to respond better to student needs.

Brandeis’ Hackathon draws national hackers

By Rachel Saal editor

After months of planning and organizing by seven students, about 170 hackers, both new and experienced, gathered in the Shapiro Science Center on Saturday and Sunday to participate in the sixth year of Codestellation, Brandeis’ annual hackathon. Registrants included hackers from Johns Hopkins and the University of Southern California, according to Lead Organizer Mitchell Dodell ’21.

The hackathon was an “opportunity to get together with others who share your passion for building and creating technology,” according to the event’s website.

The event lasted for 24 hours, and participants were welcomed to stay for the full 24 hours or go home for the night and return in the morning, according to Dodell.

Registrants were offered free swag, food and mentorship by company sponsors including CallMiner and Bitmap Technologies. Food from Qdoba was provided on Saturday evening. The hackers organized in teams and competed for various prizes that were provided by sponsors. This year’s event registration was about 300 people, as compared to last year’s registration of 200 hackers. Only about 100 of those who registered attended last year. Dodell said that this year, they encouraged people who didn’t have as much or any coding experience to attend.

Prize categories for the event included Best High School Hack, Judges’ Pick, Best Beginner Hack, Best Hardware Hack, TactileNavi, Best Machine Learning Hack, Best Mobile/Web App by TIBCO, Best NLP Hack by CallMiner, Social Impact Award, SPARK Award and a winner for the Skateboarding Workshop Winner.

The student organizers were

Co-Lead Organizers Adam Fleishaker ’21 and Dodell, Social Media Coordinator and Graphic Designer Cindy Hou ’22, Treasurer Jonah Sanders ’22, Events Coordinator and Sponsorship Coordinator Oliver Daniels-Koch ’22, Secretary & School Outreach Coordinator Prabu Gugagantha ’22 and Social Media Coordinator and Media Specialist Shannon Livingstone ’21. “[This year] we have an amazing team of organizers and our biggest focus was on our hackers,” Dodell told The Brandeis Hoot during the event.

He said that the organizers focused on making the event fun for the hackers. The event included many features for participants that wanted to take a break from hacking, according to Dodell. There was a station where hackers could play Super Smash Bros, a scavenger hunt and free Monster energy drinks for hackers that started to get tired. The energy drinks were one of several free products available for participants as a part of sponsorships by various companies.

Daniels-Koch said that the mentorship that the sponsors provided at the event was incredibly important to the process. The 15 sponsors provided the majority of the funding for the event, according to Sanders. He said that while Brandeis, particularly the computer science department, provide a lot of funding, he would like to see Brandeis give a more consistent amount so that there are fewer funding variables that they have to figure out year to year.

According to Dodell and Daniels-Koch, the group is beginning to outgrow the space and ended up using most of the building.

Dodell said that he’s looking forward to seeing how the event grows in the future and watching as the underclassmen take over.

4 NEWS

The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

Climate survey depicts student experiences CLIMATE, from page 1

The survey was open for responses by the 5,184 Brandeis graduates and undergraduates from March 4 to March 22, 2019, according to emails announcing the survey at that time.

Only about 22 percent of students invited responded—about 700 students less than the 34 percent response rate in the 2015 survey.

“It’s 1,100 students,” said Lynch.

“I don’t need this to be a representative sample to know I have a problem, that’s how I look at it as a provost. But it is important for

folks as they’re looking at this survey to understand that we don’t know how representative the responders to the survey are of the campus as a whole.”

To keep the survey completely anonymous, written responses and responses to questions of five students or less were left out, according to the executive summary.

More women than men responded to the survey, similar to the 2015 survey.

Domestic undergraduate students were also more represented in the survey than in the Brandeis community.

While only 4 percent of survey

respondents were international students, Brandeis has 14 percent undergraduate international students.

Climate and Harassment The survey found that students were most likely to experience discriminatory language in social settings, and undergraduate participants saw racist, sexist or homophobic language more than graduate students.

Gender non-conforming students, transgender students and LGBTQ students were all more likely to experience or observe this type of language as compared to male and female, non-transgender and straight students re-

spectively.

White undergraduate students were most likely to experience or witness sexist remarks about women, and Latinx students were most likely to experience or witness racist remarks.

International students were least likely to experience or witness these remarks at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Students affiliated with Greek life, which included students in Greek life, who go to Greek life parties or whose best friend is in Greek life, also had higher rates of witnessing harassment behaviors than students not involved in Greek

life.

Varsity athletes and club sport players in most cases also had higher levels of experiencing or witnessing these behaviors.

Athletes are some of the most trained students at Brandeis, said Sarah Berg, and might be better able to identify harassing behaviors.

Berg is the director of Prevention, Advocacy and Research Center (PARC)—a group on campus which provides education and support related to sexual assault— and hopes to engage more students with bystander training on a regular basis, not just as a one time event.

Sexual misconduct (violence): some groups more likely to experience misconduct

The survey asked students about their experiences with sexual assault and rape “since becoming a student at Brandeis” rather than “at Brandeis,” which is how questions were phrased in 2015. The survey was changed because the question was meant to ask about a student’s experience in their time at Brandeis, not on the Brandeis campus, said Berg.

More undergraduate respondents reported sexual assault.

Of the total students who responded to the survey, 179 reported being sexually assaulted, and 48 students reported being raped since becoming a student at Brandeis.

Rapes occured most commonly at Brandeis campus residence halls for undergraduate students, respondents reported in the survey, and the majority of perpetrators of rape were Brandeis students.

The Association of American Universities (AAU) also found that a majority of “incidents of penetration” occurred on campus housing or in residence halls, reads the campus climate survey.

Twenty students shared the location of their off-campus rape, with 35 percent taking

place in non-university housing, and another 35 percent taking place in fraternity houses.

While sororities and fraternities are not recognized by Brandeis, Vice Provost of Student Affairs Raymond Ou hopes to work with Greek life organizations, including the Greek Awareness Council (GAC), to provide bystander training and support.

Ou said that many student leaders in Greek life are interested in training their organizations’ members and wants to make sure that Greek life members know they have access to training resources even though they are not recognized by the university.

The percentages of students who reported assault and rape were similar from 2015 to 2019.

For undergraduates in the 2019 survey, 2 percent of men and 6 percent of women indicated they had been raped since becoming a student at Brandeis.

In 2015, 1 percent of men and 6 percent of women reported that they had been raped.

The AAU national survey of several colleges and universities found that 14.1 percent of women, 10.1 percent of men and

21.5 percent of transgender or gender non-conforming student undergraduate respondents experienced intimate partner violence, which includes a range of controlling behaviors from interfering with a student’s educational goals to physical attacks.

Brandeis’ rates were comparable, at 14 percent of women, 13 percent of men and 32 percent of gender non-conforming students.

The survey found that gender non-conforming students were most likely to experience harassment or rape, followed by women and then men.

Transgender students were more likely than non-transgender students to experience harrassment and sexual assault, as were undergraduate and graduate LGBQ students compared to straight student respondents.

Chief Diversity Officer and Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Mark Brimhall-Vargas spoke to The Hoot about increasing the capabilities of the Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC) and a training series for the entire campus, called “Doing Better at Brandeis” to address some of the disparities between student expe-

riences with harassment, assault and rape. The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) and the Intercultural Center (ICC) stated that the GSC has an increased budget of about $10,000 this year along with an interim director, said Brimhall-Vargas.

A search for a permanent director of the GSC will begin this spring, said Brimhall-Vargas.

Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) Sonia Jurado has trained over 2,000 students, 400 staff, 300 teaching assistants and nearly 100 faculty since June 2019 as part of the “Doing Better at Brandeis Series,” said Brimhall-Vargas and Jurado. The series, said Brimhall-Vargas, is meant to provide Brandeis community members with the language to talk about gender non-conforming students.

Students of different races and ethnicities experienced harrassment and rape at different rates, but undergraduate and graduate black and/or Latinx students were more likely to experience assault and rape than non-black or Latinx students.

Students affiliated with Greek life were more likely to experience

assault and rape than students not affiliated with Greek life. Varsity athletes and club sports members were usually less likely than those with no athletic affiliation to experience sexual misconduct, harassment or rape—although there was no data on rape for varsity athletes.

Gender non-conforming students experienced dating or domestic violence at nearly double percentages to men and women.

Transgender and LGBQ respondents also reported higher percentages of dating and domestic violence. Undergraduate students of different races experienced dating or domestic violence at similar percentages, with Latinx at the highest rate: 18 percent.

Undergraduate students experienced stalking at higher rates than graduate students, with gender non-conforming students, transgender students and LGBQ at above 20 percent rates.

Undergraduate white students experienced the highest rates of stalking at 26 percent and members of Greek life and students whose best friend is in Greek life experienced stalking at over 30 percent.

Knowledge of disclosing and reporting: 13 percent of undergraduates reported rape The likelihood of an undergraduate student informing someone of an event of sexual assault was higher for females than those who identify as male or gender non-conforming, however, only 82 percent of students told someone in 2019. The likelihood of an undergraduate telling someone of a sexual assault decreased if the student was black or Latinx. In 2015, only 55 percent of undergraduate students who experienced sexual assault told someone.

The percentage was lower for the amount of students who formally reported an experience of sexual assault. Students who identify as women were the only ones reported to make a report at only 13 percent. There was no data provided for formally reported events by those who identify as male or gender non-conforming; the total number of reported events of sexual assault from undergraduates came from female students. There was no data provided for black or Latinx students because of the low number of students who responded. In 2015, this statistic was 3.7 percent of undergraduates.

Jurado spoke about eliminating the “lore of fear” surrounding reporting sexual assault and rape.

The Office of Equal Opportunity has a new online reporting website, which allows students to anonymously file a report with OEO and receive information, resources and live chat with a member of the office while maintaining their anonymity, according to an earlier Hoot article.

Graduate students experienced a similar trend in data. Seventy-seven percent of women told someone of the assault; however, there was no data provided for those who identify as male or gender non-conforming. In 2015, 30 percent of graduate students told someone of a sexual assault. For graduate students, there was not enough data to collect about the number of formal reports of sexual assault. In 2015, the statistic for formally reported sexual assaults was 9.4 percent.

Graduate student orientation was revamped after the 2015 survey, said Lynch, in a conscious effort to support graduate students in telling others or reporting sexual assault.

The survey broke down experiences of unwanted sexual activity by race, ethnicity and international status. Undergraduate international students experienced the most unwanted sexual activity at 88 percent, followed by 82 percent for Latinx students, 67 percent for Asian students, 55 percent for black students, 78 percent for white students and 62 percent for people of two or more races. There was no data available for this breakdown for graduate students.

When reporting a sexual assault, 79 percent of undergraduates said they knew where to go to get help, while 76 percent of graduate students said they would know where to go.

When asked if respondents knew where to go to make a formal complaint, 79 percent of un-

dergraduate females said yes, 68 percent of undergraduate males said yes and 67 percent of undergraduates who are gender non-conforming said yes. For graduate students when asked the same question, males were the most likely to know where to go to make a formal complaint with 81 percent, 75 percent of students who are gender non-conforming knew where to go and 71 percent of women knew were to go.

The university notes in the report there must be more transparency in its processes for making a formal complaint because 47 percent of undergraduate students and 56 percent surveyed said they would know what happens to a student who reports a sexual assault to the university.

From the survey, 37.1 percent of student respondents felt knowledgeable about where to access helpful resources in the event of a sexual assault, and 31.5 percent were knowledgeable about how to file a report. Only 17.7 percent of student respondents felt knowledgeable about the administrative processes that occur after a report is made.

The Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) is responsible for all reporting at Brandeis, said Jurado, who hopes the centralized location will help students find where to report. The OEO is located in Swigg Hall in the Intercultural Center, though it will move buildings this summer, according to an earlier Hoot article. While the OEO’s formation

was announced in 2018, Jurado did not become the first director until March 18, 2019, four days before the survey closed.

Many of the written comments on the survey which were not included in the disclosed report, said that the flyers in Brandeis bathrooms were helpful in informing students how to report an assault, said Lynch.

University preparedness for a crisis, sense of community, bystander intervention Only 39 percent of undergraduate student participants and 54 percent of graduate student participants agreed or strongly agreed that the university would handle a crisis at Brandeis well, according to the survey. Ten students said their safety concerns were mostly connected to the “openness” of the campus, according to the survey. The survey said that 11 students shared dissatisfaction with how crises they had experienced were handled.

On a scale of one to five where one equals strongly disagree and five equals strongly agree, undergraduates in 2015 responded to the statement, “I belong in this campus community” reported means scores of 3.71 among women, 3.81 among men and 2.89 for gender non-conforming participants. In 2019, the mean scores changed to 3.60, 3.74 and 3.28 respectively.

In the 2019 AAU Campus Climate Survey, 45.1 percent of student participants who “wit-

ness[ed] a situation leading to assault” said they would intervene.

