I don’t consider myself a political person. I know embarrassingly little about the Arab-Israeli conflict, I am unsure who our Secretary of State is, and the only thing I have “organized” is my binder. But the recent events regarding Cholmondeley’s demonstrate the administration’s total disconnect with the student body it serves. My apathy has been challenged. Enough is enough. 

Last Wednesday night, I went to Chum’s to set up for an Open Mic Night for Where the Children Play, Brandeis’ arts and literary magazines. The event was to start at 8 p.m. When we arrived at 7:30, we found Robbie Steinberg, the student activities specialist, standing in the freezing rain, saying that Public Safety was late because of medical emergencies and would be right there to open the door. Before Student Activities switched the locks, Chum’s employees were able to let themselves in. While I obviously respect medical emergencies as being significantly more important than our Open Mic Night, I have to wonder why it is necessary that the two should affect each other in the slightest. If student activities is going to be supervising events at Chum’s, shouldn’t they also have a key to the building? Shouldn’t the people supposedly “in control” actually be given the simple tools or training to wield that control? In dealing with employment, Student Activities has been characterized by a lack of training and communication, both with their own staff and the Chum’s staff. 

After standing in the cold for 20 minutes, I gave Robbie my phone to call Public Safety and ask where they were. It was 7:50, and they said they’d be there at 7:05. I wondered why he didn’t just make the 30-foot walk over to the police station, but I held my tongue, thinking there must be some sort of reason for his stagnation. I gave him my phone and he called them. 

“They said they didn’t know we were still waiting!” he said. Public Safety arrived a few minutes later and let us in. 

The open mic night went as planned—except for a few hiccups. Leigh Hilderbrandt, the Department of Student Activities marketing and box office manager, “supervised.” And by supervised, I mean sat behind the counter playing a computer game on her laptop, unable to operate the sound equipment or even the heat (my toes are still thawing). 

A former Chum’s employee set up the sound equipment and facilitated the entire event, making food and a comfortable space. Simply being a body behind a counter does not accomplish the many tasks which Chum’s employees were paid to do. This was reaffirmed by the employees’ integral role in making our Open Mic Night a success. 

Of course, Chum’s employees had their obvious faults, especially in their fire safety and interview practices. This debacle was started when two students, not employees of Chum’s, set off the fire alarm by smoking in the back early this month. The Chum’s employees working at the time did not evacuate after the fire alarm went off. Of course, both the smoking and the fire safety, or lack thereof, are unacceptable and detrimental to the student body. However, the Chum’s employees were under-trained by Student Activities, their alleged supervisor. The University did not provide staff-wide food or fire safety training or tell them how to run a business, several Chum’s employees have told me. The firing (and let’s call a spade a spade: Senior Vice-President of Students Andrew Flagel sent an email that stated the employees were not fired and also noted that “all current Chum’s employees will be considered” for employment upon the reopening. How can you be considered for a job you already have?) of all the Chum’s employees, and subsequent replacement of them with employees from the Department of Student Activities, is at worst degrading and at best simply impractical. 

Student Activities employees have no idea how to run a coffee shop, a concert venue, open mic nights or any realistic use of Chum’s. Putting a body behind the counter does not accomplish the tasks it takes to run a coffee shop. 

In theory, Stephanie Grimes, the director of Student Activities, “serves as a liaison between the University and the students in moments of crisis or challenge,” according to Brandeis’ website. Chum’s, which operates under the Department of Student Activities, has always been student-run. Students are in charge of hiring, ordering food, scheduling shifts—anything that takes running a coffeehouse and event venue. Grimes’ role should be to keep Chum’s both orderly and safe, which is very possible with open communication and the appropriate safety training. Instead, Grimes chose the extreme solution to a solvable problem, erasing the student-run culture at Chum’s that has been cultivated since it first opened in the 1960s. Ironically, Grimes has replaced who she thought were incompetent employees with even less competent employees, fresh from her own department. While Chum’s employees are able to set up sound systems and lights and serve food at the same time, the Student Activities employees, temporary Chum’s supervisors, do not function in any capacity aside from a scowling presence. 

Rather than offering fire, food and other safety training to the Chum’s employees and understanding the importance of this safe space, Grimes literally erased the culture of Chum’s. The facility’s walls, which for years were filled with students’ drawings, words and even signatures from bands, are now bare. I can’t think of a more perfect metaphor for the erasure of a culture than this.

Following the outrage regarding this clear violation, Flagel decided to pay the employees while they are being “reorganized,” a cheap way to buy their silence, confirmed in an email sent on March 23. The term “reorganization” has not been defined by the administrators, according to the former (suspended on paid leave) co-manager of Chum’s, Josh Berman ’15. 

A review of staff will begin, although the administration has only vaguely expressed  how this will take place. A lack of communication and accountability characterizes the meetings between the Chums employees and the administration. Hundreds have emailed administrators in support of a student-run Chum’s, including myself. 

The decision to “reorganize” the staff goes beyond the Chum’s employees themselves—it affects people like me and many others who go to hang out, dance, hear music and meet new people without feeling judged or uncomfortable. Chum’s is an essential space at Brandeis. 

A Chum’s that is not student-run is not the Chum’s I, and many other students before me, have come to see as home. The University’s policy of “reorganizing,”  a not-so-clever euphemism for displacing students and spaces, exemplifies the administration’s incompetence and ignorance of student needs.

—Aliza Vigderman ’15 is an editiorial staff member for Where the Children Play.