(05/23/06 4:00am)
A graduate student from the International Business School was arrested May 7 for drunk driving and hitting three students on a Waltham sidewalk, police said. The students sustained only minor injuries. Solon Magrizos, 24, was booked by Waltham police about 2:30 a.m. after he drove his car across the opposing lane of traffic and onto the opposite sidewalk at 156 South Street, the police report said. Magrizos was on his way home to 110 Angleside Road from a party on Dartmouth Street when he lost control of the car. "I'm sorry, I was drinking and should not have been driving," he told officers, according to the police report. "It's all my fault," Magrizos faces charges of operating under the influence, negligent operation, driving left of center and not having a Massachusetts driver's license, Detective Sergeant Tim King said.Magrizos was arraigned May 8, pleaded "not guilty" and was released on his own recognizance. He appeared with counsel May 15 at Waltham District court, where he was ordered to surrender his passport as a term of release.Magrizos is due back in court May 31 for a pre-trial conference. A trial date has not been set.He declined comment under legal advice. John Pavlos, Magrizos' lawyer, did not respond to multiple phone messages.The injured students, Leah Edelman '08, John Guilinger '08 and Emily Terrin '08, were treated for minor injuries at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, according to court documents. American Medical Response Ambulance personnel assisted the victims on scene. Terrin, whose injuries included neck, chest and leg pains, said she lost consciousness and did not remember anything after being struck by the car.Rebecca Kupchan '09, who witnessed the accident, remembers differently. She said none of the injured students lost consciousness, and each was able to speak with officers minutes after they arrived. Terrin said Magrizos hit them from behind while they were walking back to campus from a party on Dartmouth Street. The police report didn't say whether they were coming from the same party.Edelman declined to comment and Guilinger could not be reached for comment.Kupchan said the three students were walking around 50 feet ahead of her when "out of nowhere," Magrizos' car swerved across the road and onto the sidewalk. One of the females hit flew across the windshield, Kupchan said. Witnesses told officers no other cars were on the road at the time."From the distance I saw that there were bodies on the ground, but I couldn't comprehend that fast what happened," Kupchan said. Mark Edwards '09, who was walking with Kupchan, ran ahead to check on the victims and asked someone in a house on the corner to call the police."It felt like 30 seconds," Kupchan said of waiting for the police to arrive. "Within a minute for sure we were surrounded by police cars and ambulances, and they had blocked off the street."Officer Stephen Clarke, who filed the police report, said Magrizos appeared highly intoxicated and could not balance himself. Magrizos told officers he is licensed to drive in his home country, Greece, though he could not locate the license in his 1992 Buick La Sabre.Carlos Perez de los Cobos (GRAD), also an IBS student, was a passenger in the car. Perez told officers he and Magrizos had been to a party in Mod 10.Students from Mod 10 refused to comment on Magrizos' state that night.Magrizos told officers he had several shots and drinks that night, starting at 11 p.m.Magrizos was placed in a holding cell at the Waltham police station and released at 11 a.m. that morning. His vehicle was impounded for 12 hours at White's Garage in Waltham.Since that night, Kupchan said neither the court nor the police have contacted her.