In the Brandeis survey, however, 63 percent of women participants and 27 percent of men said they confronted a friend who was hooking up with someone who had passed out. This number increased from 8 percent of women participants and 12 percent of men participants in 2015.

In considering bystander intervention, which the survey defines as “a prevention strategy that helps students recognize situations that could potentially escalate to violence and, keeping their own safety in mind, intervene to prevent it from occurring,” 49 percent of undergraduate students and 73 percent of graduate students reported assault. In nine out of 10 categories, however, undergraduates were more likely to intervene.

Nine percent for graduate students and 40 percent for undergraduate students who had the opportunity to do so reported “confronting someone if you heard rumors that they forced someone to have sex.”

Resources PARC can also be reached through the Support at Brandeis site or at 781-736-3370, 24 hours a day. The Report It! Site allows students to report a variety of misconduct, including sexual assault and harassment.

November 15, 2019

SPORTS

The Brandeis Hoot 5

Men’s basketball bounces back big against Rivier

By Camila Casanueva and Sophie Trachtenberg staff and editor

Basketball season is back, as the Brandeis University men’s basketball team opened up the 2019-2020 season against the 16th-ranked Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Engineers.

The Judges are coming off a turn around year where they went on to win the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) championship in the postseason. They battled against their ranked opponent but were not quite able to gain the upper hand, as they lost 55-46 on the Engineers home court.

WPI came out of the gates firing going on to score 12 of the game’s first 14 points to take a 12-2 lead.

With about 15:50 to go in the first half, WPI still held a 10 point lead. The Judges’ defense kicked to spark a 12-0 run that would give them their first lead of the game, 16-14 off of a three pointer by Dylan Lien ’23 with 8:13 on the clock. However, Brandeis was not able to sustain its lead, as the Engineers would respond with a 8-0 run of their own. WPI would not give up the lead the rest of the game, as they went up 31-20

by halftime. To close out the first half, Kyle Downing ’22 had five points, while Chander Jones ’21 and Nolan Hagerty ’20 added four each.

In the second half, the Judges made a run in order to cut the lead to 33-28 to get back into the game off of a four point play conversion by Lawrence Sabir ’21 with 17:02 to play. Again, WPI responded with a 6-2 run to push their lead back up to nine, 3930 with 13 minutes remaining.

Brandeis would not go away easily as they went on a 10-2 run over the course of the next five minutes as Lein and Collin Sawyer ’20 each hit three pointers on the run, while Jones added a jumper to get the Judges within 41-39.

However, the Judges were not able to capitalize as the Engineers would score the next seven points of the game, holding off the Judges for their first win of the season.

Sawyer would lead the way for the Judges with 10 points and six rebounds, nine of his 10 coming in the second half. Jones had a nice all around game with seven points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and two steals. Lien would lead all bench scorers with nine. Brandeis had the edge in rebounds, 36-33 but WPI was able to force the Judges into 24 turnovers while committing only 11 of their own.

The Engineers would also outscore Brandeis at the free throw line, 18-9.

After the fall to WPI, the team headed up to Nashua, New Hampshire to take on the Raiders of Rivier College, looking for a win in the second non-conference matchup of the season.

The team was lead by Jones, who played exceptionally well on the offensive end. With 25 points and 17 rebounds, Jones reached two new career highs to help Brandeis to a 91-56 win. After the game, the Judges improve to 1-1 on the season.

The first half was a bit slower for the Judges, as it was not until late that Brandeis formed its 11 point lead. To begin, Rivier led 18-15 just halfway through the first portion of play. However, the Judges picked up steam and began to pull away, as they went on a 24-10 run to lead the Raiders heading into the second half. After this, the Brandeis completely stole the show, building up a 20 point lead over the hosts right after halftime.

The Judges would never trail again, ultimately sealing their win by a 35 point margin.

Along with Jones’ impressive night, classmates and co-captains Eric D’Aguanno ’20 and Sawyer shot well, having 20 and 17 points respectively. The duo made eight

Volleyball receives honors

By Courtney Thrun staff

Last weekend, the Brandeis volleyball team flew to Chicago and took on three highly ranked teams in the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships. The first game was on Friday, versus the Emory University Eagles. Missing several of their usual starters due to injuries, the Judges struggled. The first set began with a kill by Belle Scott ’21, putting Brandeis up 1-0. Following this, however, the Eagles were quick to get an early lead, 9-2. The Eagles were able to maintain this lead and won the set 25-11. The second set was a bit more back and forth in the beginning but ended in a similar fashion, with the Eagles winning 25-10. The third set was a much better showing for the Judges than the previous two; each team had its time in the lead, and there were multiple times where the score tied up. In the final stretch of the third set, Brandeis was only down two, 22-20. Unfortunately, the Eagles scored three consecutive points and were able to beat Brandeis 25-22, defeating the Judges 3-0 and raising their overall record to 27 wins and two losses.

The next game of the weekend took place only a few hours after

MARISSA BORGERT ‘21 SERVES AN ACE

the match against Emory, against the Case Western Reserve University Spartans. The first set was very competitive, with Brandeis holding their own even with the injuries, but alas, the Spartans were able to take the first set 2517. In the second set, the Judges obtained an early lead of 6-4, with Emma Bartlett ’20 contributing with two kills. Following this, however, the Spartans went on a 9-0 streak, making the score 13-6. Case Western was able to hold onto this lead until the end and won the set 25-20. The Judges began the third set with three kills and a missed attack by the opposition, giving them the early lead of 4-1. Unfortunately this lead, like the others, failed to last and the Spartans took the set 2520, winning the game 3-0.

The third game of the weekend and the final game of the season took place on Saturday morning. The Brandeis Judges played against the University of Rochester Yellowjackets for seventh place in the UAA tournament. The first set went back and forth continuously and included a plethora of moments where the game was tied. In one of these moments, both teams had 24 points, pushing the set into a short overtime.

The Judges called a timeout but came out of it unable to finish strong, with two missed attacks

PHOTO BY GRACE ZHOU/THE HOOT

in a row, losing the set 26-24. The second set was also rather close.

The two teams went back and forth, but the Yellowjackets were able to secure the set 25-20 with an ace by Rochester’s Allie Derubertis. The third set was a grind for the Brandeis team. They started the set down and were never able to turn it around, losing the set 25-13 and the game 3-0. This game concluded the 2019 volleyball season for the Judges, with a record of four wins and 23 loses.

Lone senior Emma Bartlett ’20 ended her collegiate career in high fashion, achieving many impressive feats. She is currently 10th on the Brandeis all-time list for kills, with 987. Bartlett is also sixth of all-time school history in blocks, with 303. Her hitting percentage (.0204) earned its place on the list as well, at 13th of all-time. With these incredible successes, it is no wonder that she was named to the second team All-UAA. Some other players who earned recognition this season are libero Kaitlyn Oh ’22 and setter/outside hitter Marissa Borgert ’21, who were both honorable mentions.

It was also announced that Borgert was named as a CoSIDA Academic All-District team member, according to an announcement on the CoSIDA website. This award is voted upon by Sports Information Directors in the district, and honorees become eligible to be CoSIDA Academic All-Americans. Those honored must be sophomores or older and have played in at least half of their team’s games during a given season. They also must hold at least a 3.30 GPA. Borgert holds well beyond that as a biology and HSSP double major and has made the Dean’s List every semester that she has been at Brandeis.

The Judges finished the 2019 season eighth in the UAA, but they will be coming back stronger next year with their entire roster returning, aside from Bartlett.

PHOTO FROM BRANDEISJUDGES.COM

CHANDLER JONES ‘21 TAKES A JUMPER

of 17 from behind the arc, and also completed four assists. Off the bench, Lien added in seven points, while Austin Clamage ’21 contributed five. The Judges’ reserves outscored those from Rivier 41-27 overall.

As a team, Brandeis shot 52.9 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from three compared to the Raiders’ 28.3 and 30.4 percent respectively. The Judges shared

the ball well with 17 assists, and also were consistent at the free throw line with a make percentage of 73.5. The win at Rivier was second-year head coach Jean Bain’s largest margin of victory since coming to Brandeis, as well as his team’s highest scoring game.

The Judges return to the court next Monday, Nov. 18th to take on Emerson College in their home opener.

Men’s soccer defeats NYU

By Emerson White staff

This weekend, the men’s soccer team closed out their 2019 season with a 2-0 win on Senior Day over conference rival New York University (NYU). With this win, Brandeis finishes its season with a record of 10-5-4. In the University Athletic Association (UAA), the men’s team finished 3-3-1 overall.

At the beginning of the match, Brandeis honored the nine seniors that make up the graduating class of 2020: Gabriel Sultan ’20, Dylan Hennessy ’20, Colin Panarra ’20, Max Breiter ’20, Jake Warren ’20, David Murphy ’20, Alex Walter ’20, AJ Mercer ’20 and Greg Irwin ’20. As a whole, the class of 2020 has had some impressive feats. These include trips to two NCAA tournaments, two trips to the Final Four, defeating multiple reigning national champions during these runs and reigning in too many All-UAA selections and UAA Player of the Week honors to count.

After their Senior Day celebration, the first half began, and both teams were off to a slow start. The half finished scoreless, as both the Judges and the Violets had five shots, Brandeis had two on goal and NYU had one. In the second half, at the 57th minute mark, NYU’s Sergio Monton was ejected from the game for throwing a punch at Brandeis’s Jake Warren ’20.

After this, Monton was given a red card, and NYU played with 10 players the remainder of the game. Soon after, in the 64th minute the Judges scored their first goal of the game. Will DeNight ’23 sent the ball into the goal from the top of the box. The assist was from Evan Glass ’21, who launched a throw in from the left side of the field. This gave

DeNight his seventh goal of the season, making him the leading scorer of the UAA. The assist was Glass’s first this season and his second for his career.

Brandeis held its 1-0 lead until the 78th minute of the game when the Judges scored a second goal by Noah Gans ’21. Gans scored off a cross from Warren, giving Gans his fourth goal of the season. This also gave Warren his second assist of the season. The Judges maintained their lead the rest of the game with the help of goalkeeper Greg Irwin ’20. Irwin made three saves in the match, securing his eighth shutout of the season.

For NYU, goalkeeper Luca Mancuso had four saves. Ethan Pizano led the team in shots for NYU with two, while DeNight led the Judges with five. Overall, the Judges outshot NYU 14-7, and 9-2 in the second half when they played a man up.

With the win over NYU, this gave Brandeis its 10th win of the season. This is the Judges’ ninth time ending the season with over 10 wins in the last 10 years of the program. The team will return to action next in the fall of 2020.

NOAH GANS ‘21

PHOTO FROM BRANDEISJUDGES.COM

6 SPORTS

The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

Men and women’s swimming split on the weekend

By Sabrina Chow editor

The men’s and women’s swimming teams travelled to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) this past weekend, both splitting on the weekend. The men’s team competed against Babson College and WPI, while the women competed against Babson College, Simmons University, Smith College and WPI. Men’s Swimming Brendon Lu ’22 was the sole triple winner for the Judges at the meet, winning the 50- and 100yard breaststroke and the 400yard IM events. Lu finished the 50-yard breaststroke with a time of 28.24 and the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:01.55. Lu narrowly beat out his teammate, Josh Liu ’23, in 400-yard IM by just over a tenth of a second, with a time of 4:23.83. Liu finished with a time of 4:23.94.

Daniel Wohl ’21 tied for first in the 200-yard freestyle with Babsons’ Aaron Huynh with a time of 1:43.35. His time was almost six seconds faster than his predicted seed time. Wohl also placed sec-

PHOTO BY SABRINA CHOW/THE HOOT

ond in the 100-yard freestyle, this time right behind Huynh, with a time of 47.86.

Tamir Zitelny ’20 performed well overall in his individual and relay races. In the 400-yard medley relay, the Brandeis “A team,” made of Zitelny, Lu, Matthew Arcemont ’20 and Marcelo Ohno-Machado ’21, finished second in the relay with a time of 3:36.54. Zitelny also swam alongside Wohl, Ohno-Machado and Matthew Arcemont in the 400-yard freestyle relay and

earned second place with a time of 3:13.69. In the 100-yard butterfly event, Zitelny finished second with a time of 51.42, less than two-tenths of a second away from Babson’s Alex Damiecki, who came in first place. Zitelny also finished third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 53.75.

Richard Selznick ’21 finished second in the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:20.18, 16 seconds slower than Babson’s Alvin Oentoro, who came in first place. He also finished second in

staff

The Brandeis women’s soccer team topped off their Senior Day celebration with a victory over its rival New York University (NYU), 1-0. Prior to the game, the Judges honored seven seniors for their incredible success on and off the field: Sierra Dana ’20, Katie Hayes ’20, Amanda Fernbach ’20, Kerin Miller ’20, Zoe Ballas ’20, Victoria Richardson ’20 and Emma Spector ’20.

