It overtook campus. Brandeis juniors and seniors may recall the Kraft referendum in spring 2002 to remove Kraft products from campus because the company is owned by the tobacco giant Phillip Morris.

The leader of that campaign, Nicole Karlebach '04, had the honor of addressing Brandeis' graduating class of 2004 as the senior commencement speaker Sunday.

She was selected to speak by a special committee after submitting an essay about the possibility for change in America. She also had to give a mock speech and after the students voted on five possible speakers, she won.

A dual politics and sociology major, Karlebach was an active member of the Brandeis community since she first arrived at the University.

Her campus affiliations are numerous, ranging from the Brandeis Labor Coalition, the Admissions department and formerly the Justice.

"I think that I feel a strong sense of responsibility and ownership and I think it's important to have that in terms of the community around you," she said, explaining why she tried to get involved in different activities. "It's also important to be aware and take action."

Most notable in Karlebach's mind was her commitment to the Union government. During her sophomore year, Karlebach served as East Quad senator and and chaired the Social Justice Committee, a standing body in the Union Senate.

The following year, Karlebach was the class of 2004 senator. This year, she was the director of public affairs and communications on the Student Union Executive Board.

During her time heading the Social Justice Committee, Karlebach organized the Kraft Boycott Campaign. She described this, seeing how an issue can mobilize and create dialogue, as one her most memorable moments during her four years at Brandeis.

"Also learning about the audience you are representing in terms of what types of issues are out there and how they really connect to people are valuable tools," she said.

Although the referendum failed to pass, it was by only 21 votes,and Karlebach said, "for better or for worse, it got over half of the campus to vote," with 1,549 votes cast.

She said the experience "optimized a lot of what I was looking for in a college experience with people coming together around a cause they believe in."

Karlebach's active role in organizing the Kraft Boycott Campaign is only one example of many social service roles she has played on campus. Her entire Brandeis career has been defined by her role as a student activist.

During her sophomore year, she participated in a sociology class taught by Prof. David Cunningham (SOC) called Possibilities for Change in American Communities.

The class, which has only been offered once at Brandeis, spanned two semesters, with a field trip during winter break in which the students traveled down the East Coast and through parts of the South to study community activism.

Students participated in a variety of projects during the trip, including stuffing envelopes for a moratorium project, cooking food for Food Not Bombs, and working with an innovative architectural firm in Alabama called Rural Studio.

The following spring, Karlebach studied abroad in Samoa through the School for International Training.

Although she noted that Samoa is a non-traditional choice for study abroad, Karlebach said, "I wanted a cultural immersion experience where I could be exposed to learning a new language and explore issues of globalization and community organizing first-hand."

Her honors thesis for sociology, written under the guidance of Cunningham on Tactics of Community Organizing, was the culmination of her education at Brandeis. Her thesis compared Samoa to civil rights-era Mississippi-both of which she had studied through first-hand experience.

"Nicole's educational career has had a lot of continuity," Cunningham said. He described her as an excellent student "by all conventional means."

"Nicole is unique in her ability to bridge different worlds and communicate with all sorts of people in really effective ways both inside and outside the classroom."

As Karlebach prepares to leave Brandeis, she advises future students to take advantage of all the resources that the University provides.

"The accessibility to possibility at Brandeis is incredible," she said.

She attributes Brandeis' willingness to accept new thoughts and ideas to the University's young age.

Because of the University's commitment to creative thinking, Nicole said she planned to stress creativity in life choices as well as social and community connectedness during her commencement speech.

"Creativity is encouraged in college but sometimes leaves us later in life," she said. By focusing on these two topics, Nicole said she wants to send her classmates forward with a call to action that reminds them of all that they have gained during their time here.

"Brandeis encourages thinking outside the box," Karlebach emphasized. After graduation, Karlebach plans to work in a political capacity or for a non-profit organization where she can combine the skills she gathered in both of her majors. In a few years, she plans to attend law school to pursue a dual degree program.