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

VOL 6, NO. 7

Student Events to bring Ben Folds to campus

Diverse City, page 9

Third WavelengTh: Takes considers whether ‘save the boobies’ breast cancer awareness campaigns are humorous or degrading.

IN THISISSUE:

Religious journey ending with Latter Day Saints

Impressions, page 6

AUDIO @ THEHOOT.NET

Small Reitman fire momentarily evacuates residents

Students will be involved in presidential search, but not on search committee

BY ARIEL WITTENBERGEditor

Residents of Reitman Resi-dence Hall in the North Quad were evacuated to Polaris Lounge for approximately an hour and a half at 4 a.m. Thursday morning after a small fire was started on the second floor of the building, Director of Public Safety Ed Cal-lahan said.

No one was injured by the fire,

which was started when a resi-dent placed a piece of fabric over a floor lamp in an attempt to not waken her roommates while she studied.

The fabric consequentially ig-nited and fell to the floor of the triple.The flames then spread to a mattress and foam mattress pad of one of the residents of the room.

Brandeis Pubic Safety Officer Dana King arrived on scene to

BY ARIEL WITTENBERGEditor

Though Board of Trustees Chair Malcolm Sherman has promised that faculty and students will be involved in the search for the next president of the university, the capacity to which they will be in-volved on the actual search com-mittee is yet to be determined.

Sherman said he aims to for-mulate a presidential search com-mittee of roughly ten members in “the next couple of weeks” in order to start looking for a new university president.

The committee would be re-sponsible for reading all of the ap-plications of potential candidates, and deciding on three finalists, and then making a recommenda-tion to the Board.

Of those ten people, Sherman said, he wants a majority to be members of the Board of Trust-ees.

“Finding the next president is the trustees’ responsibility,” Sher-man said. “It is the most signifi-cant responsibility the trustees have.”

There is a possibility that one or two faculty members would be included on the search com-mittee, however Sherman said that number “has not been nailed down.”

“We want to make sure the committee is not so big it is un-wieldy,” Sherman said.

No students will be included on the search committee.

There will, however, be two “consultative” committees, one for students and one for faculty

See SEARCH COMMITTEE, p. 2

see heavy smoke coming from the building and then extin-guished the fire; however the fire was reignited around the time the Waltham Fire Department ar-rived on scene a few minutes later.

The fire department threw the bedding out of the room and into the hall in order to extinguish the flame.

After the fire was extinguished, the residents were let back into their dorm.

PHOTO FROM internet source

PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH: Board of Trustees Chair Malcolm Sherman is in charge of deciding the format of the presidential search committee.

“THE RACE BEAT”: Pulitzer prize winning author Hank Klibanoff discusses how the media affected the Civil Rights movement of old in Pollack Auditorium yesterday. Klibanoff also discussed his role as part of a project funded by the Center for Investigative Journalism that seeks to shed light on unsolved murders dating back to the Civil Rights movement.

PHOTO BY Yuan Yao/The Hoot

Klibanoff covers “The Race Beat,” then and now

Pulitzer-Prize winning author and journalist Hank Klibanoff spoke to a packed audience in the Pollack auditorium on Thurs-day on the role of journalism in the Civil Rights movement in a lecture entitled “The Race Beat: Then and Now.” Klibanoff also covered his current involvement in uncovering evidence about

unsolved crimes dating back to the early days of the Civil Rights movement.

Klibanoff won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2007 for his book “The Race Beat,” which he wrote with fellow journalist Gene Rob-erts. The book examines the role journalists played in bringing the Civil Rights movement to the forefront of national attention.

As Klibanoff explained, major

American newspapers were ini-tially ambivalent about covering the movement. Aside from the black press, only a small minority of newspapers acknowledged that race was a problem in the United States.

“Most people could pretend to be ignorant about [the issue of race], and why could they be ig-

See RACE BEAT, p. 3

UPMIFA could bring financial flexibility, but not reduce needs for budget cut

BY ARIEL WITTENBERGEditor

Brandeis administrators are evaluating how the recent passing of a Massachusetts law govern-ing endowment spending could affect the university’s financial policy. But even if the Board of Trustees adapts the university’s financial policy to the Universal Prudent Management of Institu-tional Funds Act (UPMIFA), the university will still need to imple-ment budget cuts to close the uni-

versity’s $9 million budget gap for fiscal year 2011.

UPMIFA, passed by the Mas-sachusetts legislature on June 30, marks a change from the state’s previous law governing non-profit endowments which only allowed non-profits to spend endowment gains—not the principal.

Under the previous law, non-profit organizations could not spend below “the historic dollar value” of restricted gifts to the en-dowment, Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance

Jeffrey Apfel explained to The Hoot.

This meant that the university could legally only spend returns gained from the gift adjusted for inflation and interest rates, but not the donation, which was in-tended to exist in perpetuity. Be-cause many of the gifts to the uni-versity’s endowment were given not too long ago, the nation’s eco-nomic crisis had a large impact on the Brandeis endowment.

See UPMIFA, p. 3

GRAPHIC BY Alex Schneider/The Hootthat would help shape the search committee’s ideas of what to look

BY SEAN FABERYStaff

2 The Hoot October 9, 2009

N E W S

Two women who refused to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spoke to a full audience in Pearlman Hall on Monday night in an event organized by the Brandeis club Students for Justice in Palestine

Maya Wind and Neta Mishly, high school seniors who work with the Shministim Tour in conjunction with the Code Pink National Tour and the Jewish Voice for Peace, explained their reasons for refusing to enlist.

“In Israel, we are very much raised in fear. We are raised in fear of anyone who is not Jewish,” Wind said.

Wind and Mishly do not attempt to avoid the army through “draft dodging,” a list of five exemptions that many try to use in or-der to not join the army. These exemptions include religion, mental health, misfits, married women, and pacifists.

Instead, Wind and Mishly claim they have a right to not serve in the army, and as a result both women have served multiple sentences in jail.

The prison sentence for refusing a gov-ernment order is usually seven to 35 days, but one can serve multiple sentences for re-fusing to join the army after his or her first term of imprisonment, Mishly said.

Wind and Mishly explained many rea-sons for opposing Israeli presence in the West Bank, including the locations and procedures of Isreali checkpoints.

“When there is a human being on the

IDF conscientious objectors explain reasons for rejecting military serviceBY JON OSTROWSKY

Special to The Hootother side, there is always someone to talk to if you try hard enough,” Wind said.

The women want Israel to recognize the Greenline NOW as a border with Pales-tine. They also disapprove of the army’s strategies and morals when it comes to bombing raids.

“I don’t care if its Jewish blood or Pales-tinian blood that’s being spilled, I care that it’s human blood,” said Mishly.

Wind agreed, saying that preventative steps taken by the Israeli military to ensure no civilians are injured in bombings are not enough.

“Some people think that the IDF is the most moral army in the world [just] be-cause we drop leaflets on peoples homes before we bomb them,” Wind said.

One man in the audience who served in the Israeli army from 1997-2000 was one of the few to disagree with Mishly and Wind. The room often applauded many of Wind’s comments, despite her asking the crowd not to do so.

“The presentation was one-sided, biased, and damaging. It ignored historical truths. I wish there were two states peacefully co-existing. To blame everything on us is sim-ply unfair,” the man said.

Despite the few who tried to argue the other side of the debate, the audience showed an overwhelming support of the presentation.

“I think the event went quite good. It was an amazing presentation and it was great that the audience participated,” said Renana Gal, a board member of Students

for Justice in Palestine. An elderly women in the audience

who identified herself to the speakers as a Holocaust surviver thanked Wind and Mishly for their presentation, saying, “if other young people use the way you do, we would live in a much better world.”

As the event came to an end, many stayed after to talk with Mishly and Wind as well as one another about the issues the lecture addressed.

“I feel like someone who opposes cer-tain policies that the army takes shouldn’t

disconnect themselves completely. They should still find ways to support those who are putting their lives in danger,” said Asher Krell ‘13, an active participant in the Hillel at Brandeis.

Krell acknowledged that it is important to hold presentations that address both sides of this controversial issue.

“One thing that is lacking [at Brandeis] is that Palestinian sentiment. It is so avoided here in the issues because of how much op-position it would get,” Krell said.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONS: Maya Wind and Neta Mishly explain their reasons for rejecting the IDF draft.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

Brandeis received a grant for $2.2 million on Sept. 7 to buy a new electron microscope that will be installed in the spring of 2010. The grant from the National Institute of Health will cover the expense of purchas-ing the microscope, however the university will spend about $50,000 in renovating the room that will house the microscope as well as completing its installation.

Professors Nikolaus Grigorieff (BCHM), Daniela Nicastro (BIOL), Bruce Goode (BIOL) as well as Steve Harrison from the Harvard Medical School applied for this grant on Apr. 28. Several other groups and institutions also applied and a substantial number were granted funds.

Researchers working for the aforemen-

BY DESTINY D. AQUINOSpecial to The Hoot

tioned professors will be the main users of the microscope, although a few other select groups in the Boston area will be granted minor use the microscope.

“Biological electron microscopy has a long tradition at Brandeis University about 35 years and scientists here have been inter-national leaders in the field over decades. The award of this new grant acknowledges the continued leadership because the appli-cation was evaluated by peers in the field and found to be superior to many compet-ing applications,” Grigorieff explained in an e-mail message to The Hoot.

The microscope will be used to “image proteins from bacteria, animal and human cells, as well as parts of disease agents, such as viruses. In the best case, their atomic structure will be visualized and the way they work will be better understood,” Grig-

for in the next president.Student Union President Andy Hogan

’11 said the role of these committees would be twofold.

First, the committees would help “for-mulate the idea of what the next president should look like and how we want Brandeis to look in 2020.”

Second, the committees would interview the three finalists chosen by the search committee and make recommendations to the committee.

Hogan said he hopes there will be six to ten students on the student advisory com-mittee.