With this win, the Judges finish with an 11-7 overall record, 2-5 in the University Athletic Association (UAA); the Brandeis women’s soccer team placed fifth in its conference, along with Case Western Reserve University and NYU. The first half of the rivalry was evenly played; the Judges, though, edged out the Violets with 6-5 shots—out of those six, Brandeis put three on goal, while NYU only placed one out of their five.

It was not until the second half that the Judges gained an advantage over the Violets. In the 62nd minute of play, first-year midfielder Caroline Swan ’23 sent the ball into the box from the left flank, where Daria Bakhtiari ’21 was wide open ready to head the ball into the upper left corner of the goal. Swan racked up her fifth assist of the season, tying her for the team lead, while Bakhtiari tallied her sixth goal of the season.

In a message to The Brandeis Hoot, Dana wrote, “I think for us, NYU is always a game we have a bit of trouble preparing simply because it’s the last one of the regular season and it comes after a

tough travel weekend; so, to have the team come out and perform the way they did was incredible to watch.”

The Judges remained aggressive throughout the second half, as they edged out the Violets in shots 11-6, finishing the game with 1711 shots. Richardson recorded an impressive diving save in the 76th minute against Violet Hadley Bushala to preserve the lead. In the 87th minute, NYU prevented an insurance goal when Francesca Dimitrakis cleared the ball off the line on a corner kick.

Richardson finished the game with three saves to earn her fifth shutout of the season and her career. Opposing goalie, Meghan Marhan, made seven stops in the losing effort for NYU. This win gave Brandeis 11 wins in a season for the sixth year in a row; the Judges also improved to 16-5-4 all-time against NYU. Dana concluded the soccer season by reflecting on the senior class’ commitment and achievement in all aspects of their lives, which their teammates will carry into their upcoming seasons.

She wrote, “I think I speak for all the seniors when I say that this particular group of girls felt special from the beginning, and seeing everyone perform and put together a complete game of soccer for our last on Gordon field, there’s not much more we could ask for. I’m incredibly proud to be a part of such an amazing team and to be asked to have a leadership role; I am excited to see what this group continues to do after our class graduates. I absolutely love this group of girls, and I think our last game of the season showcased exactly who we feel we are on and off the field.”

Women’s Swimming Rookie Bailey Gold ’23 had a pair of second place finishes in individual events and was the top performer for the Judges. She finished second in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:01.07

Portland Trail Blazers struggle in early season games

Women’s soccer defeats NYU in last of the season

By Francesca Marchese

the 500-yard freestyle race with a time of 4:58.93.

Brandeis beat WPI (140131) but lost to Babson College (142.50-119.5). The men’s team is now 2-2 on the season.

and in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:02.52. Teammate Audrey Kim ’21 was just over a second slower than Gold, finishing fourth with a time of 1:03.58.

Gold also finished fourth in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:04.20, just under a second slower than the third place swimmer.

Uajda Musaku ’21 also took a pair of second places throughout her individual and relay races. She finished second in the 100-yard freestyle with at time of 56.46.

Musaku was joined by Kim, Ema Rennie ’23 and rookie Christina McPhillips ’23, who together placed third in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a time of 3:49.81.

McPhillips also finished second in the 50-yard butterfly, finishing with a time of 28.36, seven-tenths of a second behind WPI’s Katherine Pawlak, who came in first place.

Brandeis beat Simmons (148141) and Smith College (168-125) while losing to Babson (99-160) and WPI (218.50-74.50). The women are now 2-4 on the season.

The Judges return to action this weekend. Both teams will travel across town on Friday, Nov. 15 to compete against Bentley and will be hosting Colby College on Saturday, Nov. 16.

By Jacob Schireson special to the hoot

Damian Lillard has been one of the best and most consistent point guards since he entered the league in 2012. His quickness and three point shooting has allowed him to thrive in an era of NBA that preaches the “pace and space” offensive philosophy.

Although his career in Portland has manifested in just one trip to the Western Conference finals, his tenure in Portland has been competitive, making the playoffs every year outside of his rookie year. However, at 4-7 with a myriad of issues Portland now faces its toughest task of the Lillard era— make a significant move to face something they have not since the early millenium—basketball irrelevance.

After star center Jusuf Nurkic broke his leg in gruesome fashion late last year, the Blazers sought to make a move for a big man in the offseason to replace him. This lead to the franchise shipping out Moe Harkless and Meyers Leon-

TRAIL BLAZERS

ard in a trade for Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside. Portland also saw forward Al-Farouq Aminu leave in the offseason for Orlando. This left the team, that had already struggled with depth issues, with a much depleted rotation. This lack of depth has hurt them greatly in the early season.

Through 11 games they sit at 4-7 with a loss to the historically depleted 2019-20 Golden State Warriors. Lillard expressed his frustrations with the loss after the game.

“They played like a team that wanted to win. We got outplayed start to finish, I would say. We had some moments in the game, but we played like we just thought we were going to march in here and win the game, and they showed why they’re in the NBA. That’s a tough loss,” said Lillard in an Associated Press article.

Their lack of depth has killed them defensively, and offensively, they’ve needed to be carried by Lillard just to stay afloat. Lillard has been lights out so far, posting averages of 32.5 points, 5.1 rebounds and 6.6 assists per game.

Despite Lillard’s historic offen-

Point guard Damian Lillard

sive output, Portland has ranked just 12th in offense while ranking 18th on defense against an easy schedule thus far (ranked 22nd).

These early season struggles have prompted speculation that Portland will make a trade midseason. One major player many speculate Portland will target is Cleveland forward Kevin Love.

Love, who grew up in Portland, would provide size as well as additional shooting and rebounding in the frontcourt, which the Blazers need. Another trade candidate that has been suggested is Oklahoma City’s Danilo Gallinari, who would provide a similar blend of size and shooting.

Portland, through the early bit of the season, looks to be forced into making a move. Their lack of cap space makes it unlikely that they will be able to sign free agents in the near future, and with Damian Lillard turning 30 after this year, they may be forced into making larger decisions about the future of their franchise, whether they like it or not. The Trail Blazers play the Toronto Raptors next on Saturday, Nov. 16 in Dallas against the Mavericks.

PHOTO FROM BLEACHERREPORT.COM

November 15, 2019

“To acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

Editors-in-Chief Candace Ng Polina Potochevska Managing Editor Emily Botto Senior Copy Editor Natalie Fritzson Copy Editor Jennifer Cook Senior News Editor Celia Young News Editor Rachel Saal Arts Editor Jonah Koslofsky Opinions Editor Sasha Skarboviychuk Features Editor Shruthi Manjunath Sports Editor Sophie Trachtenberg Layout Editor Sabrina Chow Social Media Editor Emma Lichtenstein

Volume 16 • Issue 23 the brandeis hoot • brandeis university 415 south street • waltham, ma

Founded By Leslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

STAFF

Faria Afreen, Medjine Barionette, Emma Belkin, Camila Casanueva, Chris DeMena, Tim Dillon, James Feltner, Sam Finbury, John Fornagiel, Lucy Frenkel, Madeline Herrup, Stewart Huang, Gunnar Johnson, Alex Kougasian, Aaron LaFauci, Dane Leoniak, Jesse Lieberman, Josh Lannon, Francesca Marchese, Victoria Morrongiello, Zach Newman, Lucy Pugh-Sellers, Madeline Rousell, Zachary Sosland, Courtney Thrun, Emerson White, Nicole Zador, Grace Zhou

MISSION As the weekly community student newspaper of Brandeis University, The Brandeis Hoot aims to provide our readers with a reliable, accurate and unbiased source of news and information. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a readership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events.

Recognizing that better journalism leads to better policy, The Brandeis Hoot is dedicated to the principles of investigative reporting and news analysis. Our mission is to give every community member a voice.

SUBMISSION POLICIES The Brandeis Hoot welcomes letters to the editor on subjects that are of interest to the community. Preference is given to current or former community members and The Hoot reserves the right to edit or reject submissions. The deadline for submitting letters is Wednesday at noon.

Please submit letters to letters@thebrandeishoot.com along with your contact information. Letters should not exceed 500 words. The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

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EDITORIALS

A

The Brandeis Hoot 7

To all staff, thank you

s Kindness Day celebrated its 10th anniversary yesterday, we, the Editorial Board of The Brandeis Hoot, would like to highlight all the staff members on campus and emphasize our appreciation of everything they do to ensure that our campus is running smoothly year-round.

Staff members are those working on campus who are not considered faculty or professors, which include any facilities workers, the Department of Community Living, Sodexo workers, etc. These staff members are working around the clock to ensure that there is food in the dining halls, clean classrooms, bathrooms and hallways, and comfortable places for us to study. In short, they make Brandeis habitable. But oftentimes, these individuals are overlooked on campus.

They are the reason there is always a friendly face at any dining hall cash register, in your quad every morn-

ing and in any office you visit with frantic questions or last-minute appointments.

These staff members deal with over 3,600 students on campus, so we urge the student body to be a little more conscientious and courteous of what they do for their fellow community members. While in the dining hall, take an extra second to wipe down your table after you’re finished eating. Remember to take any dirty plates and cups left behind on the tables. In any on-campus bathrooms, throw your paper towels into the trash can instead of leaving them on the floor nearby. In large communal kitchens, clean up after yourself instead of leaving it up to facilities to clean for you. The same applies for large-scale events; disposing of your own trash would save both event hosts and facilities a ton of time post-event. In short, no matter how stressed you are, try not to make work for others.

Along with all of these small things that you can do, just say hello. A brief greeting to acknowledge staff members and show that you appreciate what they do for us goes a long way. While these all may seem mundane or obvious, a little goes a long way—everyone can be kinder, especially to facilities staff, and help make the campus a friendlier place in the process. For four long years, this place is our workspace, and maybe even our home. Respecting it makes a large impact.

We as an editorial board are grateful that the Department of Community Living hosted a luncheon thanking facilities and custodian staff for the work they do in the residence halls on Kindness Day. However, we would like to see more acknowledgment for the work all staff—contracted and otherwise— put in to make our campus a better place.

FEATURES

8 The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

Kindness Week brings Brandeis faculty and students together

By Shruthi Manjunath editor

This year, Nov. 10 to 15 marks Kindness Week, a week in which students and faculty come together to celebrate being kind to one another and spreading positivity. Kindness Week was created 10 years ago when students and faculty collaborated in order to create a week that celebrates kindness on campus. According to its coordinators, the goal of Kindness Week is to celebrate how friendly and amazing the community at Brandeis is. The Kindness Week

Committee hopes to spread kindness to others and also make sure Brandeis students are aware that it is important to be kind to others and, most importantly, yourself. The celebrations in Kindness Week lead up to Kindness Day, which is Thursday, Nov. 14.

In an email interview with The Brandeis Hoot, Sarah Lavin ’21, the social media coordinator of the Kindness Day committee, highlights how being kind to others is one of the “most special and important things you can do in this world!” As the social media coordinator, Lavin’s job is to create all the Facebook events, posts

CELEBRATING KINDNESS DAY Emma Forster ‘22 and Miriam Krugman ‘20 pass out snacks

PHOTOS COURTESY SARAH LAVIN

and Instagram posts. She created the logo for Kindness Day last year and also created the buttons made this year.

Lavin got involved in Kindness Week through her love for helping others. She explains, “I thought, what better way [to help others] than to join the kindness committee and help promote kindness around campus!” She also loved the events put together during Kindness Week in her first year, and she was inspired to join the committee to create more wonderful events.

There are many events that occur during Kindness Week such as A Decade of Kindness: Coffeehouse Kickoff Event, Cupcakes and Kindness Card Writing, Kindness Day Bingo and Boba, Kindness Day: Free Popcorn and Games, Kindness Roses with SCRAM, Kindness Zen Zone Mediation and many more. I specifically attended the Cupcakes and Kindness Card Writing event in which committee members and volunteers came together to write cards thanking anyone here at Brandeis, make banners thanking the faculty and most importantly, eating cupcakes.

At the event, Ashley Young ’22, the treasurer of the Kindness Day committee, discussed the inspiration behind this event. She explained that the Cupcakes and Kindness Card Writing event is a promotional event to gather excitement leading up to Kindness Day. She highlighted how there are people working on posters for the faculty. For example, individuals were working on a poster for chaplains, which are religious heads, while there were also posters for the mailroom, Upper Usdan and Lower Usdan. Young got involved in the Kindness Day

Committee because she wanted to get more involved in the Brandeis community. She described being on the committee as “an absolute joy” and “a team effort.” She explained that Kindness Week attempts to “thank the people who aren’t always thanked for their support.” She hopes that individuals will learn to “think about others and show that you care about the people around you.”

