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The pandemic brought Brandeis’ study abroad programs to a grinding halt last year, but students hoping to study abroad may have the opportunity to do so this coming summer and in the fall semester. The University has opened the application period for upcoming 2021 study abroad programming, but the constantly changing circumstances of the pandemic have led to much uncertainty.
The University held its 15th annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial event over Zoom on Monday, Jan. 18. Twenty-five women spoke at the event, which was themed, “As She Is Queen and King.”
On Wednesday, Jan. 27, President Biden signed a series of executive orders addressing the climate crisis. These executive orders ranged from pausing federal oil leases to increasing the use of electric cars, with a specific goal of making the United States carbon neutral by 2050. Some have praised Biden for his ambitious policies in addressing the climate crisis, while others believe it is not ambitious enough. Over this century, the world is on track for a temperature rise of three degrees Celsius, making this coming decade critical for slowing carbon dioxide emissions. Another common critique of Biden’s climate plan is the potential economic impact it will have on middle-class families who depend on fossil fuel jobs for income. Is Biden’s 2050 goal too ambitious considering the years it will take to reverse the Trump-era policies on climate change, or not ambitious enough? What else should Biden do to fight climate change?
In November, anonymous users interrupted a virtual panel discussing the oppression of the Uyghurs Muslim minority group in Xinjiang, China. One user played the Chinese national anthem and others used the annotation function of Zoom to write “Bullshit” and “Fake News” across the screen. A joint statement from the event sponsors said that just before the Nov. 13 event they were notified about “threatening emails from members of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association” urging the University to cancel the panel. The emails, according to the sponsors' statement, were sent to the President’s Office, the International Students and Scholars Office and the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
No clubs were chartered, de-chartered or recognized at the Feb. 2 Student Union Senate meeting. Union Vice President Krupa Sourirajan ’23 swore in four new senators who were elected in the recent winter 2021 elections.
Students will now have to independently administer COVID-19 tests
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
The start of the new semester brought a new round of Student Union elections. On Jan. 25, students voted for five Union Senate seats, four Allocations Board seats and one junior representative seat to the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.
The Brandeis Food Pantry, recently renamed Food and Resources for Equitable and Sustainable Health, has become an essential part of the Brandeis community over the last two years. FRESH aims to supply undergraduate and graduate students with non-perishable and fresh food products, toiletry and hygiene items, as well as clothing and kitchen supplies.
The fall 2020 semester at Brandeis was unlike any other due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shift to partially remote learning. This new form of learning had many successes, but it also created some frustrations for students. In December, Jonathan Joasil ’22 and other students wrote an email to then-provost Lisa Lynch detailing their frustrations about the fall semester and provided suggestions for spring 2021. Later in December, Lynch emailed the Brandeis community about changes to the spring semester schedule, including additional break days.
Brandeis University is keeping the community informed about its COVID-19 statistics through an online dashboard. This dashboard contains information about how many tests were collected, how many individuals were tested, how many individuals tested positive, how many students are in quarantine, how many students are in isolation and the seven-day average for positive tests on campus. The dashboard also includes various statistics about areas in Massachusetts. The Justice will produce infographics each week, visually displaying the information that the University releases online.
Brandeis University is keeping the community informed about its COVID-19 statistics through an online dashboard. This dashboard contains information about how many tests were collected, how many individuals were tested, how many individuals tested positive, how many students are in quarantine, how many students are in isolation and the seven-day average for positive tests on campus. The dashboard also includes various statistics about areas in Massachusetts. The Justice will produce infographics each week, visually displaying the information that the University releases online.
The University and the United States at large experienced a racial reckoning this summer. The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on Black and Brown communities in particular highlighted the ways that the American healthcare system was built to serve primarily white people and how other communities have been marginalized in terms of medical access. People of color with disabilities have especially faced roadblocks over the years.
Following the police killing of George Floyd and the subsequent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the mainstream this past May, the University made a commitment to address systemic racism on campus. After various announcements related to anti-racism, Zoom meetings with community members and guidance from the student organizers of the Black Action Plan, the University released a draft of its anti-racism plan in an email on Nov. 10. President Ron Liebowitz and Vice President for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Mark Brimhall-Vargas discussed the draft plan in a Nov. 10 joint interview with the Justice and The Brandeis Hoot.
When Bakari Sellers won the South Carolina Senate race of 2006, he made history for being the youngest Black elected official in the country, according to the Boston-Wide Israel Speakers Series page on Facebook. Since leaving office in 2014, Sellers has become a New York Times bestselling author, makes regular appearances on CNN and is the host of The Bakari Sellers Podcast. The Brandeis Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Boston-Wide Israel Speaker Series hosted “A Conversation with Bakari Sellers” on Sunday, Nov. 15.
For the first time this semester, the Union Senate voted against the creation of a new club at their Nov. 15 meeting. The Senate also voted to approve seven other clubs and to dissolve a probationary club whose executive board members had not responded to emails from the Senate Club Support Committee.
Senior Vice President of Communications, Marketing and External Relations Dan Kim updated the Brandeis community on fall 2020 move-out procedures in a Nov. 13 email. To limit the potential spread of COVID-19, anyone picking up a student to move out must fill out the Daily Health Assessment and remain in their vehicle while on campus. Drivers can wait in their vehicles in a legal parking spot near the student’s residential building.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Angelika Bammer, an author and professor of comparative literature at Emory University, spoke virtually to the Brandeis community on Nov. 12 about her newly published book, “Born After: Reckoning with the German Past.” Bammer’s book recounts her family’s history in Nazi-era Germany, as well as her own thoughts as she grappled with processing this controversial past.
Brandeis hosted authors Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy to talk about a new book they co-authored, “Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People,” in a virtual event on Monday, Nov. 9. In the book, Sharansky and Troy explore Sharansky’s extraordinary journey from being a dissident and a prisoner in a Soviet gulag to a public figure and leading activist in the Israeli political sphere. University President Ron Liebowitz, Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS), Prof. Shirley Idelson (DEPT) and Associate Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies Dr. Shayna Weiss joined the event and participated in the conversation with Sharansky and Troy.