Students can apply to be on the commit-tee via a link Hogan e-mailed to the student body Wednesday night. Members of the committee will be chosen by Hogan and Student Representatives to the Board of Trustees Heddy Ben-Atar ’11 and Jonathan Kane ’10.

Hogan hopes to have the student adviso-ry committee formulated by the next meet-ing of the Board of Trustees on Oct. 28.

Sherman said he hopes the committees will be able to choose a candidate in time for the start of the 2010-2011 academic year: however, he said “we do not want to settle for someone who is convenient. We want the absolute best.”

“I hope we can find someone by the start of next year, but if we don’t find someone good, we don’t, and we’ll keep looking,” Sherman said.

Sherman also said the Board has already heard from “a number of individuals who have shown interest” in applying for the job as president of the university.

Sherman would not further comment about those individuals.

$2.2 million grant helps buy microscope for researchorieff wrote.

The Rosenstiel Center currently houses a microscope similar to the one being in-stalled. Te additional microscope will sim-ply allow the university to accommodate more users and therefore complete more research.

Training on the microscope takes three to six months. For this reason, only a select number of students who spend a significant amount of time in the lab on a particular project will be allowed to use the micro-scope. Students enrolled in a biochemistry course on electron microscopy will have an opportunity to witness the microscope’s capabilities in action.

Grigorieff hopes “that [the microscope] will function flawlessly and provide us with beautiful images of proteins, thus boosting our research.”

SEARCH COMMITTEE (from p. 1)

Presidential search committee will not include students

norant about it? Because no one was writ-ing about it!” Klibanoff said.

The situation remained unchanged through the 1950s. It took months for ma-jor newspapers like The New York Times to report on the Montgomery bus boycott, a pivotal turning point in the Civil Rights movement. Instead, the papers focused on comparatively minor milestones in the movement, like the enrollment of the first African American graduate student, Au-therine Lucy, at the University of Alabama.

The press’ major reason for covering her first day of class? “They believed they were going to see something really go bad,” Klibanoff said.

By 1957, however, the mainstream press began to change its attitude, and corre-spondents from major papers began flood-ing the South. Writers like Claude Sitton of The New York Times changed “the way Americans thought” by writing “the kinds

of stories that could leave people shocked and shaken.”

The situation changed to such a degree that, by 1961, the press’ coverage of the movement actually compelled President John F. Kennedy to give his first speech on civil rights.

In addition to writing and lecturing about history, Klibanoff is now taking a role in shaping it. Since leaving his post as managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last year, Klibanoff has joined a project funded by the Center for Inves-tigative Journalism that seeks to shed light on unsolved murders dating back to the Civil Rights movement. The project is run by an array of investigative journalists and documentarians.

Klibanoff spoke specifically about the murder of Wharlest Jackson, a man killed by a car bomb in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1967 after accepting a position at a tire plant usually reserved for whites. The FBI

generated a report which contained over 10,000 pages, yet no arrest was ever made in the case.

“They have escaped prosecution. Forget prosecution, they have escaped the judg-ment of history,” Klibanoff said of Jackson’s killers.

Klibanoff stressed that the project has tried to involve the families of the victims. He presented a video in which Jackson’s son states simply why he wants to know the identity of his father’s killers: “If it was your daddy, wouldn’t you want to know?”

Klibanoff, who has written for a num-ber of papers including The Philadel-phia Inquirer and The Boston Globe, was asked about his thoughts on “activist journalism”—a label which some have af-fixed to his latest endeavor.

“Being an objective reporter doesn’t mean you don’t try to right wrongs,” he said.

Klibanoff discusses activist investigative journalismRACE BEAT (from p. 1)

October 9, 2009 N E W S The Hoot 3

Public safety shares crime statistics via e-mail

“Brandeis has a lot of restricted funds and our gifts are all young because our uni-versity is only 60 years old,” Apfel said. “So we didn’t have the benefit of our gifts aging from their historic dollar value. This means that under the old law, a more significant portion of our funds were underwater and inaccessible than other universities.”

Unlike UMIFA, UPMIFA, which has been enacted in 41 states and the District of Columbia, eliminates restrictions on the spending of principal. Under UPMIFA, “Subject to the intent of a donor expressed in the gift instrument…an institution may appropriate for expenditure or accumu-late so much of an endowment fund as the institution determines is prudent for the uses, benefits, purposes, and duration for which the endowment fund is established.”

The act continues, “In making a deter-mination to appropriate or accumulate, the institution shall act in good faith, with the care that an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances.”

In other words, under UPMIFA, the uni-versity could use any “prudent” amount of the “true” or restricted endowment. The Massachusetts version of UPMIFA does not provide any guideline for what “pru-dent” spending of an endowment would entail; however, the model version of the bill, originally written by the Uniform Law Commission and adapted by various states, creates what is called a “reputable presumption” that any spending over seven percent of an endowment would be impru-dent. While that presumption is not law, it does set a guideline for non-organizations in other states.

Apfel said that to him, the five percent the university already spends of its endow-ment is “a prudent spending rate” and that “were we to adopt a plan under UPMIFA to spend, [we] certainly would not envision spending at seven percent.”

In addition to the “true” endowment, the university has a “fund functioning as en-dowment” or “quasi-endowment” that was created by the Board of Trustees roughly ten years ago when President Jehuda Reinharz and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French decided the

university needed more unrestricted funds in the endowment to increase the univer-sity’s financial flexibility. Because the qua-si-endowment is essentially a reserve cre-ated by the Board of Trustees and invested by the Board, it has never fallen under UMIFA. As such, any or all of the quasi-endowment’s returns and principal can be used by the Board of Trustees for the bud-get at any point in time. For that reason, the quasi endowment is often referred to as the “reserve fund,” because it can be used for anything at any time, should the Board approve it.

“That’s why an unrestricted endowment is pure gold financially,” Apfel said. “The Trustees put that money in there, and can take it out to use for anything if we want.”

Before UPMIFA was passed, Apfel said, the university calculated the yearly draw from the endowment to support the budget by calculating five percent of the universi-ty’s entire endowment (including both the “true” and “quasi” endowments) - a figure that in fiscal year 2010 amounted to $40 million.

Ideally, Apfel said, the university should treat the quasi endowment as a true en-dowment and only use that five percent of the quasi endowment per year toward the budget in order to best sustain the fund. However, when the university’s financial crisis hit last fall, the university was forced to use $1 million from the quasi endow-ment in order to help close the university’s budget gap for fiscal year 2010.

If the university continues to take money from the quasi endowment as a manner of closing future budget gaps, however, the quasi endowment could run out. In fact, Apfel told last week’s faculty meeting that if the university did not make any budget cuts, the quasi endowment could run out by 2014.

“The quasi endowment was meant as a rainy day fund, but now it’s raining,” Apfel said.

The passing of UPMIFA could potentially help the university because it prolongs the life of the quasi endowment by allowing the university to take a portion of the restricted funds and treat them as unrestricted funds.

UPMIFA does not give the university any more money; it simply makes a greater

part of the endowment accessible to the university for the budget. Because the uni-versity’s funds, therefore, are still relatively constant, Apfel said it would be financially irresponsible, or imprudent, for the univer-sity to use anymore than 5 percent of the endowment for the budget in a given year.

“UPMIFA doesn’t generate any new cash flow,” Apfel said. “It gives us more flexibil-ity, because it slows down the rate at which we run down that reserve fund. UPMIFA changes the source of the money we use, not how much.”

Apfel and French are currently reviewing how UPMIFA could aid the university in this financial crisis, but have yet to present a plan to the Board of Trustees. No matter what plan they present, Apfel said, budget cuts will still be necessary in order to pre-

The Department of Public Safety has begun using e-mail instead of snail mail in order to send information to students about the campus’ crime rates and security policies, as required by the Jeanne Clery Act of federal law.

In 1986, Jeanne Clery, a student at Le-high University in Pennsylvania, was raped and murdered in her dorm room.

After Jeanne’s death, her parents learned that the students at Lehigh had not been told about dozens of violent crimes on campus.

They, along with other campus crime victims, succeeded in convincing Congress to enact the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, which, since 1998, has been now called the Jeanne Clery Act.

The federal Department of Education requires that three years of crime statistics at colleges and universities be published, either in print or online. The necessary in-formation includes crimes on campus and the nearby vicinity, where they could affect students.

The crimes listed are: murder and man-slaughter, sex crimes (both forcible and otherwise), aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, motor vehicle theft and arson.

In 2008, the crimes reported at Brandeis were two forcible sex crimes (both in resi-dential facilities), aggravated assault (two cases on campus), burglary (17 incidents, 15 in residential facilities), one motor ve-hicle theft, and three counts of arson (in-cluding two in residential facilities).

In addition to the crimes listed under the Jeanne Clery Act, Public Safety also keeps a monthly log of the number of incidents in three categories: crimes against a person (assault, battery, sex offenses, harassment and robbery), crimes against property (breaking and entering, vandalism, larce-ny) and crimes against the public order (al-cohol, drugs, disturbances, bomb threats and fire alarms).

Between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009, the Department of Public Safety investigat-ed reports of 26 crimes against a person, with harassment being the most common, whether by mail, phone, or in person.

They also investigated 89 reports of crimes against property, mostly larcenies and 108 reports of crimes against the pub-lic order, mostly disturbances such as noise complaints.

Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan has been chief of police at Brandeis for the past 10 years believes that the department of public safety does a good job of prevent-ing crime on campus. In addition to man-

aging the escort safety service and the student-staffed Brandeis Emer-gency Medical Corps (BEMCO), Public Safety takes many precautions on a daily basis to ensure the safety of students, staff and faculty.

All over campus there are emergency tele-phones, often called “blue light phones,” that anyone can use in an emergency to imme-diately contact Public Safety.

There is also a network of closed circuit cameras that feed into the com-munications room of the Public Safety office, which has more than a dozen televisions moni-toring different areas of campus at all times. Uni-formed patrol officers are always on duty, as well as two to three police cruisers. At the beginning of the year, Pub-lic Safety works with Orientation Leaders and Community Advisors to ensure the

BY LEAH FINKELMANSpecial to The Hoot

safety of students, and there are always po-lice officers at large on campus events like Pachanga and concerts.