In order to recognize staff and faculty during Kindness Week, there are various events happen-

ing. There is an event for Brandeis Public Safety. Individuals can also send kindness cards to anyone at Brandeis, which includes staff and faculty. Lastly, volunteers have made posters to thank the departments and faculties on campus.

Overall, Kindness Week strives to bring students and faculty together and allow people to understand that they are loved and supported by those around them, and if they feel alone, they can always reach out and seek help from others.

Featured events calendar Friday. Nov. 15 Addressing Mental Health in the AAPI Community

pajamas and share your favorite folktales, religious stories, myths and fables. Kosher S’mores will be provided.

Fri., Nov. 15, 7–9 p.m., Intercultural Center

Mal Blum with Lord Felix & Babyboy

BAASA will be hosting their monthly discussion: Addressing Mental Health in the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Community! BAASA be talking about issues related to mental health that Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders face, such as Imposter Syndrome. Food from Little India will be served.

Sat., Nov. 16, 8:30–11:30 p.m., Chum’s

Paint Night Fri., Nov. 15, 7:30–9:30 p.m., Village C Studies show drawing reduces anxiety levels and stress.

Brandeis Girl Up will be hosting a paint night open to all.

Saturday, Nov. 16 Campfire Night in Usdan Sat., Nov. 16, 7–9 p.m., Usdan Multifaith Lounge The Interfaith Leadership Council will be sponsoring a Campfire Night. Come in your

New York-based songwriter Mal Blum will be headlining Brandeis Association of Music and Concert Organizing (BAMCO) at the group’s first show of the semester! Openers for the show include Boston area rapper Lord Felix and Babyboy featuring Brandeis’s own Nic Neves.

Doors open at 8:30 p.m. with music beginning at 9 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 17 Hooked On Tap Professional Masterclass Sun., Nov. 17, 1–2:30 p.m., Linsey Multipurpose Room 1 Hooked On Tap will be sponsoring a free masterclass with skilled tapper and teacher Shaina Schwartz! No tap experience required.

Oscillators: Chemicals, Neurons and People: A Celebration of Eve Marder, Irving Epstein and the Volen Center for Complex Systems Sun., Nov. 17, 1–5:30 p.m., Schwartz Auditorium This is a celebration for new university professors Eve Marder and Irving Epstein, and the 25th anniversary of the Volen Center for Complex Systems.

Monday, Nov. 18 Tchaikovsky’s Music and Poetry by Vera Pavlova Mon., Nov. 18, 7–8:30 p.m., Rapaporte Treasure Hall Conducted in Russian with English translations, this multimedia concert by renowned Russian poet Vera Pavlova is a rare opportunity to hear a Russian poet and a classical piano piece in its entirety. Pavlova, also a trained musician and music critic, will be presenting her new cycle of short poems written from a child’s perspective while playing Tchaikovsky’s “The Children’s Album.” Artwork by her and her children will also be displayed.

Tuesday, Nov. 19 Language Lunch 2019 Tues., Nov. 19, 12–2 p.m., Sherman Function Hall This annual “I am Global Week” event invites community members to experience and celebrate linguistic diversity. The event is open to students, faculty and staff, and is open to speakers of all levels.

Familias Separadas/Stories of Families Affected by Detention Tues., Nov. 19, 3–4:30 p.m., Alumni Lounge Michelle Angela Ortiz—a visual artist, muralist, community arts educator and immigrant rights activist—will be introducing her Familias Separadas project. The project is a series of public artworks about the impact of family separations and detentions in Pennsylvania. The installations are displayed in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, PA. Wednesday, Nov. 20 Café Français Wed., Nov. 20, 7–8 p.m., SCC Atrium

French and Francophone Club will be providing pastries and other French treats, calming coloring and fun giveaways.

Cru Friendsgiving 2019 Wed., Nov. 20, 7–10 p.m., Usdan Multifaith Lounge Cru Brandeis Christian Fellowship will be hosting their annual Friendsgiving. This event will include a potluck style Thanksgiving dinner, a movie viewing and time with friends.

Thursday, Nov. 21 Brandeis Innovation Showcase Thurs., Nov. 21, 6–8 p.m., Shapiro Science Center The fifth annual Innovation Showcase is an opportunity to learn about the different innovative and entrepreneurial initiatives in which the community is engaged. The cocktail reception will feature startups, inventions, social entrepreneurship and discoveries born out of Brandeis labs and classrooms.

- Compiled by Polina Potochevska

OPINIONS

November 15, 2019

The Brandeis Hoot 9

Getting your just desserts: the incontrovertible truth part II

By Joey Kornman special to the hoot

Sksksksk, fellow VSCO girls!

I have just “ooped” into another rant (if I used that incorrectly, blame my mother for birthing me). Get ready to fill your Hydro Flasks with sugar and your tummies with joy as we continue this caloric cavalcade.

You know the deal: I’ve got opinions, and you’ve got eyes.

Let’s do this: Seasonal desserts • Pumpkin Whoopie Pie: Replacing the chocolate cakes with pumpkin ones only detracts from the ratio of flavors, which is really the only thing the “OG” had going for it. 5/10 • Pumpkin Bar: Your best bet for getting your seasonal “pumpkin fix,” these bars do not look like much but are in fact pretty flavorful. For anyone who likes pumpkin pie and wishes that the dining halls served that, this is a suitable replacement. 7/10 In honor of the fall season, I wore a fun, fall-themed sweater when I wrote this section. You’ve gotta trust me on this one, but I swear it’s true.

Brownies • Chocolate chip brownie: This item is often hailed as one of the best desserts offered on campus,

but I find them painfully mediocre. I would never turn one down, but I am not liable to go out of my way to pick one. Decent texture and taste make this classic enjoyable but nothing special. This is a good “gateway dessert” for those generally afraid of the culinary category. 5/10 • Blondie: I have always been a big proponent of taking one kind of dessert and putting it in the shape of another dessert. For example, the “cookie cake” incident of ’09 was my doing (for those in the know). That being said, the chocolate-chip-dough combination performs better as a cake or cookie than a brownie. The thickness detracts from the overall textural quality. 4/10 If you would like to find out what the “‘cookie cake’ incident of ’09” was, then you will have to track me down, challenge me to a fistfight, win said fistfight and then pay for my hospital bills.

Alternatively, you could just ask, but the first one would probably be cooler.

Ice cream • French vanilla: French vanilla is a very classic flavor, but it works best when accompanied by toppings. Sadly, the lack thereof means that this one gets serious negative points adjustment (Joey’s hack of the week: You can use cereal like cocoa puffs as a topping for your ice cream in the

absence of actual toppings, or you can scrape the sprinkles off of the cupcakes if you don’t care about your public image). 4/10 • Chocolate: This is one of the most popular flavors and for good reason. Chocolate is perhaps the most consistently enjoyed flavor of ice cream, and tubs of this stuff empty quickly. Get it while it’s cold! 8/10 • Strawberry: While this flavor doesn’t really taste like strawberries, people in the minority (like me) will agree that strawberry ice cream is what makes a Neapolitan a Neapolitan. Combines great with other flavors and is good with or without toppings. 7/10 • Bubblegum: Some swear by this flavor as one of the best. While I personally enjoy the taste, I have yet to conquer my childhood fears of bubblegum lingering inside of my stomach for seven years, so the actual pieces of gum in the ice cream are a major negative. 3/10 • Cake batter: For those who love sweets, this is perhaps the sweetest offering at any dining hall. An acquired taste to be sure, but the ones who love cake batter just can’t get enough. Strangely, I have noticed that big fans of cake batter ice cream are not such big fans of actual cake. 5/10 • Cookies ‘n’ cream: If your favorite part of an Oreo is the cream inside, then this is the dessert for you. Another exemplification of chocolate understatement done

beautifully, this flavor demands no toppings. 8/10 • Mint chocolate chip: Mint is an underrepresented flavor when it comes to desserts. Sure there are peppermint sticks or patties, but as a whole, the flavor is snubbed by chefs and the general populous alike. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is another flavor that thrives in a topingless environment and is a personal favorite of yours truly. 9/10 • Coffee: I do not like coffee.

That being said, I have called my mother, a coffee addict, for her input on this one and she said, and I quote: “That’s so nice that you’re

doing something for the school paper. I wish you called home more.” We are going to call this data point inconclusive and put coffee in the dead center of the rating scale, as its lovers swear by it, but its detractors avoid it at all costs. 5/10 I scream, you scream, we all scream for some more of Joey’s reviews! Be patient, humble reader, there will be more in the future. For now, go and write Ron Liebowitz a strongly worded letter detailing why there should be a soft-serve machine in Usdan!

This is part two of the series “Getting your just desserts.”

PHOTO COUNRTESY OF DOUGLAS VANTRAN

I love cucumber fruit water!

By Aaron LaFauci staff

I must admit that guzzling water is one of my favorite things to do. I stop at every water fountain I pass, and I do not take tentative sips. When I was a kid, I would heft my undeveloped body onto countertops and dip my head under faucets. I drain water bottles.

I wish I owned one of those hydro-backpacks with a water sack and straw attached to it.

Does all that make me sound like a gluttonous freak? So be it.

I love drinking water. There is just something so indescribably pure and refreshing about drowning your gullet in crystalline liquid.

It irritates me when people call water “tasteless.” Clean, fluoridated water tastes like angelic bliss. Regardless, unless the water is especially foul, its taste is not important. It is the experience of hydrating oneself, the subtle dopamine rush that comes with fulfilling of a basic animal necessity, which drives me to quench again and again.

All of that said, it should come

FRUIT WATER EXPECTATIONS

as no surprise that my favorite feature of the dining halls is the fruit water. There is a lot of disparity in quality between the Sherman and Lower Usdan fruit water dispensers, but I’ll get to that near the end of this piece. As a concept alone, the fruit water embodies three all important aspects of an ideal water drinking experience: sustainability, transparency and coldness. Allow me to elaborate.

The fruit water is sustainable No plastic bottles, paper cups or aluminum cans are necessary in the operation of the fruit water dispenser. All a dining hall goer needs is an empty glass and a yearning for delicious water. Given that diners can fill their cups at their own discretion, the fruit water should also be a wasteless form of water consumption. Realistically, most of that water is probably dumped down a drain.

The fruit water is transparent If you have ever gotten your water from the Sherman soda fountains, you know exactly what I mean. It’s cloudy. While I am

PHOTO FROM IHEARTNAPTIME.COM

sure this cloudy fountain water is perfectly healthy, the tainted look of it throws the entire experience, and soda fountains are kind of gross in and of themselves. The liquid comes from the depths of an unseen machine that may or may not be cleaned never. There is probably all kinds of bacterial plaque buildup in those things.

The fruit water dispensers on the other hand are literally transparent vessels from which water enthusiasts can gaze upon their prize in all of its stagnant glory.

Is it the same water that comes out of the sink? Probably, but the ability to survey it with my own eyeballs makes all the difference.

It is also fun to watch the water level slowly drain as it pours into my glass.

The fruit water is cold The fruit water carries with it all the pleasures of ice water without the annoying ice. In a strawless world, ice water sucks. It sloshes everywhere and makes your teeth cold. I feel deeply emasculated when the ice chunks tap against my philtrum during deep, glass tipping quaffs. The fruit water dispensers achieve the pleasantly chilled temperature of ice water while withholding the ice itself via a tap. The office “water bubbler” system is just an ideal way to distribute temperature controlled water.

The fruity taste of the water is a negligible feature. I enjoy the lemon water when I am in a spicy mood, but I generally ignore the blood orange. The melon/cantaloupe does nothing for me. Occasionally there will be strawberry flavored water, but I have found

this to be very rare. My favorites are cucumber and mint. I find that these flavorings add a crisp, back-of-the-throat touch to the water that I quite enjoy. These flavours also don’t usually come with any pulp, which is a big bonus.

Unfortunately, the fruit water dispensers have their own problems. It is practically impossible to get a good amount of water in Sherman, as the taps only release water in a trickle. Some kind of gunk that nobody has bothered to clear out is blocking them. I have noticed a newer dispenser with a higher liquid throughput on occasion, but it isn’t employed consistently. The taps in Lower Usdan are pretty great by comparison, but they are a little out of the way. In past years, they could be found right next to the soda fountains, but they have been relocated to the vegan station (real water connoisseurs actually enjoy this change, as the vegan area is rarely crowded). I have also come to

FRUIT WATER REALITY

enjoy the apple cider tap that has been sitting next to the fruit water for the past month or so; hopefully that is a permanent feature.

Water is great. Water is life. It is my wish to convince as many folks as possible to drop the lame, sugar-infused, overcarbonated, hyper-corporate Coca Cola liquids and return to the beautiful simplicity of H2O. The fruit water dispensers are a great place to start! If you have a soda problem and are looking to reform yourself, the fruit infusion might be just the transition you need.

