Last week, Brandeis students and professors showed an outstanding ability to rally successfully around a cause and force change. On Oct. 25, 38 Brandeis students who planned to go abroad next spring were disappointed to learn the University did not approve their petitions. They soon realized that Study Abroad Director J. Scott Van Der Meid had called some of the overseas institutions and domestic intermediary programs and had withdrawn students' applications without notifying them or receiving their consent.Last week, the students, who are all in good academic standing, decided to take the matter into their own hands.

On Thursday, the 38 students went to the office of Dean Michele Rosenthal and waited there for an unacceptable period of time, before she reluctantly agreed to see them. When she finally let them in, they threatened to transfer to other universities if their petitions were not reconsidered. At least two students claim that Rosenthal went so far as to assist them in preparing their transfer forms. Two days later, Van Der Meid reconsidered the rejected petitions, and all but two of these 38 students were readmitted to their overseas program.

This is the first year in recent memory that a large number of petitioning students were turned down from their intended study abroad programs by Brandeis. To make matters worse, Brandeis applied so-called academic standards ex post facto. Rumors have circulated that the University is in financial trouble, but if Brandeis is unable to afford to send all the petitioning students abroad, it should have made this issue clear from the outset. The fact that the study abroad office has enthusiastically encouraged every Brandeis student to study overseas, but then rejected so many petitions without proper explanation, shows that its policies are hypocritical.

Students in good academic standing who want to study abroad should be given every right to do so. Many Brandeis students have been planning for years to go to an overseas university for a summer, a semester or even a year, and the University must recognize the validity of their intentions.

For many students, spending time elsewhere means facing new and different challenges such as interacting in a foreign language and adapting to another country's cultural norms. It also means that more learning may be done outside the confines of the classroom. For example, going to museums, expositions, art galleries or shows is often part of the academic schedule. Study abroad can be a time of valuable personal growth that is harder to attain on Brandeis' insulated campus.

It was heartening to see that many professors aligned themselves with the students rather than the administration. Professors including Jacob Cohen (AMST) and George Ross (POL) applied pressure, which added legitimacy to the students' cause.

The University has violated student autonomy on many occasions, much to the dismay of students; however, that they were able to successfully rally shows that students can occasionally sway the administration in favor of our interests.

Samantha Joseph '04 demonstrated initiative by e-mailing the entire class of 2004 listserv and organizing complaints. We commend her and the rest of the study abroad applicants and professors for their proactive response, proving that members of this community are still dedicated to activism. It was absurd for the administration to have thought that so many students would readily accept the University's ruling, but the way in which the affected parties coordinated themselves was commendable.