Students, faculty and administrators met a challenge from University President Jehuda Reinharz by donating more than $4,000 to relief efforts for victims of an earthquake that struck India and Pakistan last October, Class of 2009 Senator Shreeya Sinha said. Sinha, along with Arjan Singh Flora '07 and Bariza Umar '04, met with Reinharz last fall to ask if he would get involved with relief efforts. Reinharz responded by donating $2,500 to the cause under the condition that the student body raise at least $2,500 of their own money, she said.

Students surpassed Reinharz's challenge, raising $4,294.83, and along with Reinharz's donation, a total of $6,794.83 was donated the first week of January to Friends of the Children and the Edhi International Foundation, two local organizations that Sinha said will provide direct help to those in need.

The quake struck the Kashmir region on Oct. 8, registering a 7.6 rating on the Richter scale and killing nearly 80,000 people.

Reinharz said members of his staff also donated $452 over winter vacation. He said he asked them to donate to the relief effort instead of giving each other holiday presents.

"At a university that's committed to social justice, we needed to play a role not just in talking about it but actually doing it," he said.

The South Asian Student Association had already raised around $500 at a candlelight vigil held in October, Sinha said. She said she was deeply moved by the disaster and expressed concern about the lack of campus response.

"It really hit home for me," Sinha said. "I have an eight-year-old brother, and I think about the women and children dying, because they're the ones who usually can't get out of these situations."

Flora said that while he shared Sinha's concerns about the campus's overall reaction, Reinharz's donation compelled students to keep the earthquake victims in mind during a time when much of the community's focus was on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"By having the president be so supportive, especially monetarily, I think that got a lot of people thinking," Flora said. "A lot people wanted to help, because so much more could be done."

He also said more could have been done to protect the displaced victims in Kashmir from the impending winter.

Heller School graduate student Atif Khursid suffered the loss of a friend who had returned to his home of Balakot, a Pakistani city that was one of the closest to the epicenter of the earthquake. He said his brother worked as a surgeon in the affected areas following disaster.

Khursid helped collect nearly $800 from Heller School students and faculty following the disaster. He also said that more could have been done and that news relating to Kashmir's recovery has decreased since the vigil held by SASA.

"Our response would have been more effective if every effort was coordinated between individual committees on campus," Khursid said. "They could have initiated a larger scale effort at Brandeis and other schools in the Boston area."

Prof. Harleen Singh (GRALL) was visiting India when the earthquake struck. The aftershocks caused buildings to crack and people to fall over, even though the epicenter was 300 kilometers to the south, Singh said.

Singh said the future of the region is still uncertain as the impending winter, a lack of essential supplies and internal political problems have hindered victims' efforts to rebuild their lives.

The epicenter was located near the Pakistani cities of Balakot and Muzaffarabad. Approximately 3.5 million people were displaced because of the quake.

The United States gave over $500 million in aid to Pakistan. The international community donated about $5.8 billion, exceeding the $5.2 billion requested by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.