As an aside, Skyline is the worst dorm for two important reasons.

Firstly, it is a tasteless architectural monstrosity designed to impress investors and prospective student tour groups that was built over the foundation of a really sick century-old castle. Secondly, its high tech water fountain design is horrible and obviously not meant for human consumption.

Trust me, I have tried.

PHOTO BY EMMA LICHTENSTEIN/THE HOOT

10 OPINIONS

The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

A call for manners: please pick up

By Sasha Skarboviychuk editor

I would like to whole-heartedly thank Brandeis Confessions for being a wonderful source of inspiration and reminding us all about everything that is wrong with Brandeis.

The dining hall is a particular place in desperate need of more consideration of others. I am not even talking about people who push each other during lunch and dinner rush, which honestly is bad enough. I am talking about the people who for some reason think it is OK to take off their shoes while enjoying their meal.

I understand that for most people doing this at home is perfectly acceptable, and there is nothing wrong with that. But when you are at the dining hall, in a public place, it is not an OK thing to do.

I also do not really like shoes, or wearing them, and there are many times a day I want to take them off. But in the dining hall, really?

Do you really think people want to be looking at your bare feet?

Or even better do you think really think people want to smell your feet?

Here’s another thing that has always bothered me about people at the dining hall: It feels like there are maybe six people at Brandeis who know what a knife is, let alone how to use one. The amount of people I’ve observed push food onto their forks with theirs fingers is… concerning.

Guys, come on. There was literally a utensil invented (partially) for that purpose. Why would you want to make your—already dirty—hands even dirtier?

This brings me to another point: Does anyone even wash their hands before eating? I don’t think so. And I get that the bathrooms are far away, and it is not convenient to go there, especially when you are right in the middle of lunch rush. But washing your hands before you eat is very important, especially right now while we are in the middle of flu season. Do you really want the flu? If you are still too lazy to go wash your hands before every meal, then please invest in a bottle of hand sanitizer. It isn’t as good as washing your hands, but it’s something.

Speaking of the flu and washing your hands, almost every single time I am in a bathroom, I see someone who leaves without washing their hands. We are in college, and this is something they teach us in elementary school. Please wash your hands before you leave the bathroom; it is just not sanitary to do otherwise. Once again, do you really want to spread the flu, or carry those bathroom germs with you all day? I realize that most of us get lonely, but germs aren’t the way to go when you want company. If you don’t care about you, try to do it for other people.

Speaking of caring for other people: When you walk in groups, please try to be a little more con-

siderate of those who are walking on the same path. There have been so many instances when I struggled to get around huge groups of people who seem to be participating in the snail olympics. I’m glad that you all are enjoying a slow walk, but I have 10 minutes to get from Mandel to the International Business School, and I do not have time to out-slow you. You have all the rights in the world to walk slowly, but please make room for other people; it doesn’t take much.

From slow to fast, let’s talk about the very considerate people who use their electric skateboards to get from place to place. I understand that you are just trying to move around faster, but you are usually going on sidewalks, where people, you know, walk. And your little iron-on wheels can be a major safety hazard for everyone around you. Maybe I’m crazy, but jumping out of the way of skateboarders is not my favorite thing to do.

Speaking of jumping out of people’s way: Let’s talk about elevators. Do you remember the scene in The Lion King where Mufasa gets killed? He is trampled to death by stampeding wildebeests? Yeah, ever felt like that when exiting an elevator at Brandeis? Because I have. People really need to learn some basic elevator etiquette, but before we get to that, let’s talk about physics.

An enclosed space has a limited amount of space. Therefore, it can only fit a limited amount of peo-

ple. So logically, it makes sense to let the people who are already in the elevator out first, right? Yes, Brandeis students, please let people out of the elevator first and then enter. Also please do not wait three inches away from the door, no one is going to take your place in the elevator. It’s just a polite thing to do.

So here is my proposal for the new Health and Wellness pro-

gram: Offer a class on manners, safety and etiquette in general.

Most of these things seem obvious, but many are things that are not often thought about. However, they are still crucial to being a member of society. So unless you’re planning on living on a deserted island (which I don’t blame you for), please take some of the aforementioned things into account.

PHOTO FROM ART.COM

A Catholic at ‘Jewish Harvard’

By Thomas Pickering special to the hoot

If your eyes are immediately wondering what this article is because of the title, then I have oldtimey click-baited you into reading this. Let’s face it: You’re this far into the article, which is literally two sentences, but it’s too deep to give up. So, let me explain the title by telling you all a story: The year is 2005 and a four-yearold Thomas Pickering is preparing for his first day of pre-school in the basement of a Jewish temple in Worcester, MA called Temple Emanuel. Now on this crisp fall day, my mother packed my lunch and I was fully prepared for my first big day away from home.

Everything went well; I didn’t cry when I got dropped off, and I was talking to all the kids there. Now one would think what could go wrong at pre-school? What could

get you kicked out? Well, I found that out at lunch time. At noon on my first day my mother got a call from the school that just said, “You must pick your son up now!”

A million things went through my mother’s mind in the moments following the call as she got in the car to go pick me up.

What could Thomas have done?

Did he light the temple on fire?

Did he kick or hit a kid? Did he fall and split open his head?

Numerous worst-case scenario thoughts were filling my mother’s head. When she picked me up, she was surprised: There I was laughing with kids and having a grand time. Naturally my mom wondered, “What could be wrong with my son then? Is he the antichrist or something?” Turns out, the reason she had to pick me up was because I was getting kicked out on the first day of school. I had a ham sandwich for lunch and, because I wasn’t kosher, I

couldn’t remain in the temple.

Well, this is one of two main issues Jewish pre-school put upon me. Later in the year at the end of December, I was cheerfully eating some gold coins I was given at temple. As I was doing so I triumphantly looked up at my mother and announced “I celebrate Hanukkah!” This would set back any mother who was not raising a Jewish boy, and confused she said, “What, no you don’t!” Now being the great debater I was at the ripe age of four, I looked right back up at her and into her eyes and said, “Yeah, well I do.” In that moment I am told my mother’s soul shattered, and she came down at me, like the good Italian Catholic mother she is, and I was harshly told the truth that I am Catholic and celebrate Christmas, not Hanukkah.

Flash forward 14 years. I am a senior in high school, and I am committing to Brandeis Universi-

ty. My local parish priest pulls me over after mass and has me meet another member of my church who went to Brandeis in the early ’80s. He told me the story that as he was graduating his Catholic high school, as I as going to only in a few weeks at the time, a nun pulled him into her office. He was told to sit down and the nun dove into her desk and pulled out a chain and cross necklace. She gave it to him and told him, “Now when you are at Brandeis, don’t become one of those Jews. Wear this, and you’ll always remember your faith.” Now this was a lot to process at 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and to you reading this at God knows what time, it’s probably a lot to process now for you.

You are right in being confused in what happened, now imagine you are in my shoes. Your priest is having this stranger tell you this story and is now waiting for your reaction to it. I played it off, but

realized only on the drive back home that he was warning me not to become Jewish. What a crazy thought?

Well now flash forward to drop off day. My family joked that I was going full circle with my Jewish character arc, and we all ate ham sandwiches together on campus to see if I would be kicked out again. If you have some brain cells, which I assume you do because you got into Brandeis, no, I didn’t get kicked out. Go figure.

So now we flash to today. Am I Jewish? No. Am I surrounded by Jewish people? At Brandeis University? Nooo, Jewish people go here? What? Well they do, believe it or not, and I, for once in my life, despite being a heterosexual, cisgender, white male; I am a minority: a Catholic at “Jewish Harvard.”

Editor’s note: This is the second part of the series “Why am I Here?”

November 15, 2019

OPINIONS 11

The Brandeis Hoot

SSIS: advice column

By SSIS special to the hoot

Welcome back to the Student Sexuality Information Service (SSIS) column, where we answer any and all of Brandeis students’ questions about sex, sexuality, identity and relationships. If you have a question you’d like answered in our next column, email ssis@brandeis.edu or leave a question in the Google Form link on the Student Sexuality Information Service Facebook page. Any and all questions are welcome: there are no bad, stupid or weird questions! (Note: These answers are good-faith attempts by SSIS to be helpful to the Brandeis community, and are by no means exhaustive or to be taken as universal. If these answers don’t resonate with you, either pay them no mind, or reach out to us with suggestions for improvement!)

Do you have any advice on how to improve masturbation as a cis male?

This is a wonderful question!

There are many ways to improve masturbation for cis males.

One way to improve masturbation is to get to know your body more. This means learning about your anatomy and pleasure centers. Cis males tend to have many pleasure centers, including the shaft, glans, frenulum, perenium, testes and scrotum, anus and prostate. Each of these centers can be stimulated in many different ways. If you’d like more information about anatomy and stimulation, feel free to stop by SSIS during any of our open office hours! We have a variety of books on masturbation and technique that might be helpful to you.

Another way to improve masturbation can be to explore erotica, such as pornography or erotic writing. Masturbation is a healthy and safe way to learn about your fantasies, wants and desires. Pornographic images, videos, stories, etc. can help you learn about those

desires and also help get you into the mood! SSIS has a variety of erotic writing in our library availible to be taken out.

One final way to improve masturbation for cis males can be to try using toys. Toys for cis males include masturbatory sleeves, anal toys, cock rings, nipple clamps and more. At SSIS, we sell a masturbatory sleeve for $7, butt plugs for $15 and cock rings for $3. If you are interested in learning more about toys, or looking for recommendations for where to buy them, feel free to ask SSIS! My partner and I have great sex, and I always finish, but he has more stamina than I do that sometimes he doesn’t get to. I know it’s ok to say no, and he says it’s OK that he doesn’t always get to cum, but I feel bad.

How can I make sure he’s satisfied but also make sure my vagina isn’t chafed all the time?

This is a great question. While it sounds like your partner is OK with not cumming every time you both have sex, it makes sense that

you want to make sure he’s satisfied! There are multiple ways that you can proceed in this sort of situation, from doing things to help yourself last longer to exploring non-penetrative sexual activities.

If you’re looking to make penetrative sex last longer, think about experimenting with different types of lube. Also, taking a break for oral sex can do a lot to help get back in the mood. Whether you go down on him or he goes down on you (or both!), this kind of shift can increase your stamina and can also be hot, too. Taking breaks, changing positions/sexual acts and using lube are all potential ways to increase stamina.

However, there are plenty of ways to continue being sexual without having penetrative sex be the end goal. Mutual masturbation can be a great way to be sexual together, while also helping to make sure that he cums.

Since people tend to be the best at getting themselves off, this will allow you to share the experience while also increasing the chance that he cums. Another possibility

is licking/sucking his balls while he touches himself; this can increase sensation while still letting him get himself off. Oral sex, hand jobs and mutual masturbation are all great ways to cum while lessening the risk of chafing.

It may also help to think about what things tend to trigger orgasm for your partner. Is there a particular phrase you can say that he’s really into? Is there a particular position that really works for him? Using your knowledge of

your partner’s likes and dislikes may help in this process.

It’s great that your partner respects and values your boundaries and pleasure, and that you respect and value his! Whether he cums or not, it seems that the both of you are having a great time, which is awesome. Hopefully these tips help—if you’re looking for more suggestions, there are plenty of resources in the SSIS library that may be helpful to you.

PHOTO COURTESY SSIS

Rose-colored vision

By John Fornagiel staff

Last spring semester, I remember getting a call from my mom one day who told me that I should not come home because my dad had pink eye. Pink eye, formally known as conjunctivitis, is an inflammation of tissue in the eye, causing redness and swelling.

Since I am the best son in the world, I found this absolutely hilarious and asked her to send me a picture of my dad.

He was the complete package: His left eye was completely closed shut, his right eye was swollen and red, and his face somehow managed to look more like Frankenstein than it did before.

Being the curious little go-getter I am, I looked up some of the various signs and symptoms that accompany this illness. I found

that symptoms include swelling and redness of the eyes, increased production of tears, various colors of eye discharge, a gritty feeling in the eye and a burning sensation.

Definitely not a fun infection to deal with. On top of all of these fun symptoms, I found that pink eye is extremely contagious, which is the reason that my mom told me to not come home.

In fact, my mom was very lucky that she herself did not fall ill even though my dad was not shy about spreading his infection all over the house.

Since pink eye is very contagious, it comes as no surprise that you really should be staying out of work or school during your infection. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, as this infection can affect a person for a few days to over a month.

Given all of these fun symptos, it may come as a surprise to you

that pink eye is actually not too serious of an infection. In fact, you typically do not even have to see a doctor for it. However, there are some complications that can arise that should be seen by a doctor. These scenarios include moderate to severe pain in the infected eye, intense redness, sensitivity to light and blurred vision.