PHOTO BY Andrew Rauner/The Hoot

Understanding UPMIFA

$THE ISSUE: Over the summer the Massachusetts state legislature passed a law that allows the university to dip into the principle of its endowment if it chooses to do so.

WHAT IT MEANS: The law allows the university greater flexibility in it’s financial planning and could buy Brandeis time before it runs out of its emergency reserve fund.

THE BIGGER PICTURE: Despite this increased flexibility, the university will still have to make budget cuts in order to balance current and future fiscal year budgets.

serve both the quasi endowment and, un-der UPMIFA, the true endowment as well.

For fiscal year 2011, the five percent draw from the endowment comes to $31.1 mil-lion, with the drop (from last year’s $40 million) caused by the market decline in endowment investments, Apfel said. Be-cause the university budget is accustomed to using $40 million from the endowment draw, the university needs to make up the $9 million gap in budget cuts.

“We can’t just take the extra $9 million from the endowment every year regardless of the returns,” Apfel said. “We use the five percent draw model to ensure we are op-erating responsibly. if we adopt UPMIFA and took more than five percent, we would run the risk of running down our entire en-dowment, not just the quasi endowment.”

UPMIFA (from p. 1)

UPMIFA could increase financial flexibility, but budget cuts still needed

4 The Hoot October 9, 2009

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

FOUNDED BYLeslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

Alison Channon Editor in Chief

Ariel Wittenberg News EditorBret Matthew Impressions EditorChrissy Callahan Features Editor

Hannah Vickers Sports EditorAlex Schneider Layout Editor

Jodi Elkin Layout EditorMax Shay Photography Editor

Leon Markovitz Advertising EditorVanessa Kerr Business EditorDanielle Gewurz Copy Editor

Leah Lefkowitz Backpage EditorSamantha Shokin Diverse City Editor

Senior EditorsSri Kuehnlenz, Kathleen Fischmann

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

The deadline for submitting letters is Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. All letters must be submitted electronically at www.thehoot.net. All letters must be from a valid e-mail address and include contact information for the author. Letters of length greater than 500 words may not be accepted.

The opinions, columns, cartoons and advertisements printed in The Hoot do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.

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

SUBMISSION POLICIES

Waiting for Godot’s donation

Last spring, when non-profit organizations all over the country were clamoring for the passing of the Universal

Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, better known by the catchy acronym UPMIFA, this editorial board set forth the opinion that UPMIFA could not be a panacea.

And now that UPMIFA has been passed by the commonwealth of Mas-sachusetts, the act which gives non-profits greater flexibility in the spend-ing of their endowment funds, is still not a panacea.

For fiscal year 2011, the university faces a $9 million budget shortfall due to a drop in endowment returns precip-itated by the nation’s economic woes. Conceivably, the university could take advantage of UPMIFA and spend more

than five percent of its endowment. That would close the gap for FY2011 but that would not solve the inevitable problem we would face in subsequent years. As Senior Vice President for Ad-ministration and Finance Jeffrey Apfel explained, spending more than five percent of the endowment just because we can and we need to right now has the potential to seriously jeopardize the university’s financial solvency for years to come. Indeed, this editorial board made similar comments last semester.

Since we originally critiqued UPMI-FA, the university has created numer-ous committees to consider money-saving possibilities, most notably with the CARS committee.

However, when the CARS proposal came out, there was general uproar, particularly concerning a number of

academic departments that might be converted to interdepartmental pro-grams. The merit of those plans can certainly be debated but the knee-jerk resistance to any form of structural change by student and professors alike hinders are ability to effectively address our financial reality. Certainly, as mem-bers of a university community, it is our job to protect what makes our institu-tion special and successful but we must not be so fearful of change that we re-ject every new idea that threatens the status quo.

UPMIFA is not now nor will it ever be the financial panacea this university needs. There is no magic fix and whin-ing that a committee’s recommenda-tions are too drastic will not make en-dowment gifts magically rain from the sky.

E D I T O R I A L

Opening an honest dialogue on sexual assault

According to a report of crime statistics dissemi-nated by the Department of Public Safety, there

were two forcible sex crimes on the Brandeis campus in 2008. Given that sexual assaults are chronically under reported, the actual incidence of sexual violence on our campus is likely higher.

In light of the ubiquity of sexual as-sault, one in six women will be a victim according to the Rape, Abuse and In-

cest National Network, the lack of cam-pus-wide discussion of sexual violence is a dangerous oversight. While there is passing mention of date rape and con-sent during first-year orientation, it is painfully obvious that that is insuffi-cient. Disturbingly enough, many stu-dents think of rape as a joke or a way to describe the MCAT. Clearly, the mes-sage that sexual violence is a systemic societal problem that our university community needs to take seriously has

not sunk in.We need to move past the superfi-

cial warnings of ‘don’t drink too much,’ and ‘no means no,’ if we ever expect to live in a community free of rape and sexual violence. Our university, along with countless others across the United States, needs to create opportunities for our entire community, young men and women alike, to sit down to have an honest conversation about what consti-tutes consent and coercion.

Check out The Brandeis Hoot’s newest audio show The Third Wavelength.

I M P R E S S I O N SOctober 9, 2009 The Hoot 5

How are major policy decisions made? In Congress? In the Oval Office? In closed meetings of powerful elected and appoint-ed officials?

Well, yes. But that can be boring. And sometimes, I wonder if our leaders real-ize this. Maybe when the C-Span cameras turn off, the real decisions are made in less formal settings.

This sort of thinking often gets my imagi-nation going.

In a small burger joint in Arlington, Vir-ginia...

“Do you think these fries have too much salt?”

“You’ll be fine, Harry.”“Are you sure? They look…”“Harry. Eat.”Wearing a look of extreme caution, Sena-

tor Harry Reid raised a seasoned French fry to his mouth and took a quick, nervous bite.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gave him an exasperated look. “Let me know what year you finish,” she muttered. “Sena-tors…”

The two lawmakers sat at a small table stuffed in the corner, awaiting a lunch of greasy food and minimal press interrup-tion. Such opportunities were rare in the world of D.C. politics.

Joining them at the head of the table, with a menu in hand and a pensive look on his face, was President Barack Obama.

“What do you think, Harry?” he asked without looking up. “The double mush-room Swiss? Or the pepper jack with ba-con?”

“I don’t know, Mr. President,” Reid re-plied. “They both sound equally un-healthy.”

“The double mushroom Swiss, then. With mustard.”

Obama set his menu down just in time to see White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senator Olympia Snowe walk through the door. Emanuel was speaking to her quite rapidly, and he seemed to be trying to put his arm around her, a move that Snowe shook off every time he tried it. Obama nodded to them as they ap-proached the table. “Good to see you both could make it.”

Emanuel returned the nod, but quickly turned his attention back to Snowe. “Please Senator, have a seat. Here—” he nudged over a protesting Reid to make room for the chair he had pulled up to the table. “Would you like anything to drink? Eat?” He waved a menu in her face. “I hear the root beer floats are good. And the burg-ers—these burgers are supposed to be out of this @#%!* world! Want a burger? On me?”

“A float sounds fine,” Snowe said as she gently brushed away Emanuel’s maniacally waving arm. “But I’m not much of a burger fan, not really.”

“Not a problem,” Emanuel said. “I’m sure we can find something. A lobster roll! You must like a good lobster roll, right?”

“Well, yes, but I don’t think a little place like this would have…”

“Waiter!” Immediately a waiter approached the

table. “Yes sir? What can I get you today?”“You can start by bringing the Senator a

root beer float and a lobster roll,” Emanuel said as he tossed his menu aside.

“Oh, sorry sir,” the waiter said. “We don’t have lobster here. But we do have many ex-cellent burgers…”

He stopped speaking when he saw Eman-

uel’s face. Emanuel stared at him, his right eye twitching slightly.

“I believe I ordered a lobster roll.”“Well, yes, but…”“I didn’t say anything about your @#$%!*

burgers. We don’t want your @#$%!* burg-ers. The Senator came in here with a spe-cific order in mind, and you are going to bring her the @#$%!* food. If you can’t do that, if you can’t seem to find the food we requested, then maybe we ought to take a little walk to the @#$%!* ocean. What do you think?”

The waiter's eyes darted between Emanu-el’s icy stare and the other occupants of the table, who didn’t seem to be paying atten-tion. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t seem to find the words to say. His lips moved aimlessly, stuttering without making a sound.

“Actually, I was thinking I would just get a salad…”

“Shut up Harry,” Emanuel said without shifting his gaze.

After a moment, the waiter finally man-aged to speak. “Umm… yeah, okay… lob-ster roll… float… umm… anything else?”

“I’m not very hungry. I’ll just have a Coke,” Emanuel said. “With a slice of lem-on. And none of that diet $%!& either, it better be the real thing. Now go take every-one else’s order.”

The waiter nodded and quickly went to the other side of the table without another word.

“You didn’t need to do that, you know,” Snowe said to Emanuel. “I could have got-ten something else.”

“I told you, it’s not a problem,” he replied. “This is what I do. You have to be firm with people to get stuff done.” He reached over and took a drink out of Reid’s water glass, which Reid tried and failed to grab back. “Speaking of getting stuff done,” Emanuel said, ignoring Reid’s faint protests, “now that we’re here together, let’s get down to business.”

“You’re talking about the health care bill, aren’t you,” Snowe said, a look of interest crossing her face.

“Yep,” Emanuel replied. “I’ll make a long story short, since I know we’re all very busy people—even our two Congressional lead-ers here.” Reid and Pelosi both shot him dirty looks. “We need to make a deal with you, Senator. Without your help, there’s no way we can pass a good bill.”

“How so?” Snowe asked. “You Demo-crats control the White House, you control the House of Representatives, you even control the Senate with 60 members. I’m surprised you haven’t rallied around a bill and passed it already. What more do you need?”