(05/02/06 4:00am)
WASHINGTON-It's 10 p.m. last Thursday night, and a packed bus of energized college students is slowly making its way here for a national rally to call for an immediate end to the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, where an estimated 400,000 have been murdered by the government, which began carrying out a genocide on the ethnic-African population in 2003.The students on the bus come from Brandeis, Harvard, Simmons College and area high schools. The movement they are all committed to, Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, has been called one of the fastest-growing student movements in over a decade, with about 550 chapters established at high schools and universities throughout North America. "It's gonna rock," Weldon Kennedy '06, the former Brandeis STAND president, said of the rally at about 8 a.m. Friday as the bus arrived here. Brandeis sent about 25 students to the rally. As Brandeis students posed for pictures on their way to the rally, holding signs with phrases such as, "I will not accept genocide in my world," Mark Kaufman '71, who came to the rally with the Jewish Community Relations Council in Boston, said he felt proud to see the "new generation" rallying. "In 1968, that was us sitting in that photo [protesting the Vietnam War]," he said.Over 1,000 members of STAND attended a rally here last Sunday on the National Mall, where between 40,000 and 50,000 people gathered to hear forceful speeches from Sudanese refugees, celebrities, politicians, Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders and activists all calling for an end to the genocide in Darfur. The event, one of 20 held around the country, was organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, an umbrella organization of over 160 humanitarian groups, advocating for an end to the genocide. Before the rally, Massachusetts State Representative Michael Capuano told the Justice it's great to see the student movement pushing the national consciousness. He also credited Massachusetts with leading the nation on the issue. "We in Massachusetts have been pushing for this rally for over a year," he said. "Our voices will be heard." Speakers included actor George Clooney, holocaust survivor and 1986 Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, Illinois Senator Barak Obama, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek, Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons and Washington Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Though President Bush called the situation in Darfur a genocide in 2004, approved billions of dollars to send to the region and called for more robust peacekeeping missions to aid the African Union's troops in protecting civilians, speakers and rally participants said the United States needs to do more. "The facts on the ground remain the same," Obama said. "If we bear witness, then the world will know. If we act, then the world will follow." Erin Mazursky, a Georgetown University junior, and executive director of national STAND, spoke at the rally."Students have stood at the forefront of this movement to stop genocide, and we've begun to write a new story," she said. "We are witnessing the emergence of a generation that heeds the words 'Never Again,' and internalizes them." Wiesel's speech was emotional. "I am here as a Jew because when we needed people to come to help us, nobody came," he said to the crowd. "Therefore, we are here. For the sake of humanity, save Darfur."Sharpton said: "We know when Americans come together we can stop anything in the world. Let history write that we came together in the 21st century and stopped genocide in Sudan." Speakers compared the situation in Darfur to the genocide the world witnessed 11 years ago in Rwanda, and demanded the world not stand by genocide any longer. Many called on the United States to use its power to get the United Nations and NATO to send peacekeeping forces to the region to assist the African Union's underfunded troops, charged with protecting civilians.Clooney, who spoke with his father, Nick, recently returned from a trip to Darfur. The two have become spokesmen on behalf of the anti-genocide movement. "The U.S. policy, the U.N. policy and the world's policy on Sudan is failing," the actor said. "There is hope,-there is you." Akor, a Sudanese refugee at the rally, has lived in Kansas City for six years. "I feel grateful to the American people for their support for the people of Sudan," he said in an interview.Jaclyn Cantor '08 and Sean Lewis-Faupel '08 were elected to serve on next year's STAND national executive committee. "I'm so incredibly pumped, and I don't think it's going to go away," Cantor said after the rally. "I was worried it was going to be anti-climactic, but it wasn't."Friday and Saturday before the rally, George Washington University hosted a STAND conference for students to lobby their elected officials on Capitol Hill and discuss community organizing strategies. Around 500 students from 46 states attended. On the bus ride here Thursday night, Matt Rogers '08, who last month became the second president of Brandeis STAND, said the rally should be a starting point, rather than a stopping point for the movement. The rally is the culmination of STAND's year-long Power to Protect campaign, which calls for protection of Darfurians.Brandeis' chapter, which has remained consistently active on awareness and advocacy campaigns, most recently has succeeded in convincing the University to pledge not to invest its funds in companies that support genocide in Darfur until the genocide ends. The Brandeis chapter has been an integral leader in the movement since its emergence. Kennedy, who became the movement's first Northeastern regional outreach coordinator. "Brandeis can't end genocide in Sudan, but if it's students, every student, everywhere [is] taking action now for Darfur, that's huge," he said. Daniel Millenson '09, the executive director of the Sudan Divestment Task force, which works on university, city and statewide campaigns, said this movement is different because members don't protest for media attention."We usually work just by meetings and presenting research," he said. "I guess that's not really sexy or anything.but it's such a different era." Though STAND will remain student-run, it becomes part of the Genocide Intervention Network next month. Joining the organization makes STAND a permanent student fixture against genocide."You can't have a movement without a people, but you also can't have it without resources and tools," Mazursky said. Samantha Power, the author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, spoke to STAND Saturday about pushing the United Nations to send peacekeeping forces to the region. Students in STAND make up the "Rwanda generation," Power said later. "You can't believe how Clinton could have allowed 800,000 people [to die].