Moreover, if you have a weakened immune system, from sources such as HIV, a previous infection or cancer treatment, then it is also necessary to visit a doctor.

In those cases, your body would not be able to fight off the infection, and it could seriously damage your eye. Infants should also be taken to the doctor for pink eye since their immune systems are not fully developed.

Even if no complications arise and you feel the need to go to the doctor, then listen to your gut.

Honestly, even though it may not

be necessary, I do not know many people who would not go to the doctor after learning that they could have it.

Since pink eye can take you out of work or school for over a month, it is our interest to prevent you from even getting it in the first place. Unfortunately, it is extremely contagious, so even with our best efforts, we are not fully immune to it.

However, since the main means of getting ill is through the spread of viruses and bacteria, there are a few self-care tips to reduce the risk of getting sick in the first place. These include washing your hands, avoiding touching your eyes and avoid sharing visual aids such as eyeglasses and contact lenses. Also, if your best friend has pink eye, then it is probably in your best interest if he or she does not see you for a while. Prevention is your best friend in the

first place!

Although I made fun of my dad for having pink eye, I felt really bad for him for that week. Fortunately, he had the bacterial form of the illness, so he was prescribed antibiotics, and it expedited his treatment exponentially. When I went home later that month, however, I was extra careful to avoid touching my eyes. I can guarantee you that after going through this illness, my dad would have rather prevented it in the first place.

(Note: These articles are goodfaith attempts to be helpful to the Brandeis community and are by no means to be taken as universal.

This article does not replace the advice of a medical professional.

This article is not written on behalf of the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps (BEMCo) and is not affiliated with BEMCo in any manner.)

You don’t have to eat it for one day

By Sabrina Chow editor

The biggest question I always get from people when I tell them I have stopped eating meat is: Why? Their question is often followed by a long lecture about all the great benefits that come with eating meat, all the nutrients that I’m missing out on, all the great food groups I’m missing, etc. My response: Tom Brady is a vegan and has six Super Bowl rings.

And yes, I do miss meat, but everyone makes sacrifices, and meat was one of mine.

So what’s the real reason I don’t eat meat anymore? I care about our environment and am actively trying to reduce my carbon footprint. I realized last year, when I stopped eating meat, how big of an impact consuming meat has

on our carbon footprint. I initially stopped eating all red meat my first year at Brandeis and slowly reduced my consumption to just fish once every two weeks, when I’m craving something that isn’t plants or carbohydrates.

One of the easiest ways to reduce our carbon footprint is to reduce our intake of meat consumption. Before I get berated for trying to change everyone’s diet, hear me out. I am by no means telling everyone to be a vegetarian, since that is realistically impossible.

I do find myself very fortunate to be in a place where I am able to make this voluntary change to my diet and do recognize that this is not possible for all individuals, but it is something that is very impactful towards helping reduce your carbon footprint, the university’s carbon footprint and the world’s carbon footprint.

Last year, I completed an analysis of our campus’ meat consumption and the corresponding carbon footprint. Through this study, I found that our school purchased, and consumed, over 250,000 pounds of meat, which added over one million kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions to the earth.

Even crazier, under 25 percent of our meat purchase was beef, and it accounted for 75 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from our meat consumption. So, if you’re craving meat one day and can’t decide between grilled chicken or a hamburger, go for the chicken. It’s by far healthier and better for the environment.

So, will you step up and take the challenge? Join the Brandeis Student Union Senate Sustainability Committee, the Brandeis Student Union Senate Dining Committee and the Brandeis Sustainability

Ambassadors on Monday, Nov. 18 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., during the lunch period in Lower Usdan, for a meatless Monday celebration!

During this time, there will be NO meat in the dining hall, but a variety of vegetarian and vegan friendly meals prepared by Sodexo, which builds upon the plant

forward station that already exists in Lower Usdan that serves up great food.

You can give up meat for a day, I promise; it is not that hard. Vegetarian/vegan food is so much better than what people think. Yes, it may just be plants, but plants are great!

PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK.COM

ARTS

12 The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

Fall Flex 2019: A first timer’s take

By Uma Jagwani special to the hoot

“Sold out” are the words that first caught my eye by the ticket booth in the Shapiro Campus Center (SCC). Fall Flex, sold out?

Our expensive tuition gets us free concerts? It must be a really big deal here. It must be a really good time! Wow, Brandeis is so cool.

For those that don’t know me, I recently transferred to Brandeis and had only seen the multitude of posters and signs on the BranVan for this Fall Flex thing. I paid little attention to it and brushed off the idea that there was an actual free concert at school. However, upon arriving at Levin Ballroom for the overly publicized event, I found it bizarre that the room was barely halfway filled, even when the crowd was at its biggest. For most professional concerts and shows, “sold out” is typically an indication that the experience will be worthwhile, and artists

were popular enough that there were no tickets left. But in apparent Brandeis fashion, the turnout was much more downplayed than anticipated (or so I’ve been told).

While Fall Flex featured prominent mainstream artists like Social House, Sage the Gemini and Cash Cash, the performers seemed to have difficulty getting the crowd to meet their energy levels.

The opening set was led by a student, DJ Ekenomics, who won a competition for the stage time and played popular bops of the last couple years like “Caroline” and “Lemon.” Blasting music overpowered the constant chatter amongst Brandeisians waiting for their show. The energy was so low that I spotted a group of girls sitting on the ground in a circle on their phones. A true testament of our era.

Despite the lack of bodies in the room, the energy was a dim light that eventually grew to a roaring glow by the time Social House

entered the stage. Purple lights enveloped the audience’s faces. and the music bounced across the walls. The atmosphere was (finally) lively, contrasted by the security teams’ stern faces.

Dialogue between the performers and the audience never ceases to amaze me, and that night was no different—Social House, the dynamic duo of Mikey Foster and Scootie Anderson, apparently heard Brandeis was “lit” (I do not know where they got this impression or if they were just trying to energize us) and began to say how much they “f*ck with us,” infecting the crowd with some real spirit. The two then prepped the audience for each song by asking questions. “How many of y’all are in a relationship; raise ya hand!”

Mikey yelled, and then proceeded to play “Boyfriend” ft. Ariana Grande. There’s something special about the way a concert turns persons into people as we all sang “Magic in the Hamptons” as one with Social House. Dedicated fans must have reveled most in the snippets where not only a select few knew the lyrics and the entire sea of students were singing along to the jam (and the encore). It was easy to get lost in these moments, dancing along with the person next to me (who didn’t know my name until halfway through the show).

In spite of these glorious moments, when I wished songs were endless, the spectacle did feel underwhelming at times, like when Sage the Gemini began performing his lesser known songs before his recent hit, “Red Nose.” Sage announced to us that he wasn’t feeling we were hyped enough, so he went straight to “Red Nose.”

The track was successful in alleviating the lull after Social House,

PHOTOS FROM UMA JAGWANI/THE HOOT

and the crowd seemed to be in good spirits as favorites like “Gas Pedal,” “Now and Later,” “No Ex’s” and “GDFR” were performed. After his set, Sage jumped down to greet the crowd (I was granted the honor of shaking his sweaty hands and squeezed in a selfie). Both Social House and Sage asked the audience to take out their phone flashlights and light up the room by the end of their sets, which was a perfect setup for a dreamy goodbye.

After Sage the Gemini finished his set, and Cash Cash came on, it seemed that more than half of the crowd had vanished. Perhaps EDM wasn’t their style of music, or they had to get to sleep before their Monday morning classes.

The music pounded its way into my chest—I didn’t know if I was feeling my heartbeat or the sound of the bass. The vibrating EDM called for glow sticks that people waved as they crashed into each other after a beat dropped. Cash Cash’s set was least interesting

to me, (despite playing bops like “Take Me Home” and “Finest Hour”) either because I was sober or just not a huge fan of EDM (probably both).

The highlight of Cash Cash’s set was a second of silence right before they dropped the beat where this one guy yelled, “I HAVE A MIDTERM TOMORROW!” while headbanging—to which I responded, “ME TOO!”—and that was the end of that conversation. Vivacious and relentless, Cash Cash did not let the lack of a full crowd deter their music, if anything this seemed to give them more motivation to hype up those who were left. The people that did decide to stay seemed to be having a superb time, jumping and bouncing to the beats until they were exhausted. Overall, the lack of people didn’t ruin the experience; a private, intimate campus concert that had me sold that this was a night well spent. I think I might get a ticket next year, and actually go, too.

‘Feet of Clay’ gave me a foot fetish

By Grace Zhou staff

In the biblical Book of Daniel, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a giant statue with a head of gold, silver chest and arms, bronze stomach and thighs, calves of iron and feet of iron and baked clay. When a stone strikes the statue, the sculpture, in all its greatness, collaps-

es. The prophet Daniel, speaking to the king, interprets the dream as such: The statue symbolizes earthly kingdoms, including that of Nebuchadnezzar. Though these dominions may appear grand, he said, they are in fact temporal and subordinate to God’s kingdom, which is forever enduring and all-encompassing.

The title of Earl Sweatshirt’s latest project “Feet of Clay” references this biblical tale, and the

PHOTO FROM GENIUS.COM

album is a fitting rumination on life and death, trauma and healing and past and future. Released by surprise on Halloween night, the album contains seven tracks, clocking in at only 15 minutes in length. Sonically and thematically, “Feet of Clay” is rife with tension.

None of the songs contain a traditional hook, and very few have a chorus; instead, the rapping comes packaged in verses and is delivered stream of consciousness style. Often, Earl’s flow seems to intentionally discord the musical backing, falling into patterns of monotony or awkwardly cleaving syllables over beats. Using abstract lyrics, Earl weaves together fragmentary images pertaining to the loss of his father, South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile (who passed away in early 2018), introspection and ultimately finding peace. The experimentation of this album is a provocative and welcome artistic endeavor.

Though most of the songs on “Feet of Clay” are short in runtime, Earl organizes them in the tracklist to maximize the impact of each. The album opens with the dark, moody “74,” though the broodiness is quickly counteracted by the second song “East,” whose production uses a cartoon-like accordion loop. Brilliantly, Earl foregrounds some of the album’s most macabre content over these goofy instrumentals, and they serve the perfect juxtaposition for the soft, luminous vocalizations on next track “MTOMB.” For this reason, when

the fourth song “OD” starts, the cacophony of the production and the monotony of Earl’s rapping feel almost shocking, though, again, the abrasion is ultimately short lived, as the following track “El Toro Combo Meal” utilizes a delicate lo-fi beat. The penultimate “Tisk Tisk/Cookies” is seemingly two songs in one––the former more gritty and the latter brighter––and the beat switch that demarcates the two, occurring around the 30-second mark, enhances these contrasting sounds. Finally, coming after the short soundbites of the rest of the album’s songs, the warped and distorted “4N” feels disorientingly long at five minutes, taking up nearly one-third of the album’s runtime.

Thematically, death is omnipresent in “Feet of Clay,” even if included only as a passing thought. On “74,” Earl evokes images of birds of prey with the line “Sellin’ kids culture with death, circlin’ like carrion;” on “OD,” there’s the beautifully gruesome sentiment, “My memory really leaking blood/It’s congealing, stuck.” In other instances, Earl more specifically invokes the loss of his father––for instance, on “MTOMB” with the line “Piscean just like my father, still got bones to pick out/For now let’s salt the rims and pour a drink out.” Like Earl’s earlier discography, “Feet of Clay” makes references to the rapper’s complicated relationship with his dad, and Earl has additionally publicly stated that

Kgositsile was largely absent from his life. Tragically, before the poet’s passing, the two never had a chance to fully reconcile.

Making sense of trauma––trauma that stems from an absent father during adolescence or trauma that stems from a sudden loss––is not easy. In a sort-of meta moment on “El Toro Combo Meal,” Earl raps about his process of compartmentalization and dissociation from difficult feelings, “I keep the tears out of my mind reach/I put my fears in a box like a prayer that you won’t read.” In other cases, Earl alludes to his struggles with substances, desponding on “East,” “Had a story careen against the bars/My canteen was full of the poison I need.”

Lyrically and structurally, “Feet of Clay” is a collage, an efflux of Earl’s innermost thoughts that are then patched together into musical vignettes. In many ways, the album seems to say that healing, too, is a nonlinear journey––it is the process of getting worse and getting better, of constructing narrative, of finding meaning in even the most futile moments. It’s a beautiful expression of vulnerability. In “MTOMB,” Earl recalls a moment from his childhood: “Braids brought out my eyes/I saw a light, I was nine/Told my n**ga Miles we might gon’ be aight.” Reflecting on this memory, Earl provides, in his typical poetic brevity, a faint, understated yet nonetheless powerful glimmer of hope: “Guess I was right.”