Emanuel laughed. “Senator, you and I both know that Democrats haven’t rallied around anything for about four decades. But that’s not the issue, we’re used to that. Our problem is that there are some Demo-crats who aren’t putting the best interests of the party first.”

“And who might that be?” Snowe asked.“The progressive wing,” Emanuel replied.

“Or whatever they call themselves these days. The people who managed to ride into office on the backs of a bunch of bloggers who have nothing better to do than sit at their computers and make $20 campaign donations. And here they are, fighting for the @#$%!* public option! It’s really start-ing to get in the way.”

Snowe raised an eyebrow. “I thought Democrats campaigned on the public op-tion during the election.”

“Of course we did,” Emanuel said, eyes rolling. “That was during the campaign. It sounded great in speeches, you know? But have you seen the kind of political climate we’re dealing with here? It’s crazy! There are people protesting big government spending all across America. I got teabags thrown at me a few weeks ago! We can’t ignore that.”

He took another drink from Reid’s wa-ter glass. “It’s clear to me that people don’t want a liberal solution to their problems. They want the government to rule from the center, without doing anything too drastic that will scare them. Basically, they want a bipartisan solution, which is really the main thing we promised during the cam-paign anyway.”

“Well, you know I’m not a fan of too much government spending,” Snowe said. “So what can I do to help?”

Before Emanuel could open his mouth to answer, the door burst open and a wind-swept Vice-President Joe Biden walked into the room. He was breathing heavily, and looked like he had just run full-tilt down the street.

“Sorry I’m late guys,” Biden said. “Train got delayed.”

He turned to Emanuel with a smile on his

face. “Hey, Rahmbo—”“Don’t call me that.”“Sorry.” The smile didn’t falter. “But did

you see the protesters outside on your way in here?”

“What?!” Emanuel’s eyes widened. He looked around wildly, gripping the edges of the table as if he were about to duck under it. “Who the @#$!* are they? More teabag-gers? Birthers? How do they always find us?”

“I don’t think it’s that hard for them. We’re pretty visible people,” Biden replied as he pushed Reid over to make room for his chair, knocking the majority leader face-first into the remnants of his plate of fries. “But anyway, those aren’t conserva-tives out there. They say they're liberals. One guy even told me that I should take his water bottle, in case I ‘needed help watering down the health care bill.’ Weird, huh?” He pulled a water bottle out of his pocket and opened it. “Actually, now that I think about it, I am kinda thirsty.”

Emanuel immediately relaxed. “Oh… just liberals? Okay then.” He started chuckling. “That’s nothing to worry about.”

He turned back to Snowe, who had just received an expertly prepared lobster roll—topped with what appeared to be every spice in the kitchen—and an enormous root beer float. The waiter was nowhere in sight.

“Like I was saying, Senator, we need your help. A lot of people want to see health-care reform. I want to see it too. But some liberals, like those guys outside, want us to think that the only way to fix the system is through a government-system. To me, that sounds like an electoral disaster, you know what I mean? If we let the liberals run our party, we’ll lose all the moderates that fill out the ranks.”

Snowe nodded, unable to speak with her mouth stuffed with lobster. Taking that as a good sign, Emanuel continued.

“This is where you come in. I’ve noticed that you’ve been talking a lot about a public option trigger. I like this idea. It’s a @#$%!* good idea. We set up a plan for a public option to shut the liberals up, but we don’t actually use it. Instead we just threaten the insurance companies with a bunch of benchmarks so they get their act together. And then, when the market improves, we can tell the moderates and the conserva-

BY BRET MATTHEWEditor

Overheard down at the local burger jointBook of Matthew

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY Max Shay/The Hoot

BURGER JOINT: President Barack Obama, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Harry Reed sit down for an imaginary burger inside Bret Matthew’s head.

See SIX POLITICIANS, p. 6

6 The Hoot I M P R E S S I O N S October 9, 2009

I read Bret Matthew’s recent follow up ("Losing my religion: a follow-up," October 2 issue) to his column from almost a year ago ("Losing My religion: A rant about non-be-lieving," December 5 issue) with much intro-spection and joy. On a personal level, because my three years at Brandeis have been for me a similar spiritual and intellectual journey—albeit with unexpected results—I felt a deep connection and understanding.

On a more intellectual level, likewise, Bret’s column reconfirmed my belief that this type of searching of all sorts is precisely the pur-pose of college.

Like Bret, I began my time at Brandeis as a marginally Jewish agnostic. I had been the founder of my high school Jewish Student Union, but a lot of factors in my life, in par-ticular my mother's death from ovar i an cancer during my senior year of high school, pushed me away from belief in a God.

By my second semester at Brandeis, I con-sidered myself an ardent atheist, was an ac-tive member of the Brandeis Humanists, and wrote angry columns in the Justice denouncing prayer as silly and absurd. I thought I’d found meaning in secular human-ism and felt content with my disbelief. Most frustratingly for me, I had stopped caring about the answers. I came to believe that whether God existed was at best irrelevant.

Last summer, I did a study abroad program studying traditional Chinese medicine and Public Health in Southwestern China. I had an incredible Chinese instruc-tor that was a leader in the local Christian community and he reawakened my spiritual desire.

Throughout my time in China, I was im-pressed by the profound spiritual cultures of the great Eastern faiths and this reinvigorated my interest in finding spiritual fulfillment. I made a checklist of the sorts of values I want-ed my eventual faith to reflect. The church I ended up falling in love with and being bap-tized into less than one year later was very different than what one would have predicted from that list.

One of my best friends at Brandeis was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-ter Day Saints (also known as the Mormon church). Throughout my period of atheism, I had mocked and made rude remarks about her faith in ways that I have come to realize was completely unbecoming of a true friend.

It was a church that I viewed as clearly fraudulent as well as regressively conserva-tive. Still, I was fascinated by the way that her faith impacted her character and life choices in many positive ways.

I went to a Barnes and Noble and picked up a "Mormonism for Dummies" book and fell in love. The church theology answered all of questions I had been unable to find answers to in the past and gave me comfort and in-sight.

I met with the church missionaries and got a burning and searing testimony of the truth of the church one evening while praying in front of the Boston T e m p l e (Off Route 2 in Belmont). I was eventually b a p t i z e d into the c h u r c h f o u r

months ago after my father came to accept my decision (a change for which I am eter-nally grateful) even as he continues to view it as a betrayal of my Jewish roots.

I’ve found an incredible community in the Boston area that has enabled me to improve myself in so many deep ways. Ironically, in the process I’ve also rediscovered the value of the Jewish roots that I’d once discarded and viewed as worthless and immensely enjoyed

attending high holiday services and fasting for Yom Kippur because of my newfound faith.

My beliefs have been irrevocably altered during my time at Brandeis and in the Boston area, and I would not have it any other way. It is my firm belief, in fact, that if a student has not had at least one profound challenge to their most deeply held political, social or religious beliefs while an undergraduate here at Brandeis, that their time has not been well spent. In many ways, I feel deep sorrow when I see a great degree of stagnation at Brandeis with individuals clinging to groups that con-firm preexisting views. Because of the small and hardly visible Republican presence on campus, for instance, I rarely see individu-als having their political views challenged, let alone altered.

This semester I began attending lectures for Professor Gordie Fellman’s (SOC) War and the Possibilities of Peace class. I had taken Gordie’s Sociology of the Israel-Palestine conflict class in my freshman year and had found it a well-balanced and challenging class, which made me reconsider many of my

preexisting beliefs. I expected something similar in this class.

Instead, I found lecture after lecture describing the ills of war in a very ste-

reotypical fashion and found anti-war film after anti-war film being screened. The class seemed all in uniform agreement that war of any sort for any reason was not justified - or at the very least no one dared speak up to question the prevailing consensus. Instead of feeling soothed by this class on peace, I merely felt frustrated.

Attending a class where your deeply held beliefs are merely confirmed just seems like such a waste of time and effort. I’ve come to learn that my time is far too pre-cious for that.

I write this not to preach my faith or any other, but to preach a gospel of self-discov-ery.

From my journey, I’ve learned three les-sons that might help others along the way; I encourage you first to be willing to examine

and question your core beliefs to ensure that they are built on a firm foundation, second to not surround yourself with people that mere-ly reiterate your views but instead to seek out new ideas and perspectives, and third, and perhaps most important of all, to not let your pre-existing biases stand in the way of your personal growth and to be willing to act when you discover truth, no matter how unexpect-ed or foreign.

tives, ‘Hey look, no government takeover!’ It’s perfect!”

“Mmrph.” “That’s okay, don’t choke on your roll. I

knew you’d be with us on this one. Now you can tell your Republican friends that you’re going to stop a government take-over, and we can say we have a bipartisan bill. Win-win.”

Emanuel turned to Pelosi and Reid. “Hey, you guys run those madhouses in the capital. What do you think?”

“Is it politically feasible?” Reid asked“Very.” “Then I’m for it. What about you, Nan-

cy?”Pelosi stared at her plate for a moment,

biting her lip. “I don’t know Rahm. There’s a big block of progressives in the House. They’re going to want more than this. I’m not sure if I can convince them. Plus, they’ve got a lot of those people backing

them up.” She pointed at the protestors, who were now pressed against the windows chanting.

“Yeah, yeah, of course they want more,” Emanuel answered sharply. “They al-ways want more and @#$%!* more. But they’re gonna have to learn to take one for the team. We can either create perfect, Democratic policy, or we can win elec-tions. I don’t see how we can do both.” He shrugged. “You know, they shouldn’t have that much to worry about anyway. Trig-gers will be a good enough fix. I mean, it’s not like the healthcare system can get that much worse.”

The whole table broke out into relieved laughter.

“I suppose,” Pelosi said.“Besides,” Emanuel added, “these are

liberal Democrats we’re talking about. They might be a bit annoyed if they don’t get their way, but who else are they going to vote for? It’s the moderates we have to watch out for, Nancy. You know that.”

