With swipe access to the Linsey Sports Center available only to a limited number of individuals, Adagio Dance Company members must often walk through active sports games in the Red Auerbach Arena. A new petition from the Company asserts that this leaves them vulnerable to injury. 

The change.org petition that calls for granting swipe access to Linsey for Adagio members has garnered 118 signatures as of Monday night. 

The Adagio Dance Company, with about 60 dancers, is one of the 15 Brandeis dance clubs that uses the four dance studios in Linsey. In order to get to the studios, dancers must enter through Gosman Sports and Convocation Center’s main entrance and walk across the complex to enter Linsey, passing through the arena. This means the dancers may encounter basketball, soccer or volleyball games, which, according to the petition, “disrupts play and is dangerous for both the players and the dancers.”

“Every Adagio dancer has a story about almost getting hit by a soccer ball during a game or running out of the way just in time to avoid colliding with a group of basketball players,” Brooke Granovsky ’18 wrote in an Oct. 27 email to the Justice.

Granovsky, who wrote the petition, proposes a system that only provides club leaders and choreographers card access, which would minimize the amount of people with access to the building but also allow for direct entrance into Linsey.

In an Oct. 27 email to the Justice, Senior Associate Director of Athletics Tom Rand cited “safety, security and liability concerns” regarding granting card access to club leaders. Out of the 28 clubs that had booked the multipurpose room in Linsey last week, Rand pointed out that granting access to one or two leaders of each group would be too many people for Athletics and Public Safety to be comfortable with.

The athletic facilities are only available for use by current Brandeis students, staff and faculty, but there have been incidents in the past in which outsiders, such as Bentley University and Boston College students, were able to sneak into the buildings. 

According to Rand, these unauthorized individuals committed larceny, harassment and vandalism on multiple occasions, and if anyone was to be hurt while inside the facilities, the University would be held liable. “If we start giving people access to doors that aren’t staffed I feel like we are only asking for more issues,” Rand said.

Rand also cited restrictions for staffing two front desks due to budget concerns, adding that only a select few employees have access to certain areas such as Linsey. 

Unless Adagio is willing to cover the $11- to $12-an-hour fees that would come with staffing the Linsey entrance, there is nothing that can be done, according to Rand. The Athletics Department would also have to coordinate with Public Safety to reactivate the desk card reader, he noted.

Other than using Allocations Board funding, Adagio is exploring the option of using the Community Emergency and Enhancement Fund as a way to offset the costs of manning a front desk, according to Granovsky.


—Natalia Wiater


Editor’s note: Brooke Granovsky ’18 is an Arts reporter for the Justice.