November 15, 2019

The Brandeis Hoot

ARTS 13

At this point, ‘Riverdale’ is just nonsense

By Sasha Skarboviychuk editor

“Riverdale” has always been an unexplainable phenomenon to me. I watched the first two seasons, then decided it was getting too absurd and stopped. Earlier this year, “Riverdale” started its fourth season. According to a previous Hoot article, the first episode honored the death of Luke Perry, one of the actors, and apparently, it was a really good episode. Well, I didn’t watch it, but I did catch the Halloween episode, and let’s just say that “Riverdale’s” streak of good episodes ended there.

For those who are wise enough to not watch “Riverdale,” let me catch you up on what is going on.

The show centers on four teenagers: Archie Andrews (KJ Apa), the boy-next-door who likes getting into unnecessary trouble and on my nerves; Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart), the girl-next-door with a mysterious “dark side;” Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), the rich girl who tries to be nice; and Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse), the series’ try-hard dramatic narrator.

The noteable side-characters in this episode are Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), the mean itgirl who makes appearances as random as rain on a sunny day, and her girlfriend Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan). Their relationship feels more like a forced domestic partnership than a “goals” situation.

They all live in a small town called “Riverdale”—surprising, I

PHOTOS FROM TVLINE.COM

know—which has more crap happening in it than there should be in 10 towns of the same size combined. Since we are four seasons in, I could spend hours describing what has happened, but to spare us all, let’s just say a lot of random sh*t goes down in “Riverdale.”

The Halloween episode starts with videotapes of the houses appearing on their own doorsteps all over “Riverdale,” which results in widespread fear; after everything these people have dealt with (i.e a serial killer, people dressing as gargoyles, multiple drug gangs) videotapes almost feel harmless.

For this Halloween, Archie-Ialways-try-to-do-good-but-failAndrews wants to keep kids off the streets by turning his gym into a community center. He decides to throw a party on Halloween, so kids don’t end up going around dealing drugs. Intriguing start right? Too bad everything else is

nonsense. Archie comes head to head with one of Riverdale’s main drug dealers, and the latter ends up shooting one of the kids at the party. Noble, but naive, Andrews.

He always bothered me.

Jughead seems to have started attending some kind of fancy school with a bunch of stuck up jerks, who as you can imagine are not the most pleasant to be around. They haze the poor kid, who really just wants to be left alone and study. Sound familiar?

Well, this is “Riverdale,” so “cliche teen movie” is not enough.

The other students don’t just haze Jughead, they also lock him up in a coffin for the night. Let me say that again: The poor kid spent the entire night in a coffin.

Comparatively, Betty got the most peaceful evening of all. She starts at home with Jughead’s little sister, trying to enjoy the night. But their peace is inter-

rupted when they start getting silent phone-calls, and since this is “Riverdale,” prank calls do not exist, so it has to be a serial killer calling them. The conclusion of this was also quite unimpressive for “Riverdale” standards: It was just Betty’s older sister trying to get in touch with her. As a sidenote, Betty’s older sister is currently part of a murdering cult that is on the run from authorities for all the messed up things they have done in the past.

Veronica, just like the rest of the characters, is a senior in high school. But she already owns a diner which has a speakeasy under it. Normal, right? Anyway, Veronica was alone in her diner late at night—which you know, is always a good idea—when she encounters a customer asking to come in and eat even though the diner is closed. Of course, she lets him in and feeds him, until she saw on TV that he was actually an escaped patient from a psychiatric

facility. He then tries to murder her. Didn’t see that one coming?

Yeah, neither did I. In case all of this was not enough to persuade you of the pure absurdity of this show, I saved the best for last: It appears that, for a while, Cheryl kept the body of her brother (who died in season one) in the basement of her house. She would go talk to him and dress him and play with him like a doll.

How is this even allowed on TV? Thankfully, Toni finally makes her bury the body: Oh my God, someone in this show has some common sense.

These are just the highlights of what happened in this year’s Halloween episode of “Riverdale,” and it is truly a lot. I am almost certain that the writers are just messing with the audience at this point—there is no way they think any of this is even mildly believable. After seeing all of this in one place, I only have one thing to say: “Riverdale” is a sh*tshow.

PHOTO FROM ELITEDAILY.COM

‘Dr. Sleep’ is a worthy follow-up to two classics

By Zachary Sosland staff

“Doctor Sleep” is a sequel to the classic Stanley Kubrick horror film “The Shining,” both of which are based on bestselling Stephen King novels. This movie follows an older Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), who is trying to move on from the events of “The Shining.” Dan must face his past when the True Knot—a dangerous cult of people who feed on children similar to Dan with supernatural powers known as “shining”—sets its sights on a powerful young girl named Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), whom he must protect.

I love Kubrick’s “The Shining,” and the first trailer for “Doctor Sleep” had me intrigued. Although “Doctor Sleep” is not a perfect movie, it is still up there with “The Lighthouse” and “Us” as one of the best horror movies of 2019.

Much of what works with this film comes down to writer/director/editor Mike Flanagan, who already made “Gerald’s Game” (2017), another Stephen King adaptation. Rather than overly relying on jump scares like most

modern horror movies, Flanagan creates a dark aura with his direction, which is fitting for a sequel to “The Shining.” Scenes that should feel tense and atmospheric feel tense and atmospheric. Flanagan obviously can’t top Kubrick, but he succeeds at making the sequel his own.

The cinematography from Michael Fimognari is also noteworthy. He uses a muted color palette for this movie—not muted like a Zack Snyder movie but muted where it feels like a sequel to “The Shining.” Regardless, it makes “Doctor Sleep” look even better.

The performances are all incredible. McGregor is excellent as an older Danny Torrance. Once Dan thinks he has moved on from his past traumas, he is brought into a conflict that makes him face his past. It is a difficult role to pull off since the actor needs to channel a certain darkness within him, but McGregor thankfully does so.

Newcomer Curran shines in the role of Abra Stone. She has these fantastical powers, and Abra gives off a sense of wonderment but also understands the seriousness of her situation, which leads to some amazing moments. Curran definitely has a promising career

PHOTO FROM LATIMES.COM

PHOTO FROM IMDB.COM

ahead of her.

Rebecca Ferguson is also outstanding as Rose the Hat, the villainous leader of the True Knot.

Her performance is sinister for sure, but she often brings a certain playfulness that raises the character above a generic power-hungry villain. This character is fascinating to say the least, and I would like to learn more about her in some way or another.

In terms of the screenplay, Flanagan succeeds at writing a film that appeals to both fans of “The Shining” movie and book. King, who is an executive producer on “Doctor Sleep,” has been vocal about his disdain for Kubrick’s adaptation of “The Shining” because it deviates too much from his source material—even though today, more people are familiar with the film than the book. Flanagan had the challenge of whether this movie should serve as a sequel to either “The Shining” book or the movie, but it is actually a sequel to both. While I haven’t read “The Shining,” research has taught me that this movie incorporates ref-

erences from the book, which motivates me to read it. I am glad that Flanagan kept important elements from the movie, especially because it is more recognized than the book. Many people will take issue with the references to “The Shining” movie, but these references are more than simply fan service and thankfully do not distract from the important elements (plot and characters).

“Doctor Sleep” not only works as a sequel but also stands on its own as an exceptional movie.

I know I have mentioned “The Shining” plenty of times throughout this review, but “Doctor Sleep” is similar to “Blade Runner 2049” in that it works as a standalone story within “The Shining” universe. Seeing “The Shining” first is definitely recommended, but I am interested to know whether or not people who do not see it first before watching this movie will understand the latter.

“Doctor Sleep” also examines complex issues about facing inner demons. There are several scenes with Dan that gives the movie a

soft exterior in between the many frightening moments. Although this film is less of a horror movie than its predecessor, it still features a scene involving a young boy that is terrifying; I’m sure I am not the only one who will feel this way.

If I had any problems with “Doctor Sleep,” it is that the pacing can sometimes drag. “The Lighthouse,” another psychological thriller released this year, was deliberate in its slow placing.

“Doctor Sleep,” on the other hand, is two-and-a-half hours and feels like it could have been shorter.

That is a small issue I have with this movie that will probably go away on repeat viewings.

“Doctor Sleep” is a great sequel and great film overall. It takes elements from both “The Shining” book and movie to create something special, complete with memorable performances and top-notch directing. More people need to go see this film because it’s underperforming at the box office.

14 ARTS

The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019

Oy Gevalt! ‘Oy’ is aggressively Jewish, in the best way

By Emma Lichtenstein editor

“Oy!” is aggressively Jewish and an absolute joy to watch.

The Brandeis Undergraduate Theater Collective (UTC) put on a delightful performance of “Oy!” this past weekend, and those who didn’t get to see it are truly missing out. The cast was committed to putting on this comedic production and executed each scene so well. “Oy!” is a collection of events, related only in the fact that they all capture the true Jewish experience, from parents calling too much to the power of Jewish guilt.

The show opens with a group

of lawyers asking a new member of the team, Miller (Eveyln Inker ’23), the only Gentile in the room, how she is liking it at their firm.

It’s full of Yiddish and awkwardness as Miller stumbles around the unfamiliar language. From there, the Jewish lawyers explain that there are stories and meanings for each of the words, breaking into the main parts of the play.

Each scene begins with a voiceover of a Yiddish word, immediately followed by the meaning of the word. The word that is defined sets up the theme of each skit.

Scenes from the show include a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, a high holiday gone wrong, a group of old men being old, an unexpectedly emotional Chanu-

kah and a study on what turns Jews on. Each scene was as funny, if not funnier, than the previous one. The execution of the lines and the comedic timing of the cast was really a key part in the success of the show.

In the “Good News From Albert” scene, Albert Einstein (Evan Shapiro ’22), calls his mother (Shoshi Finkel ’20) to tell her about his recent success in receiving the Nobel prize. His mother in turn makes it all about her, asking if the prize comes with any money. When Albert says no, Mrs. Einstein takes a turn for the dramatic, moaning about how Albert is going to be too famous to call her and that he already doesn’t call enough. Finkel delivered her lines so well, that for a second I felt like I was on the phone with my actual mother.

The play revisits the theme of Jewish parents wanting more attention from their kids in a later scene, “Close Call.” Chaim (Esther Shimkin ’21) hosts a radio show, essentially asking people to complain on air. Shimkin embodies this character with a men’s business attire and a gravelly voice. Irving (Shapiro) begins with a rant on the Gentiles taking over the bagel industry, while interspersing that his kids only call when they need money. Chaim then replies that he never gets calls because his kids make a decent living. Sadie (Leanna Ugent ’22) follows Irving and complains that her kids don’t call enough.

Finally David (Lucian Dobroszycki ’23), who has been listening to this whole episode go down,

PHOTOS BY GRACE ZHOU/THE HOOT

speaks up in favor of the kid. In perhaps the greatest moment of the show, he says about his father: “He likes the idea of me calling him, but he never enjoys the call.”

Truly the Jewish child experience summed up in just one line. David is distressed throughout the entirety of his impassioned rant, with Dobroszycki pouring real emotion into his lines.

But this production wasn’t a one trick pony; they truly captured every part of the Jewish experience.

The titular scene, “Oy” is a standout moment in the show.

Shapiro, Dobroszycki and Harrison Carter ’22 play three old men, grouchy in the early morning. They shuffle their way across

the stage, one at a time, each in a robe and slippers, before coming to sit down on a bench. Throughout the whole scene, each man only utters one word: “oy.” Each “oy” is presented uniquely, seeming to capture a different emotion each time. Each performer had a different tone for their old man grunts, and the audience was losing it at every single one. How the boys kept it together, I will never know.

Typically I am not a fan of live theatre, but “Oy!” was an absolute delight from beginning to end.

UTC’s production of “Oy!” was so stellar, I’d pay two whole teeth to see it again (if you know, you know).

‘Of a Mirror and Its Fragments,’ a reflection on Grief and Loss

By Josh Lannon staff

On Friday, Nov. 8, the first performance ever of “Of a Mirror and Its Fragments” premiered in the Merrick Theater. Written

by Brandeis’ own Olivia Ellson ’21, the thirty-minute show is an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” Ellson’s adaptation does more than simply adapt the old story into a modern setting but uses the original fairy tale to contextualize its own story.

While Amber Crossman ’21 directed the show, Ellson remained involved throughout the show’s production. The final result was presented as a stage reading, in which the actors held their scripts on stage, culminating in a Q&A session at the end where the audience was encouraged to give feedback on the show. Crossman stated in her director’s note that the stage reading format of the show allowed the cast and playwright to better understand the script and edit it during the rehearsal process. In fact, the performance itself seemed like it was an extension of the rehearsal process, this time involving audience input.