“Okay, true,” Pelosi said. “But what about

you, Mr. President? What do you think?”All eyes turned to Obama, who up until

this point had been thoughtfully chewing on his burger.

“Well,” he said. “It’s a tough decision. And believe me, I know there are disagree-ments on both sides. That’s why I’m glad Olympia was able to join us today.”

Obama fiddled with his napkin for a mo-ment before continuing. He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully.

“But you know, I’ve often said that America is at its best when we are work-ing together. And that means working with everybody, even those with whom we disagree. I think Americans know this. So Rahm is right. The people will accept nothing less than a compromise. And that’s what we have to give them.”

“Excellent!” Emanuel said, beaming. “Who wants dessert? On me!”

“Dessert?!” Reid said nervously. “But…”“Oh, they have cake!” Biden said, hold-

ing up the menu. “Come on guys, let’s have some cake!”

BY DANIEL ORTNERColumnist

Finding my religion: A spritual and intellectual journeyMaestro of Dissent

So six politicians walk into a burger joint...OVERHEARD (from p. 5)

October 9, 2009 I M P R E S S I O N S The Hoot 7

Even as you gaze at this article, a myriad other newspapers remain on their shelves to collect dust in place of revenue. The newspaper industry is steadily going the way of the horse and buggy, beaten out by trendier internet and tele-vision based news organizations like CNN and Fox News. As once iconic papers start to slip into the abyss of cultural oblivion, concern builds about the future of the news industry.

The furor over this steady implo-sion is caused by the fear that our news is being watered down. The other modes of media don’t provide nearly the same amount of in-depth coverage and investigatory report-ing as papers. Without newspa-pers, that Pulitzer Prize winning exposé of the latest government faux pas may never take place. The loss of newspapers would severely dilute the kick of the media cocktail that wakes us up when we’re lulled to sleep by complacency.

The decline of the newspapers is not only linked to new competi-tion, but also to a fundamental fail-ure on the part of the newspapers to respond. Papers everywhere ap-pear to have adopted the strategy of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

Thus, the response from the newspapers has been to put their content online, free of charge. While it might have at first seemed like a worthy strategy, it has back-fired catastrophically. Newspapers require far too much revenue to provide their in-depth and investi-gative coverage via unclicked side-bar ads for Visine. The slow death spiral of newspapers continues (sponsored by Continental Air-lines).

Other papers have responded to losses by watering down their qual-ity in order to save revenue. Un-fortunately, the very reason most people read newspapers is for their

comprehensive articles. If you take these away, there’s no real reason not to simply go to cnn.com for one’s news.

Another solution being floated around is the idea of charging for online content. Thus, papers could become trendier for a younger gen-eration but still retain enough rev-enue to provide in-depth coverage for the public. The problem with this solution is that people are most likely not going to pay for a slightly more in-depth news article than the one they can access for free on the CNN website. The fee proposal, while an improvement on current strategy, will still eventually lead to the demise of the newspaper.

One more concept being tossed about is the idea of a government bailout of the newspaper industry. This is the equivalent of trying to put a hundred dollar bill over a hole in a dam; it’s both worthless and a waste of money. Newspapers in their current condition are struc-turally defunct and throwing mon-ey at them isn’t going to change the inherent flaws in the system.

However, subtly gaining ground in congressional circles is the idea of turning newspapers into non-profit organizations. With the en-actment of this plan, newspapers would cease to be privately oper-ated and would instead be funded by the taxpayers they serve. Even Rupert Murdoch would call that beautiful symmetry.

This solution would only occur for papers that were financially in-solvent (so all of you New York Post readers can breathe easy). Also, it would not result in any true re-structuring of the newspapers or downsizing, but simply a change in the funding procedure.

If newspapers are an indispens-able part of a healthy democracy, then having the democracy sup-port the newspapers would seem to be an act of self-preservation. Also, since many of the stories from

other modes of media are broken by newspapers, even the person who reads only the headlines from yahoo.com can benefit from this (thus throwing out the argument of newspapers being unnecessary).

Ostensibly, this solution would involve insolvent newspapers basi-cally ceding financial profit in re-turn for continued existence. The main argument against this solu-tion is that having the government control the media watchdog is like having the mob fund the police. However, taxpayer funding would be unconditional and no language in this bill would put restrictions on the flow of money.

Thus, even if the newspaper panned the party in power, it could not lawfully lose its nonprofit sta-tus. In-depth news reporting is far too important a pillar of democracy to be smashed with the erring ham-mer of partisanship.

A less pressing, if more obvious argument against the plan is that this is a waste of taxpayer money. Besides the fact that calling any government funding in the age of pork and politically powered shop-ping sprees is absolutely ludicrous, newspapers play too important a part in society to simply be tossed to the wolves. There is an obliga-tion on the part of society to save newspapers.

When this solution is finally passed through Congress (one can dream), it will alleviate a mias-matic menace that threatens to eat away at the very foundations of our country. It will also save thousands of jobs, and thus help the country economically as well.

If this solution does not come to pass and the newspapers are al-lowed to collapse, we’ll never again get all the news that’s fit to print but instead a watered down substitute that puts us to sleep as immorality seeps into the concoction.

Yesterday, Student for Envi-ronmental Action proudly wel-comed Mark Orlowski, director and founder of the Sustainable Endowment Institute, to cam-pus. The Sustainable Endowment Institute is a nonprofit organiza-tion that grades universities us-ing a “Green Report Card” based on sustainability ratings. One of these criteria is endowment transparency, or how accessible information about endowment investment holdings and share-holder proxy voting records are to students and the public.

For the 2009 report card, Brandeis received a B- in overall sustainability, with an F on en-dowment transparency. In addi-tion to highlighting the impor-tance of sustainability on campus, Orlowski discussed why we re-ceived our unfortunate grade and how we can work towards a more transparent endowment plan.

Orlowski spoke the day after the organization released their 2010 report card. The new ac-count includes updated profiles of schools, surveys and the man-ner in which schools responded to their initial score. Brandeis boasts a climate action plan to reduce gas emissions by 15% of level produced in 2008 by 2015. Furthermore, by 2050 the Uni-versity plans to achieve climate neutrality.

Endowment transparency is one of the three major cam-

paigns that SEA is working on this semester. Heading the effort on Endowment Transparency is Matt Grabenya ’13. When asked to elaborate on the importance of transparency, Gabrenya notes, “[It is essential] to know that you’re not supporting or doing business with companies whose policies and actions are socially abhorrent. Or if you are, that you as a shareholder can act in order to change their procedures. We should be using the power we have as shareholders towards so-cially responsible causes.”

The hope is to provide a mecha-nism for students and sharehold-ers to influence and effect univer-sity investment decisions. SEA is also in the process of reestablish-ing a committee based on endow-ment ethics and responsibility through the student union with which the administration has agreed to meet.

So is an A attainable?“Right now Brandeis’ endow-

ment plans are opaque. I think we can and we should [receive an A]. I don’t see why not. We can defi-nitely do much, much better,” says Grabenya.

Those who are interested in pushing for endowment trans-parency and ethical endowments should come to SEA meetings, which are Wednesdays at 9 p.m. in the multipurpose room. There will also be an email sent out call-ing for applicants for a committee to meet with the administration in the near future.

BY ASHLEY LYNETTESpecial to The Hoot

BY ALEX SELFColumnist

Grading sustainibility

All the news that's fit to printSEA Change The Self Shelf

ILLUSTRATION BY Andrea Fishman/The Hoot

ILLUSTRATION BY Andrea Fishman/The Hoot

F E A T U R E S12 The Hoot October 9, 2009

Will you make a difference?

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

You’ve most likely walked past them countless times. You’ve probably been the recipient of their kind words or helpful ges-tures over and over again. Maybe you work in an office with one of them or you’ve sim-ply heard their name a few times since you got to Brandeis.

Who are they? They are the faces of Brandeis. They are Brandeisians in their own right; not of the student type, but Brandeisians all the same.

They are the facilities workers and the dining services employees you come across every day, sometimes several times a day. They are the academic advisors and public safety officers who help you whether you know it or not.

They are the people who make a differ-ence in your life at Brandeis, in however small or big a way.

So often we call attention to the negative in our lives and the negative aspects of our campus. This is important but recognizing the good is equally as essential.

Even on our worst days, there are people at Brandeis who dedicate themselves to making our lives a little bit easier. There are people who smile at us when we run into them in the dining halls, there are people we seek out for academic advice and there are people who work to ensure our safety.

In my time at Brandeis, I’ve found so many of these people and have been for-tunate to form close bonds with many of them. When I graduate next year, I will leave having met both great friends of my own age, but also great mentors many years older than I am.

What about you? Who has made a dif-ference in your life at Brandeis? Have you stopped lately to tell them that they did so?

Better yet, what about the people who make a difference that you don’t know per-sonally? What about the people behind the scenes? Do you make an effort to put a face to a name? When you do and you actually run into them, do you even say hello? Do you ask them about their days or their fam-ilies? Do you even know their names?

We are a community filled with students, professors, staff members and administra-tors. We are all different, yet we’re all the same in one way: we all have a story to share.

I want to meet these people making a dif-ference, I want to share their stories and I want to introduce the community to them.

Please consider being a part of the Hoot Features section’s “Making a Difference” se-ries. Send me the name of someone who has made a difference in your time at Brandeis and why they have done so. Send me the name of someone you’ve always admired or wanted to know more about, but didn’t bother to ask.

To kick off this series of articles, read this week about Gwenn Smaxwill, the 2008 re-cipient of the Lou Ennis Staff Award.

Kind acts often go unnoticed, but The Brandeis Hoot wants to recognize those kind people behind the acts.

Please email your submissions to fea-tures@thehoot.net and we will do our best to cover as many of them as possible.

Tender love and Brandeis care

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

Gwenn Smaxwill had always dreamed of having an office with both a door and windows. Getting one seemed like enough of a reason for thanks, but when she found herself with a door and not only one, but three windows, it seemed like Smaxwill had finally arrived – prime office real es-tate.