(04/11/06 4:00am)
After postponing the vote for a month, the faculty senate approved extending the time allotted to professors on the tenure track who require an extra year to prepare themselves for tenure review. The amendment, which passed Thursday, must now be approved a second time for it to go into effect. The faculty handbook committee wrote the revised policy to extend the tenure clock for assistant professors on the tenure track from six to seven years.Under the existing policy, after six years of working at the University, an academic dean, University Provost Marty Krauss and the respective department chair decide whether tenure-track professors should receive tenure. The proposal grants an optional seventh year to those professors who want more time to work on scholarship and research, chair of the faculty rights and responsibilities committee Richard Gaskins said at last month's meeting, when the amendment was presented.The initial vote on the proposal was postponed due to confusion over the wording. Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS) had said the proposed changes sounded "vague and illogical." If we have a seven-year tenure clock instead of six, will the best and most energetic young faculty look to other universities where they can advance more quickly?" Sarna asked last month. The additional year gives faculty members more flexibility in working toward receiving tenure, Krauss said at last month's meeting.Gaskins said the amendment also clarifies the status of professors who are denied tenure in their sixth year.Under the new policy, professors may be reappointed for another four years after the initial three years. Professors who are denied tenure will be given a one-year "nonrenewable appointment" outside the tenure structure.Currently, associate professors on the tenure-track are reviewed after three years, and may then be reappointed for another three years. After six years, professors undergo tenure review. Following review, professors are told whether they will be given tenure or be fired. Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said last Thursday the extra year will not raise standards to receive tenure, a concern expressed by some faculty last month. The extension won't make it more difficult for professors to receive tenure but will allow more time for the University to make better-informed tenure decisions, he said.The faculty also gave its approval to a change in the University's Family Medical Leave Act policy, which grants professors time off for family and health emergencies. The FMLA change was initially passed at the March meeting, but needed a second approval to become official policy.Under the previous rule, when professors took leave for seven weeks, they received an extra semester on their tenure clock, University Provost Marty Krauss said last month.The new policy grants those professors an additional year to their tenure clocks, she said. "It's very consistent with what other universities are doing and we want to maintain that level of competitiveness with our peer institutions," she said.
(04/04/06 4:00am)
Administrators and Student Union officials continued talks Thursday on reforming the way club sports are funded. Although no details of the coming proposal, which comes in response to a Union proposal calling for $55,000 of funding from the athletics department, have been made public, Director of Athletics Sheryl Sousa said she and Union officials have met twice."We're trying to work on it together," she said. "It's a collective process."No formal date has been set to release any new proposal (see corrections p.2).Class of 2008 Senator Noah Haber, who is working on the proposal with other senators and is a member of the ultimate Frisbee club, told the Justice last week, "There is a 50-50 chance" the proposal would be made public last Thursday after a meeting with athletics officials.However, Haber said Monday it's still under discussion because issues came up during Thursday's meeting."We're getting it done," he said, "[But] there's very important details that we need to work out."Union Director of Social Affairs Edgar Ndjatou '06, Senator for Massell Quad Senator Jacob Bockelmann '09, Vice President Jacob Kim '06 and Haber submitted a proposal to the athletics department last month requesting the department and the Board of Trustees absorb $55,000 of their budget to cover safety equipment, hiring coaches and safety personnel. The Finance Board is currently the only source of funding for club sports, groups that generally account for half of the panel's allocations. Haber said proposed changes would take strain off the F-Board and leave more money for other clubs. Although he declined to comment on the specifics of continuing discussions, Haber said he is pleased with the way things are panning out. "Club sports will be in a much better position than it has in past years." Sousa said she doesn't know when they'll be finished, but they will keep meeting with Union officials until they're done. "It's reaching an end point," Haber said. "Everyone's on the same page.