Despite the immersion breaking aspect of the stage reading, the cast’s in-depth understanding of the piece really made each of their performances shine. The plot of the play focuses on Grace, played

by Casey Bachman ’21, who is mourning for her friend Kara, played by Morgan Silcox ’22, who

PHOTOS COURTESY MICAELA GRIMES

recently took her own life. The play is told out of chronological order, with the opening scene taking place after Kara’s funeral and later scenes showing the events leading up to her death. The structure represents how Grace is reflecting on the past events that led to her friend’s suicide in order to come to terms with her death.

Both Bachman and Silcox give stellar performances. In particular, the former expertly utilizes physicality to convey deeper emotions. In one scene, Kara’s grandmother, played by Lindsay Dawes ’21, is offstage consulting a police officer on her granddaughter disappearance. During this scene, Bachman is left alone onstage and at one point even has her back facing the audience. Despite this, Bachman clearly conveyed the growing dread and sadness her character feels through her body

language. Furthermore, the onstage chemistry between Bachman and Silcox makes the friendship seem realistic, often even without the use of dialogue. The show makes good use of dramatic silences and moments where Grace and Kara interact wordlessly, while not overdoing it to the point where it feels awkward or forced.

Grace’s reflection of her friendship with Kara is connected to “The Snow Queen,” through the narrator, also played by Dawes.

The audience does not need prior knowledge of the fairytale to understand the show because the narrator gives a simple overview of the events of the tale in at the beginning of the show. Throughout the rest of “Of a Mirror and Its Fragments,” the narrator returns and connects scenes to a part of the original tale.

Ellson’s adaptation does more than simply mirror parts of the original tale, it uses the source material to connect the modern retelling with the original story.

For example, several key images from the source material are represented in the play as props.

Prominent objects of the old story like the red shoes, roses, and the mirror are shown in this adaptation.

Of course, the mirror plays a significant role in the story as its fracturing coincides with Kara’s death. This mirror also marks the key difference between the original tale and this adaptation. In Andersen’s tale, a girl named Gerda seeks to rescue her friend Kai from the grasp of the titular Snow Queen. In the end, the boy Kai is tasked with solving a puzzle using ice shards on a frozen lake called the Mirror of Reason, to create

a word that will free him the Ice Queen’s spell. Eventually, Gerda ends up saving Kai through the power of love. But since Ellson’s version revolves around Grace’s reflection on past events, the audience already knows the fate of her friend. Knowing the tragedy of Kara’s story changes Grace’s purpose. Instead of a heroine desperately trying to save her friend, Grace is a heroine trying to understand why she couldn’t.

Instead of Kara recontrusting the fractured mirror, it is Grace who puts the mirror back together after her friend’s death.

“Of a Mirror and Its Fragments” is not simply a modern adaption of an old fairy tale. It uses its fantastical source material to convey a very realistic story about grief and loss. While the show may only be 30 minutes, the story it needs to tell speaks volumes.

November 15, 2019

ARTS 15

The Brandeis Hoot

‘The Lightning Thief’ musical is meant for passionate fans

By Emma Lichtenstein editor

“The Lightning Thief ” musical is a clear passion project for diehard fans of Rick Riordan’s best selling “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series. As I am one of these diehard fans, I absolutely adored the show. With a cast of just seven people, the cast takes on the responsibility of portraying many characters as well as creating big moments in the show with very few bodies on stage.

Chris McCarrell plays Percy Jackson, the titular hero and the capturer of hearts. McCarrell is able to capture Percy’s essence so well, from his body language to the way he delivers his lines. Percy thinks so lowly of himself at the start of the musical (and the novel), but he grows more confident over the course of his quest, a characteristic of Percy that McCarrell handles so well.

The original Riordan novels were made into movies, and the older casting of the actors made our beloved hero seem like a brand-new human. However, McCarrell is able to tap into his inner adolescent and portray Percy as the 12-year-old he’s supposed to be. It probably helps that the rest of the cast is also played by adults who put their heart and soul into each character they play.

Kristin Stokes is positively ethereal. Stokes plays Annabeth Chase, a role model for young girls everywhere. She’s unapologetically ambitious, trying hard to prove her value and her worth.

Stokes stole every scene she was in; if she was on stage I was looking at her, enraptured by her

performance and depiction. Her vocals are stellar and, as dance captain, her execution of the choreography was strong.

Jorrel Javier might just have the two hardest parts in the show, Grover and Mr. D. Grover is the quirky best friend of Percy who is perfectly loyal and incredibly scared of danger. Mr. D is a crotchety camp director who is actually Dionysus, the god of wine. Both of these characters use dramatic dance moves and solos to tell their story. Javier is also the only member of the cast not in the original off-Broadway cast.

These three cast members are the ones featured on every poster, in every trailer, and for good reason, as they have the most recognizable and consistent characters. However, the other four cast members should not be overlooked.

James Hayden Rodriguez plays both Luke Castellan and Ares, the two characters that betray Percy in the end. As the world’s biggest Luke Castellan apologist, Rodriguez’s performance brought me to a breakdown. He obviously played Ares well too, but the way he played Luke was exactly how I imagined. Rodriguez projected all the pent up sorrow and anger in Luke beautifully.

Sarah Beth Pfiefer has some of the toughest vocals in the show, yet she was able to nail them in the live performance. She plays Clarisse, Katie Gardner, the Vienna boy’s choir and (though silent) Thalia Grace. Clarisse is the daughter of Ares, so most of her lines are delivered in the middle of a fight sequence, but she hit the same notes live that she did in the cast recording. She also makes an appearance as Thalia Grace, an

old friend of Annabeth and Luke that died too soon. Her acting skills show most here, as the emotion on her face was visible even from the top of the balcony.

Ryan Knowles and Jalynn Steele have various smaller roles including Chiron (Knowles) and Sally Jackson (Steele). They have features throughout the entire show, each time with a different character. Both of them commit fully to each person they play, switching so well that the audience might forget it’s the same actor.

Moments of the show that I really loved were the emotional beats, moments where the audience gets to explore the inner workings of the characters. McCarrell solos for “Good Kid,” a.k.a.

Percy’s breakdown song. He’s the only cast member on the stage, and the choreography is practically non-existent, but it’s one of the most captivating moments of the show. McCarrell is emotional, melodramatic, a display of pure teen (I guess technically tween) angst.

“My Grand Plan” live was a religious experience. This track is Annabeth singing about her dreams, her grand plan for life, what all of her hard work will become. Stokes isn’t the only person on stage, she’s not even the only character speaking (though it’s mostly her), but she’s impossible to look away from. This was the first song from the musical I ever heard, so to finally see it live took my breath away.

To be fair, I am severely biased in favor of the show. These are characters and stories that I’ve loved for so long that the show could’ve been thirty seconds of the cast waving, and I would’ve still been awed. However, I can

see why the musical is not for everyone. The show features a cast of just seven people, six of whom are Broadway debuts. This smaller cast size means that the show lacks big musical or choreographed numbers that most musicals contain. The cast is also full of newbies, and while their talent is huge, the lack of experience is noticeable in terms of connections with the crowd.

Parts of the show seem cheesy, almost like a high school production of a play. Sets are practically non-existent, and the depictions of monsters feel like a cheap Halloween costume. In “D.O.A.” fans meet “DJ Cerberus,” as in the three-headed dog who guards the Underworld. Here, a cast member comes out in a silver shirt and a plastic three headed mask. Later in the song, lead singer Charon references the Vienna boy’s choir, played by two puppets and Sarah Beth Pfeifer.

In “Put You in Your Place,” the gang plays a brutal game of Capture the Flag. In the novel, Percy douses Clarisse with water using powers he inherited from his father, Poseidon. In the show, the water is depicted by a roll of toi-

EMMA GOT TO MEET ACTRESS KRISTIN STOKES!

let paper. The paper is placed in front of a leaf blower, spewing out at Clarisse. This motif is then repeated in “Son of Poseidon” when Percy fights Ares, though this time McCarrell, Stokes and Javier all hold two leaf blowers and turn them to the audience, covering the orchestra seating in the paper.

Though this style isn’t for everyone, I appreciated it. “The Lightning Thief Musical” started as a very low budget production, clearly only written into existence because playwright Joe Tracz and lyricist Rob Rokicki love the story.

Viewers get to see the very roots of the show, before anyone even imagined of being on Broadway.

In fact, I don’t think they changed anything from their off-Broadway shows, to their tour, to their current run.

If you’re a diehard fan of the show, I highly recommend taking the trip to New York before the musical’s 16-week run is over. The show represents the novel and the characters so well that even Rick Riordan loves it! However, if you’re in it for a large scale production rather than the storyline, this is a Broadway show you can definitely skip.

PHOTO BY EMMA LICHTENSTEIN/THE HOOT

‘Anthem’: A Bioware Tragedy

By Stewart Huang staff

A lot of negative things have been said about the game “Anthem” and its developer Bioware already, and people who know about the game are wise to stay away from it. I was originally going to report on the happenings surrounding the game. But after some encouragement from Jonah, our beloved editor of the Arts section, and out of morbid curiosity, I decided to play the game for a few hours myself and see if it’s really as bad as everyone else says.

Well, it is.

Let’s talk about the good things first. As a “looter-shooter,” a genre of shooter games that combines role-playing elements like character gear loot, “Anthem” certainly nailed the shooter part. The gun play feels weighty and impactful, standard stuff for an AAA game.

There are character abilities, like those in other shooters like “Destiny” and “Warframe,” that look really cool and are fun to use, especially the one that allows my character to pull out a gigantic rocket launcher. The sound design and the animation for releasing that bad-boy out are quite amazing. The flying mechanics in “Anthem,” to quote Iron Man himself, handles like a dream. Controls feel smooth, and it’s liberating to be able to roam an open world with such speed and verticality.

But for all the good things that

“Anthem” has, its competitors do the same, better. Other looter-shooters also have great gunplay with a far greater variety of weapons and have so much more going for them. For instance, loot drop rates and loot variety have been widely criticized for being terribly low, and is still not improved almost a year after launch.

Also, those other games are freeto-play. “Anthem” requires $5 per month as part of “Origin Access” which is Electronic Arts (EA) game subscription service, or $60 upfront if you want to buy it.

“Anthem” is also not a very good game in terms of the standards of Bioware, which is a studio known for making highly engaging and replayable role-playing experience with intimate character interactions, branching dialogue trees and impactful choices. “Dragon Age: Origins” and “Mass Effect 2” are the prime examples of this.

In contrast, “Anthem” shocked me with its extremely bare bones character creation: all you can do to “customize” is to choose from a preset of faces. You can get more customization options for your armor, but it’s still lacking in variety. Dialogue choices are binary, and from what I’ve seen so far they don’t have an impact on the game state. You don’t get to fight alongside or romance non-player-characters (NPCs).

Instead, the game wants you to play online with other players, which is an inferior experience.

The central hub world is extreme-

PHOTO FROM PLAYSTATION.COM

ly tiny and therefore feels very artificial, as if it exists only for the purpose of the player but not as a populated settlement in the world of “Anthem.” What’s worse is the issue of repeating NPCs, which I discovered when I entered the hub world for the very first time.

Mission design feels outright lazy.

It mostly consists of you finding something or someone and defending some objective from a swarm of enemies for a set amount of waves or time. This is true even in the prologue, where the game is supposed to hook you. The microtransaction is surprisingly lack-luster too: the options are few and unappealing.

Glaring technical issues are still present, despite the fact that the game came out a year ago, such as random crashes (which thankfully resolved themselves eventually) and ungodly long loading screens.

It’s a tragedy that the once respected Bioware went from mak-

ing RPG classics like “Mass Effect 2” to barely squeezing out the travesty that is “Anthem.” And you can of course blame its parent company EA for forcing it to use the “Frostbite” game engine, which is notoriously difficult to operate (though ultimately the blame should fall squarely on Bioware’s shoulders). As revealed by Jason Schreier at “Kotaku” in his article “How Bioware’s ‘Anthem’ Went Wrong,” the company suffered incompetent leadership, which was an issue that was already present in the early 2010s.

The development team had no idea what kind of game “Anthem” was supposed to be until the public demonstration of the game was shown at “E3,” the largest gaming convention. In other words, the demo was fake, merely a video clip made up at the last minute, and they only started developing the game about 12 to 16 months before its release (nowhere near

enough time). The team was always understaffed. Workload mounted, and was extremely stressful, and the studio environment was toxic as Bioware saw animosity form between its offices. It’s no wonder that “Anthem” became a critical and commercial failure.

But Bioware couldn’t even properly fix the game or add any substantial content well after its release. Now the player base is dwindling, and community feedback is being ignored. Two directors of “Anthem” have jumped ship. Willingness to work on the game appears to be zero. I wish there was a silver-lining—but there isn’t one.

Unless the fourth “Dragon Age” game, which is currently in development, turns out to be a masterpiece and sells like crazy, the colossal failure of “Anthem” will likely mark the end for this oncegreat developer.

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The Brandeis Hoot

November 15, 2019