Smaxwill, the director of undergradu-ate Summer School at Brandeis, and her colleagues were soon going to move into their new building. When she took a look at the office next door to hers, that of Sha-ron Sokoloff, Smaxwill noticed a problem: because of an adjoining alcove near the staircase, the office next to hers would only have one window. So Smaxwill asked the construction crew if they could close up a wall so Sokoloff would have not one, but two windows, thus making the window space more equitable.

Not only did Smaxwill give up one of her windows, she also made cushions for So-koloff to put in her new nook, adding an extra bit of tender love and care to her col-league’s new office. That’s what Smaxwill is all about – tender love and care – and you can tell that by the look of her office.

You could go so far as to say that enter-ing the comfort of Smaxwill’s office – filled with colorful paintings, photos of loved ones and cushy pillows – somewhat re-sembles the feeling one gets when talking to her.

Smaxwill’s office, located on Old South Street, is a bit removed from the main Brandeis campus, but you could hardly say the same of the woman herself. Dur-ing her 36 years at Brandeis, Smaxwill has immersed herself in all the various sectors of the Brandeis community, developing

lifelong bonds with bosses, colleagues and students.

“Brandeis has just given me so much – so many friends, so many families, my path, my education,” she says. “Even the other things that I do for a livelihood, you know, making costumes and sewing clothes for my friends, doing home decorating proj-ects, [and] making them jewelry [relates to Brandeis].”

This passion for her job and her friends won Smaxwill the Lou Ennis Staff Award last year. The Lou Ennis Staff Award is giv-en to the staff member who demonstrates “loyalty and dedication to the university and to its mission,” as described on the award web site.

For those who know Smaxwill, like As-sistant Director of Public Safety Bette Reilly this came as no surprise. “She goes above and beyond. She does whatever she can to make it work for people,” Reilly says. “You know [the show] Project Runway’s [phrase] ‘Make it work?’ Well she does.”

Reilly and Smaxwill have been good friends for nearly 24 years, since Reilly was pregnant with her daughter Beth. Since then, the two have spent many years cul-tivating a close friendship. Smaxwill’s face lights up when she shares stories about Reilly’s children and the fun she has had in using her creative side to create beautiful presents for Bette and her sisters.

You see, Smaxwill, who makes jewelry for herself and her friends, often channels her inner Martha Stewart: “I commit craft crime on a daily basis. It’s just, I can’t be stopped.”

What might come as a surprise to those who don’t know her, though, is the extent of Smaxwill’s craft skills. This summer Smaxwill vacationed in Martha’s Vine-yard, bringing along with her three of her

favorite things – several of her friends and colleagues, her beloved cats, and a bunch of beads.

“When I was on vacation this year, I brought more beads than clothes,” she says, then chuckles.

And so she brought her passion to the Vineyard. In spite of the semi-constant rain that served as a background to her trip, Smaxwill reveled in the peace of the Vineyard and the chance this vacation gave her to care for and enjoy the company of loved ones.

“I got the Martha Stewart out of my sys-tem by making meals for people,” she says.

Smaxwill, just over five feet tall with brown hair and a hearty chuckle that rings like she really means it, has a way of put-ting you at ease. She’s the kind of woman who worries that you’ll get cold if you step outside without a coat; the kind figure who fixes a stray hair on your face, tucking it behind your ear and the gracious hostess who’s happy to show you around her office building, giving you the interesting history along the way.

Just like the building she works in has an interesting back story, Smaxwill would say we all do too: “I think it’s important to say that we all have back stories, and that how you survive them and…decide to face them and survive them and deal with them is what makes you who you are.”

Smaxwill became who she is after a life filled with hard work and creativity. After finishing her classes at Lawrence Univer-sity in Northern Wisconsin in March of 1975, Smaxwill flew on a one-way ticket from Wisconsin to Boston to start work in the development office of the Cambridge School of Weston. When she arrived, Smaxwill moved into a home she would share for 10 years with a family who was looking for someone to live them.

During these 10 years, Smaxwill became a member of this family of strangers. The matriarch of the family, Robin Wood, would prove to be one of Smaxwill’s dear-est friends and mentors.

After working at CSW for about a year and a half, Smaxwill spent several months without a job. She supported herself dur-ing this time by painting rooms in the house she was staying in at the time, which was under renovation.

In 1976, Smaxwill came to Brandeis, and like many phases of her life, she has made sure it was a comfortable fit. She has been associated with the summer school since 1978, just four years after its 1974 found-ing.

Like many phases of her life, she has made sure her job at the Summer School is a comfortable fit. Many people get bored with their jobs and leave to seek a new challenge or the next best thing, but for Smaxwill, Brandeis has always been the next best thing. Every two or three years, she explains, she was presented with a new challenge and she accepted them with en-thusiasm. In 1997, she embarked on a self-prescribed challenge of her own, starting work on her master’s degree in manage-ment in human services at Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She completed her degree in 2004.

At this time, Smaxwill’s mentor and friend Robin Wood hosted a graduation party for her. Shortly thereafter, Wood found out she had cancer for the second time in her life. After surviving her second bout with cancer, and a 30-year period of remission, Wood passed away last Febru-ary from cancer and complications from heart disease.

See SMAXWILL, p. 13

Shining a light on everyday Brandeisians

October 9, 2009 F E A T U R E S The Hoot 13

It was around the same time that Smax-will was awarded the Lou Ennis Staff Award. “The Ennis award came at exact-ly the time that her health turned to the worse, and so it kind of helped boost my spirits,” she says.

For a time, Smaxwill kept an e-mail folder of congratulatory messages from members of the Brandeis community. “It was just so touching, the people who reached out,” she says. “It was just a really wonderful experience.”

It was a time for the Brandeis commu-nity to give back a little something to the woman who had given them so much dur-ing her 36 years at Brandeis. During this span of time, Smaxwill has happily accept-ed the challenges her job at the Summer School has posed.

The Brandeis Hoot: You’re currently serving as Senior Vice President for Ad-ministration and Finance. When do you officially step into the position as execu-tive vice president?

Jeffrey Apfel: At the board meeting com-

Tête à tête with the new EVP/COO Jeffrey Apfel

You can take the man out of school, but you can’t take school out of the man. Or, at least that’s the case for Senior Vice Presi-dent for Administration and Finance Jef-frey Apfel.

Later this month, when Apfel officially steps into Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French’s shoes, he’ll do so comfortably, having spent much of his career working in higher edu-cation.

Whether he was attending school to earn any of his several degrees, working on a college campus or working in education-al finance, Apfel has dedicated his life to higher education. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and holds a master’s degree in teaching from the Uni-versity of Massachusetts, Amherst and a master’s in public administration from the State University of New York at Albany.

For Apfel, the first to graduate from college in his family, a love of education started in his youth and blossomed into a career that at times has strayed from the physical location of a college campus, but has never been far from the heart of his work.

Preparing to assume his new position soon, Apfel spoke to The Hoot about his passion for education, his goals as a new member of the Brandeis community and how he and French, though they never met before this summer, have former business ties – and not of the clothing type.

ing at the end of October…It occurred to the people that were designing the job that a transitional period would make a lot of sense and it certainly does and it has…I came in at the end of August and [had] a several month period to kind of learn the ropes from Peter, who has been so critical to everything that’s gone on here.

Usually [the rule of thumb] in a lot of cor-porate situations is that you want to have good succession planning. You don’t just have someone quit and then go hire some-body. You spend time grooming someone, figuring out how they learn the ropes, to be able to move them into the position. It usually doesn’t happen in higher ed…What they decided to do here, and I applaud them for doing it, is to create this kind of mini succession plan, which is kind of unusual but I think it really works very well because I could come in and spend from August to October figuring out how the place works [and] learning from Peter.

BH: Prior to joining Brandeis, you worked at the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray. Can you describe your work there a little bit?

JA: That was a brief detour. My basic back-ground over the last couple of decades has been in higher ed. I was at Rutgers [when] the idea of being the chief operating offi-cer of a law firm intrigued me…Managing a law firm in some ways is not completely different [from working as a university ad-ministrator].

In higher ed, you’re the chief administra-tor but you’re typically of the faculty. And chief operating officer of a law firm is kind of similar; you’re kind of the chief admin-istrative person, but you’re not a lawyer. So that’s why that concept seemed like it might be interesting to me. I’ve come to realize, though, that I’m better at higher ed than I am at a law firm…and I thought I really needed to get back to higher ed, so that’s what I’ve done.

BH: In reading your biography on the Brandeis website, it’s clear that much of your life’s work so far has been intimately related to higher education. What is it about higher education that you’re so pas-sionate about?

JA: When you’re passionate about some-thing, you can’t really explain it other than the fact that it’s just there…Even though I’ve done a number of different things and worked in a variety of fields, I’ve never been that far in my mind, or sometimes in my actual behaviors, from higher ed in terms of working.

It probably relates back to my childhood to the fact that my dad was so passionate about [education]. I’m first generation col-lege [in my family], and growing up, my dad was rabid about “Thou shalt go to college.” It was a very formative time for me and I

carry around his values with me, I guess.BH: That’s a really interesting point be-

cause many people often have difficulty pinpointing why it is they love what they do.

JA: Well it’s interesting. When I was first looking to get into higher ed from invest-ment banking, I was working with a lot of head hunting firms…And a head hunter called me one time [to tell me about an ad-ministrative finance position at a medium-sized teaching hospital where doctors play the role of faculty]. And I said, “I don’t want to do it…because I’m not passionate [about health care or hospitals].” Every time I go to a hospital and walk around, do I like it and do I get excited about it? No, I don’t get ex-cited about it. If I go to a campus and walk around, I’m immediately thinking “What are we doing with the renovation over there? How does this fit together?” And I wonder what the students are thinking. You can’t always nail why you care about some-thing, but you do [care].

BH: So far, how does Brandeis compare to the other schools you’ve worked at be-fore?