(03/28/06 5:00am)
Triskelion members organized a silent protest Wednesday evening against a campus visit by Brian Camenker, an anti-same-sex-marriage activist brought to speak by the Brandeis Republicans and the Republican-Jewish Coalition. When the group's original speaker withdrew, the two sponsoring groups had to scramble to find a replacement, Republicans President Robbie Schwartz '08 said. Schwartz said he was surprised by how many protesters showed up. "We didn't actually really know who Mr. Camenker was," he said. The Republican-Jewish Coalition chose to invite Camenker, who is the president of Mass Resistance, a statewide organization pushing legislation to remove the four Justices on the Supreme Judicial Court who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. "We didn't really get to look into him too much until just recently, until concerns were brought up to us," Schwartz said. The greatest concern, raised by Trisk, was that the Republicans were endorsing "hate speech" by hosting Camenker. Trisk only learned of Camenker's visit the day before he came."We want to let them know we won't stand for hate talk on our campus," said Samantha Andler '09, who held a sign that read "Proud to be Poisonous" outside the event. Camenker, whose topic was "Universities and American Jews: Destructive Ideas," began by saying that he would not address gay marriage, the hot-button issue that drew many of the protestors. He urged students to stick around and hear his perspective, which he described as unique."I hope you won't do that," he said of the planned walk-out. "I would bet that a lot of you go to Brandeis and don't hear the other side. You're supposed to hear ideas that challenge you."Protestors filed into the Multi-purpose Room in the Shapiro Campus Center and filled almost every seat before Camenker began talking, making up the vast majority of the audience. Emily Tone '09, a protester, said the group had planned to fill the room and then silently walk out as soon as Camenker started speaking, leaving on their chairs slips of paper that read, "This empty seat represents a Brandeis student who believes hate speech has no place on our campus or in the greater community."Although some left as Camenker spoke, many ended up staying. He told the audience that universities can be incubators for dangerous ideas, such as homosexuality, affirmative action, abortion and Marxism. One by one, as Camenker addressed these issues, students stood up and left. Most college students, he said, are too absorbed in their supposed "rational" thinking on these issues to step back and see the big picture. "There are times when the world is so mad and ridiculous you have to say things that are completely obvious," Camenker said. For example, most college students think it's logical that a woman should be able to make her own choices regarding pregnancy, Camenker said. But he said that women don't actually have a choice in the matter."A person cannot choose who gets born and who doesn't," he said. "Only God can choose."Camenker described affirmative action as racist."We need to hold everybody to the same high standard," he said. "Jews seem to think that black people aren't capable of that."One female student asked Camenker about institutional equalities, which play a role in the affirmative action debate. "If Jews can do it under worse conditions, then [blacks] can do it," he responded.Jews have coped with horrible circumstances by reading the Bible, he said. "If you start doing that, you'll find that's really neat." Further, Camenker said Jews have a particular "susceptibility to listening to bad ideas and believing them." The Jewish commandment to repair the world has turned into something detrimental, he said. "There's a problem with tikkun olam [repairing the world] and social justice." Many students walked out at this statement."Political movements hijack the term 'social justice' and make you think what you're doing is a great thing [but] it is actually destructive," he said.He said American Jews especially "fall into terrible belief systems," such as Marxism, because they are under a false impression that these ideas are good for the world. "But you get caught up in things," especially in college, he said, noting that while he was in college, even he "believed Marx was right."Camenker said he cannot believe that people accept the concept of "transgenderism," saying "there's not a shred of medical evidence for transgenderism." Calling the term a "silly, ridiculous political idea," he said college students buy into it blindly. "Nobody questions it," he said. "It's the easiest thing in the world to just follow along and respect transgenderism."One female student, with tears in her eyes, stood up and said she had planned to walk out, but had instead stayed to listen to what he had to say. The student asked Camenker why he couldn't accept differences among people. Camenker said she was listening to gay propaganda too much. "It is a psychological addiction," he said. "Somebody has to stand up and say this really is nonsense."Luukas Ilves, a visiting student from Stanford University, told Camenker he was confusing terminology and misinterpreting