Sometimes in our "Brandeis bubble" it's hard to remember that we actually live in Waltham. Not surprisingly, as a newspaper with finite resources serving a highly active campus community, it's often difficult to fit coverage of Waltham into our pages. But last Wednesday when I attended a program called "Justice Continues at Home: Building Brandeis-Waltham Community Partnerships," I realized that there is so much more that this newspaper can disseminate about this suburb of Boston of which we are a part. I had heard about the Community Engaged Learning program before, but never like this. CEL, started last year, combines Brandeis' dedication to academic excellence and social justice with its obligation to be a part of its surrounding communities. At Wednesday's program in the International Lounge, I heard from two panels of students about the partnerships CEL participants have been forging with the Waltham community, including language enrichment programs, after-school programs, tenant advocacy clinics, support for immigrants and computer literacy training, as well as various programs for children and adults at Prospect Terrace, a state-owned development off Prospect Hill Road that students from nine Brandeis courses are now involved in.

During a breakout session called "Covering Waltham" with fellow student on-campus media leaders, journalism program faculty and communications staff, I discussed how the Justice has already been reporting on issues beyond Brandeis. I talked about our consistent coverage of Prospect Terrace events, an editorial in November encouraging students to register to vote in Waltham elections, front-page feature stories about CEL and local non-profit job-training bookstore More Than Words.

But then I learned that we can do so much more to be part of Brandeis' commitment to its immediate surroundings. Someone in the discussion threw out the idea of creating a Waltham section in the Justice that would feature profiles of community members, news coverage, restaurant reviews and off-campus event announcements. Other suggestions included helping Prospect Terrace's teens to create a newsletter and reaching out to Waltham residents to write pieces for us about pressing community issues.

It may seem daunting to take on these kinds of tasks if we haven't thoroughly covered every angle of the Brandeis community yet, but the reality is that many issues and incidents which are of concern to Waltham residents also resonate with Brandeis students. The Waltham housing market is of utmost importance to students living off campus. A car accident in Waltham affects the numerous students who drive there, and crime in Waltham is alarming to students who often frequent the neighborhood.

But this newspaper doesn't just report on Waltham for Brandeis students. The Justice is distributed at various off-campus locations and is read by many Waltham residents. With that in mind, we have the obligation to take the Waltham community into account when planning our coverage. If we don't do that, we are neglecting part of our constituency.

And yes, the scope of what the Justice ought to cover not only extends beyond campus but also beyond Waltham, beyond Boston and beyond Massachusetts. We endorsed Democratic and Republican candidates for this year's presidential primaries, precisely because most Brandeis students are also American citizens with a direct stake in the impact the presidential election will have on the future of this democracy. Some called us too ambitious for doing this, but sticking to just endorsing candidates for Student Union president simply isn't appropriate for a campus that cares as intensely as this one does about national politics.

This paper's top priority will always be to cover the Brandeis community, but it's also important to look at our larger community beyond the walls of this institution. Much like multiple other campus organizations, we are slowly breaking through the notorious "Brandeis bubble.