JA: [Rhode Island School of Design] is the best art school, probably in the world, and Rutgers is a huge university. It’s more like a city than it is a university, it’s just sprawl-ing… [But] I like the fact that [Brandeis] knows that it’s excellent and it’s rabid about maintaining its excellence.

BH: Have you gotten a chance to meet with many Brandeis students at all yet? And if so, what has your impression been of them?

JA: Not as much as I would like…I haven’t been asked yet to sort of meet in a social or presentation sense with different groups of students. But in the past, one of the things that I liked about working at a smaller col-lege (like when I was working at RISD) was that I did get to know many of the faculty and students by name and my door was open to them and they could come by. And so that’s kind of my style. So I haven’t had enough of that here, but of course that’s something I would look forward to doing more of.

BH: What are your biggest hopes and fears coming into this job?

JA: To be brutally frank…there’s still some significant financial issues that we’ve got to put behind us over the next couple of years. And it’s nothing unique about Brandeis. We have been adversely affected by circumstances, but relative to many of our peer institutions and even bigger insti-tutions, we haven’t been as adversely affect-ed in terms of endowment or whatever else. The problem for us, though, is that we don’t have the resource base and the resource flexibility that many of our [peer] schools do…Even though our endowment losses

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

were far less than [that of] most of peers, we don’t have the kind of financial base that they do to be able to suffer financial losses over an extended period of time.

So I’m very attentive to the fact that we need to address some of these financial is-sues. It’s not a panicked way, but in a very decided, clear, cool, calm, deliberative way over the next several years so that we can be certain that we can kind of weather the storm that’s hitting everyone in higher ed.

BH: Do you feel your extensive financial and administrative experience will help you to address these financial problems in a head-on manner?

JA: Well it’s interesting you should say that because one thing that Peter French and I have in common is that we both worked in New York City government during and af-ter the famous fiscal crisis of the 1970s…I didn’t know Peter there (he was in the Parks department and I was at the Office of Man-agement and Budget) but… a lot of Peter’s background as well as mine, in terms of our formative experiences in our 20s and 30s was in a situation in which you had to find a way to combine the desire to do the right thing with an honest to God resource scarcity question…And not that Peter and I will do everything exactly the same way, but both of us have had that kind of training with ‘How do you create a plan that people buy into, that people understand?’ [And we both understand] that something has got to give in order to get to the point where you have some stability.

BH: What are your hopes for your time at Brandeis?

JA: When I was at RISD, there was a board meeting and the students showed up to do a presentation at the board meeting. And they brought with them – because they’re very visual – a series of photographs. And they put 10 large format photographs in front of the room but they didn’t explain what it was, they just sort of let them sit there while they were at the meeting. And the trustees asked “What are these?”

They were pictures of doors on campus, and they said to the trustees, ‘We wanted to show you the doors of the few people on campus that [care about us].’ And I was one of the doors. It was actually one of the mo-ments that I was happiest or proudest of my work there because it indicated that to me as finance and administrative person [who usually works behind the scenes] that the students would know enough or feel that I cared enough about what they did that they would put that picture up and say “Here are some of the people that you should re-ally value because of what they do with stu-dents.”

That was, to me, an honor. And if I could aspire to anything like that around here that would make me happy.

Summer school director mixes work with friendship over 36 years at BrandeisSMAXWILL (from p. 12) And not all of those challenges or proj-

ects have come about during the sum-mer. Though the actual action of summer classes takes place outside of the normal academic year, Smax-will’s year is filled with work regarding those precious months of heat and sun.

“My life functions much more on an an-nual schedule because the Summer School replicates in a micro-cosm everything that the university has a separate office to do during the academic year,” she says.

Throughout the academic year, Smax-will works on the marketing of the sum-

mer program, helps with faculty contracts and course solicitation, reviews applica-tions for special programs and does data analysis.

During the sum-mer, among other tasks, Smaxwill su-pervises on-campus housing, plans bud-gets and serves as the disabilities coordina-tor for her division.

If her day job at the Summer School and her side craft work weren’t

enough, Smaxwill also serves on the Jus-tice Brandeis Semester committee.

Keeping busy is nothing new for Smax-will, but she’s never so busy that she forgets

her roots, or her friends. She still holds close ties with former students who met at Brandeis and now are married with six children, she still vacations with the fam-ily she used to live with, and she maintains a position at the first job she held out of college.

Smaxwill still works at the Cambridge School of Weston, making costumes for the theater department. She’s currently preparing for a show set to start in two weeks, and is busy making 60 costumes for the performers.

As such, over the next 14 days you’re most likely to find her in front of her DVD player, working her fingers to the bone, crafting beautiful clothes for people she’s likely befriended.

It’s a hectic and warm life Smaxwill leads, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Brandeis has just given me so much – so many friends, so many families, my path, my education.

- Gwenn Smaxwill

S P O R T S14 The Hoot October 9, 2009

PHOTO BY Andrew Rauner/The Hoot

Brandeis falls to Case Western in UAA opener, defeats Tufts

FANCY FOOTWORK: Kelly Doolittle ‘12 works around a Bridgewater State College defender on the way to a 6-0 win on Sept. 15.

BY HANNAH VICKERSEditor

The Brandeis women’s soccer team opened up their UAA play against the Case Western Reserve University Spartans on Saturday in Cleveland, but fell to the hosts 1-0. The Judges went on to shutout the Tufts University Jumbos at Tufts on Wednesday 2-0. With the win and loss the Judges move to 5-3-2 on the season and 0-1-0 in UAA play.

Just like the game against Wellesley last week, the Judges started out strong against the Spartans and dominated the shooting opportunities in both halves. Brandeis put up 14 shots, five of which were on target, but were unable to get any past Anna Ken-nedy ’12, the goalkeeper for Case Western.

On the other side of the field, the Spar-tans got off only four shots and three were on target. Hillary Rosenzweig ’10 acted as Brandeis keeper for the first half before Ja-clyn Weinstein ’12 took over. Rosenzweig and Weinstein had a save apiece.

Despite some great shots in the first half by Melissa Gorenkoff ’10 and Tiffany Pa-checo ’11, the Judges were unable to capi-talize on their 9-2 shooting advantage in the first half. Kennedy was able to hold off the offensive onslaught, including three saves in six minutes.

“We made some mistakes as always- we are human- but ultimately we did not fin-ish well,” Head Coach Denise Dallamora said. “We are overall playing better defense and making less mistakes.”

The game remained scoreless until the 55th minute when midfielder Caroline Garber ’10 got the game winning shot past Weinstein from just outside the box.

“We have faith in Jaclyn’s abilities as a goalkeeper and we will not second guess our decision,” said Dallamora. “Both keep-ers have strengths and weaknesses.”

The Judges had a much more satisfying game against Tufts on Wednesday where they beat the Jumbos for the first time since 2004. The two teams were pretty evenly matched shooting-wise, both notching five in the first half with Brandeis outshooting

their opponent 6-4 in the second, but the Judges were able to take advantage of the opportunities they were given.

The eventual game-winning goal came in the 26th minute by Mimi Theodore ’12. Pacheco had taken her shot on Kate Min-nehan ’10 but the Jumbos goalie was un-able to keep a handle on the ball after she saved it. Theodore sent the rebound under Minnehan and into the net. This was the second game-winning shot for Theodore.

Rosenzweig, tending goal for the Judges, kept up the team’s one goal advantage into the second half when Sofia Vallone ’11 tacked on an insurance shot in the 85th

minute off an assist by Theodore. Both Minnehan and Rosenzweig managed sev-en saves; Brandeis got the 2-0 win. This was the 19th career shutout for Rosenz-weig and it moved her into a tie for first place on the all-time list with Justine Mc-Bride ’92.

“Getting the 19th shutout was a huge ac-complishment for me, but the win against Tufts meant even more,” Rosenzweig said. “The win is a tremendous boost to our confidence and I only hope we take that forward with us in our game against Roch-ester.”

Dallamora agreed. “For me and Hillary,

we do not care about the stats,” she said. “We both just want to win.”

Brandeis will face off in their second UAA game of the season on Saturday when they host the University of Rochester at 7:30 p.m. Rochester is 7-1-2 on the season and 1-0 in conference play. They are cur-rently ranked first in the UAA.

“To beat Rochester we need to dominate the game by winning the 50/50 and finish well,” Dallamora said. “I am very confident in this team; they get better and better in one way or another in every game.”

“Hopefully the success continues,” Rosenzweig added.

The Brandeis women’s volley-ball team was 1-2 on their first University Athletic Association round robin of the season in Rochester over the weekend. With that their overall season re-cord drops to 11-7.

The Judges dropped their UAA opener on Saturday night to the Washington University Bears in straight sets 23-25, 11-25, 19-25. Brandeis started out strong in the first set, coming within 2 points of their opponents, but were unable to keep it up in the second and third sets.

Both teams put up 10 kills in the first, but Brandeis had 8 er-rors, two more than the Bears. The second set saw a shift in play, with the Bears getting more than twice as many kills than the Judg-es, 15 compared to 7, and half as many errors. While play was closer in the third set, the Judges were unable to come back for the win. Brandeis was paced by setter Abby Blasco ’11 who put up 26 as-sists and nine digs, just one short of making her ninth double-double of the season. Twin sister

Volleyball 1-2 in first UAA playBY HANNAH VICKERS

Editor

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES: The Brandeis squad congratulates each other on a hard earned point against Endicott College on Sept. 17.

PHOTO BY Lien Phung/The Hoot

Paige led the team with eight kills while blocker Nicole Smith ’11 had seven kills and three blocks.

Brandeis went on to face the Case Western Reserve Spar-tans the next morning and again dropped the first set 25-23. The Judges fought back and took the second set 25-18, but were unable to keep their momentum going. The Spartans picked up the last two sets 25-18, 25-21 to take the game 3-1. Paige Blasco led the game with 17 digs and also put up five kills. Sister Abby had 38 as-sists, nine digs, and six kills. Piera Carfagno ’10 assisted in the effort as well by putting up a season-high 18 kills in addition to an impressive .368 percentage with the 18 kills and four errors in 38 attempts.