transgenderism."What is LGBTQ?" Camenker responded, referring to the term Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Questioning. "It's like 10 different things and then you get into [sadomasochism] and all sorts of things, sex toys." Another student responded that sex toys and sadomasochism have nothing to do with being gay.Camenker answered that when he worked at MIT, he got to know several homosexuals. "It was tragic to hear their lives, how they were raped as children," he said. "They weren't like everyone else."The final comment came from a male student who called Camenker "poison."If you're a human being, you feel, the student said. "You don't feel." Camenker responded by closing the evening. "I hope I've opened your eyes on a few things," he said. Myka Helz '09 said the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Trisk and the Radical Student Alliance circulated e-mails Tuesday and Wednesday urging students to protest. "I think it's really important for him to know that people at Brandeis don't support hate," Helz said, adding that she and Tone were excited to participate in their first protest at Brandeis.Schwartz said he met with Trisk officials on Tuesday to discuss the speaker. "We don't want to create tension," he said."They pretty much told us that they would really like for us not to have him speak," Schwartz said. "The bottom line is that some of our members do support some of his views, which are against gay marriage and I believe that that is a personally justified view." While Schwartz said he supports same-sex marriage, he said his group has the right to bring speakers to campus."I don't believe that just being against [gay] marriage makes someone preach hate speech," he said. "They'll get their right to protest and we'll get our right to host a speaker." Schwartz said the protest seemed ridiculous because Camenker did not speak about gay marriage.Camenker said he was pleased that many students stayed and said Brandeis should bring more people like him to offer alternative perspectives. "A little bit of an affirmative action of ideas would be good," he said. "The gay activists, they have a certain anger inside of them, and they ask angry hurtful questions . you have to accept that kind of reaction from certain people," he said of students' questions. Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan and Director of Student Activities Stephanie Grimes attended the event to ensure the event was peaceful and that all community members were heard."I was asked to kind of just be present," Callahan said, adding that students had expressed safety concerns about the event. Several police officers were also present, but Callahan said he could not comment on whether they were campus officers and why they were there.
(03/21/06 5:00am)
Members of the Activist Resource Center are campaigning to turn a vacant space across from the Village Quad fitness center into a meeting place for student activist clubs. Students will be able to write in suggestions for the room in a poll during Wednesday's Student Union election. The debate gained gained steam after the Union opened an online forum to discuss how to use the space. The space has been unoccupied since 2003 when the building was completed, Chief Operating Officer Peter French said. The space was left empty because the project budget could not cover its completion at the time. ARC coordinator Josh Russell '06 said a lack of club space on campus has left over 19 political and activist clubs without a place to meet or store club materials. "This is a real need," he said.While STAND coordinator Weldon Kennedy '06 stores STAND material in his car, Russell said he uses his own closet as storage space for the Radical Student Alliance. Michelle Feldman '08, a campus activist said Democracy for America and the Radical Student Alliance meet in the Castle Commons because they have nowhere else to meet. "An activist center would alleviate some of that pressure, but it would also encourage cooperation between these groups," she said. "[There's] a general need for a central location," said Jamie Ansorge '09, co-chairman of the Brandeis Social Justice committee, who is also the director of legislative affairs for the Brandeis Democrats and the campus coordinator for Democracy Matters. "ARC wanted to make that their focus and we support them 100 percent."In addition to serving as a meeting place, the space could include a social justice library, materials on ongoing projects, a calendar of all activist events and contact information for club leaders, Ansorge said. Russell said ARC has been without an office since moving to the Shapiro Campus Center when the building was completed in the fall of 2002. ARC members have been circulating a petition among activist clubs to sign onto the effort, and once they see the results of Wednesday's poll, they plan to meet with administrators. "We've been doing a lot of work trying to connect clubs, but we're sort of at an impasse until we have a physical space," Russell said. Russell said the space is in line with activist principles, as it is both handicap accessible and has card access, making it an accessible space to all. Sarah Blaker '07 