After dropping the first two games, the Judges rallied to take the third and final game of the weekend against the hosting Rochester University Yellowjack-ets. Brandeis won in straight sets 25-16, 25-22, 25-15. The Judges had only 3 errors in the first set and 5 in each the second and third compared to Rochester who put up 15 in the first, 8 in the

second, and 12 in the third. The Yellowjackets also only had three players with a positive percentage while the Judges had just one in the negatives. Bridget McAllis-ter led the defensive effort with 10 digs while Abby Blasco put up 24 assists and 6 digs. Carfagno,

Paige Blasco, and Smith each had six kills to aid the offensive effort.

The Judges will play again this Saturday at home in a tri-match against Coast Guard and Keene State. UAA action resumes next weekend, October 17 and 18, in New York City where Brandeis

will face Carnegie Mellon Uni-versity (10-8 overall, 1-2 in UAA), Chicago University (13-9 overall, 1-2 in UAA), Emory University (18-2 overall, 3-0 in UAA), and New York University (16-5 over-all, 1-2 in UAA). Brandeis is cur-rently ranked fifth in the UAA.

October 9, 2009 S P O R T S The Hoot 15

PHOTO BY Phil Small/The Hoot

Men’s soccer blasts past Case Western, takes first game of UAA conference play

PLAYING HARD TO GET: Luke Teece ‘12 gets control of a loose ball in the 6-1 win over Newbury last week. The Judges won their third game in a row yesterday in an away game against Colby-Sawyer College. The men’s soccer team will take on the University of Rochester Saturday evening in another UAA conference game.

BY HANNAH VICKERSEditor

The Brandeis men’s soccer team took home a win in their first UAA conference game of the year against the Case Western Reserve University Spartans on Saturday. The Judges beat their hosts 1-0 and moved up to 4-4-1 on the year as well as 1-0-0 in UAA play while the Spartans dropped to 5-4-2 overall and 0-1-0 in the UAA.

The winning goal came from midfielder Corey Bradley ’10. This was the first goal of the season for Bradley, as well as the first goal since 2007, and the sixth of his career at Brandeis.

Bradley has been forced to miss much of the past seasons due to injuries, but so far he has managed to come back strong this year.

Thanks to the game-winning goal against Case Western as well as an assist in the game against Newbury, Bradley is listed as one of the Outstanding Athletes of the Week on the UAA website.

Keeper Matt Lynch ’10 was responsible for holding onto the shutout against the Spartans with a season-high-tying six saves. This was the first shutout of the sea-son for the Judges and the fourth of Lynch’s career.

Brandeis outshot Case Western 7-2 in the first half, but couldn’t translate this shooting advantage into a goal until the last two minutes of play. With 72 seconds on the clock before intermission, Bradley hammered the ball from 25 yards out. The ball found its mark and sailed just under the crossbar and above the reaching fingers of goalie Ben Yabrow.

The Spartans came out strong in the sec-

ond half and flipped the shooting advan-tage on its head.

Case outshot the Judges 10-2 in the sec-ond, including 4-2 advantage in shots on goal. Lynch stepped up to the plate, how-ever, and stopped every ball that came at him, including two from the leading scorer, Vinny Bell ’12. This was the first confer-ence win for Brandeis since 2006.

As Coach Michael Coven pointed out last week, this Case Western team was a force to be reckoned with and taken seri-ously. Just before they faced the Judges, the Spartans tied the number two team in the country, Ohio Wesleyan University. With the win the Judges moved up to fourth in the UAA standings while Case Western fell to seventh.

Brandeis went on to face Colby-Sawyer College Thursday afternoon, where they beat their hosts 3-2. The Judges extended their streak to three straight wins and moved up to .500 for the first time this sea-son with the victory.

The winning goal came in the 81st minute off the head of forward Alexander Farr ‘12. Farr came off the bench just two minutes earlier. Forward Sam Ocel ‘13 aimed a per-fect shot to Farr, who headed the ball into the net. It was his fourth goal of the season and the second game-winner. More details onthe game will follow in next week’s issue.

The Judges will host the University of Rochester Saturday at 5 p.m. to continue UAA conference play. Rochester, who have yet to lose a game this season, is currently ranked second in the UAA with an overall record of 7-0-2 and 1-0 in the UAA after taking down NYU last Saturday 1-0.

Packers v. Vikings: An epic match-up for Minnesota fans

Last week I made a mental de-cision to not talk about Minne-sota sports for a while, but then I found out that the Vikings were playing the Green Bay Packers Monday night.

Moreover, that means it was the first time that Brett Favre faced his old team wearing purple and yel-low, and guaranteed to be an interesting game.

Now I do not usually follow football, but it was im-p oss ib le to live in Min-n e s ot a and not k n o w e v e r y d e t a i l a b o u t the pos-sibility of Favre sign-ing with the Vikings. My n e w s p a p e r had a daily Fa- vre-o-Meter where the angle of Fa-vre’s arm showed the probability of him signing with the Vikings. Then he decided he was not going

BY SARAH BLOOMBERGStaff

to sign, but oh wait, three weeks later he decided to sign, and all Minnesotans who booed him for years greeted him with cheers.

The only problem was then Fa-vre had to perform. And so far he has done just that. Through four games the Vikings are 4-0 with Favre throwing 837 yards and 8 touchdowns, including 271 yards and 3 touchdowns Monday

against the Packers. I am go-

ing to b e

honest: I do not know much about

football stats (but if it makes it any better I can tell you too much about hockey stats), but if Favre is

able to keep this up, the Vikings will finally have a consistent quar-terback, and the most successful one since Daunte Culpepper was throwing to Randy Moss.

But possibly most impres-sive about all of this was that with the 30-23 win over the Packers, Favre be-came the first quar-terback ever to win against all 32 NFL teams. He is also the all-time lead-er for passing yards, passing comple-

tions, and p a s s i n g touchdowns. I do not care which team you cheer for, that is

pretty impres-sive. And to top it off, Favre

will be turning 40 on Saturday, which is getting just a tad old for a quarterback, but if he is able to

LIKE SOCIAL MEDIA? MEET US ON

FACEBOOK. BECOME A FAN OF

stay healthy, it looks like nothing can stop him.

So Favre faced his

o l d team (and his new team’s biggest rival) and was able to come out on top. But he was at the Metrodome, at home. The game that I am looking forward to is when the Vikings play at Lambeau, Favre’s former stomp-ing grounds for 15 years. That will really be the game to watch.

In other Minnesota news, the Twins refuse to say goodbye to the Metrodome and beat the Tigers in

a one game playoff to win the AL Central and advance to the playoffs against the Yankees. As my favorite sign I saw Tuesday night, it is David

versus Goliath in New York, but in this case it looks like the

first round went to Goli-ath. The Yankees beat

the Twins 7-2 with a 2-run home-

run from Derek Jeter in the third inning to tie up the game. Twins starter Brian Duen-sing was over-whelmed by the Yankees offense

while the Twins were not able to

do much against Yankees starter CC

Sabathia. The next game will be Friday

night in New York, while the other AL Division Series, the Boston Red Sox against the Los Angeles Angels, will play their sec-ond game out in LA. In the Nation-al League the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Colorado Rockies 5-1 on Wednesday with the second game Thursday, and Los Angeles Dodg-ers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-3 and will also play the second game Thursday night. Neither game was complete by press time.

W E E K E N D16 The Hoot October 9, 2009

W E E K E N D

What's going on at Brandeis?

Steve SweeneySaturday, Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m. Charles Playhouse: Tommy's Comedy Lounge, Boston

To break up the endless Brandeis midterm season, come see some great comedy this weekend at Charles Playhouse. Steve Sweeney, "The King of Boston Comedy," will be performing this Saturday night.

By Ian Pricelaughingwarlock

Sleazy By Matt Kupfer

Boston Harbor USS Constitution Cruise

Choose Your Own Boston Adventure

Friday, Oct. 09, 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.Slosberg

Hoot Comic Strips

Marquee Series: Paul Rishell and Annie Raines

Saturday, Oct. 10, 2:00 p.m. - 11:10 p.m. Boston

Humor is Dead By Xander Bernstein

Photos from in-ternet source.

Spotlight on Boston

Student events and SSB are organizing an opportunity this Saturday for you to buy discounted tickets for the Bos-ton Harbor USS Constitution Cruise, the Aquarium/Imax, or the Ghost and Gravesgtones Tour. Buy tickets at SSB and free Shuttles leave for Boston all day.

Can you

draw and write comics? Want to see

yourwork in print?

E-maillelefko@brandeis.edu

Saturday, Oct. 10, 2:30 p.m. Boston Harbor Cruises

Sunday, Oct. 11, 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.Athletics Parking Lot

If you missed the first Brandeis Farmer's Mar-ket this semester, be sure to come to the second one this Sunday. You can buy lots of local fruits and vegitables as well as baked goods and other goodies!

Everything in the GardenFriday, Oct. 09, 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, 8 p..m. to 10 p.m.Spingold

Editor's Pick:

Brandeis Farmers Market

Buy discounted tickets this weekend from the SSB to go on this 45 minute, relaxing cruise. You will get to visit the USS Constitution in the Navy Yard of Charlestown, Bunker Hill, the Bos-ton Tea Party Boat, and the Old North Church and hear full narration. If you want to expand your cruise experience, you can also tour the naval Museums.

Come see "Everything in the Garden," written by Edward Albee and directed by Eric Hill, either this weekend or next week-enend. Regular tickets are priced either $18 or $20, depending on the time and the date of the performance, but students can buy up to two tickets half price with their ID.

Rishell and Raines, both Handy Award-winners, are performing a variety of country blues through their guitar, harmonica, and vocals. So come see some well performed and fun music! Buy tickets in ad-vance for five dollars less than on the day of the show, and Brandeis students can get an additional discount.