agreed that activists need a central location, but said the Village space is more residential, and that perhaps Shapiro or Usdan would be better-suited to activist headquarters. She said she would like to start a bakery- jokingly dubbed "the Blakery"-in the space, to be run and managed solely by students. She said the campus needs a space open when other dining locations are closed. "On the surface, it sounds really good," Russell said, but noted that non-Aramark options do already exist nearby. He added that an activist space and a student-run eatery are not mutually exclusive, adding that ARC has discussed opening a Fair Trade certified caf in the space. French said that while the University originally considered putting a caf or convenience store in the space, the small size of the Brandeis community means that "there simply would not be enough foot traffic to support such a commercial venture." Still, French said he was open to the idea of a late-night eatery. Assistant Dean of Student Life Alwina Bennet said a new dining location might be unrealistic. "I cannot imagine how much work it would be to coordinate [and] manage a food service operation in this space," Bennett said.Director of Union Affairs Aaron Gaynor '07 said that any plans for the Village space are still in their early stages and that it would be premature for the Student Union to make an official declaration in favor of any proposal. Gaynor said the Union's concern is that the space be utilized by as many students as possible. "We don't want its use to be too narrow," he said.Some students said the space should be incorporated into the Village for living space. "What this school really needs, in the sense that it can't continue to function well without it, [is] housing," Alan Meyerson '08 said. He said the University should not "cave into special interests" by allocating the space to specific clubs or organizations. Russell said the ARC has been meeting with administrators and hopes to have a space in Usdan by the end of the year as another possible solution.
(03/14/06 5:00am)
Following an extensive review of the University language departments, professors said what the departments need most is more faculty.Reviews by outside committees revealed the need for more faculty and greater collaboration between language departments. While faculty members said the administration has been slow to authorize searches for more professors, administrators said change can only come as more positions are vacated throughout academic departments.After Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe requested all academic departments prepare a "self-study" last fall, the language departments were selected first to undergo further review, according to Dian Fox-Hindley, chair of the Romance and Comparative Languages (ROCL) department.Jaffe said he and the language professors agreed that a review would help direct the programs and reevaluate their missions. The Hebrew and Arabic programs were reviewed during the 2003-2004 school year, ROCL in 2004-2005, and German, Russian and Asian Languages last fall. "It is helpful to have these external reviews as a reality check on what we are doing," Jaffe said.Three different committees made up of outside faculty visited the University for each review. Fox-Hindley said when the ROCL committee visited to evaluate the department last March, its members met with students, faculty and administrators to identify strengths and weaknesses of the department.Jaffe declined to release the committees' reports because he said he wanted faculty to feel comfortable expressing themselves honestly in the reviews. But Fox-Hindley said the committee, which submitted a report in May, recommended the department hire additional faculty and implement stronger communication between faculty and students, as well as between different areas of the department, including among the French, Spanish, Italian and Comparative Literature programs. While the suggestion to improve communication is being implemented, Fox-Hindley said she knew the administration would not embrace all the recommendations. "They said every area of the department needs more faculty," Fox-Hindley said. "Of course we can't afford that. There are limits to what we can do to respond." Jaffe said the University would be hard pressed to hire more faculty for languages. "Hires in this area will have to be considered relative to hires in all other departments, as faculty retire or depart and thereby create vacancies," he said. Jaffe said the University recently hired a visiting professor of Hebrew Literature and a new Assistant professor in East Asian Literature.Because Prof. Angela Perez Mejia (ROCL) has taken a two-year leave of absence, Fox-Hindley said Jaffe authorized a departmental search for a replacement. She said her department has nearly completed a search for a position in Latin American Literature and Culture.Fox-Hindley said it is "disappointing" that Jaffe has not authorized a search in the French program because someone is retiring at the end of this year. Prof. Edward Kaplan (ROCL), who teaches French, Comparative Literature and Religious Studies, said the committee's main recommendation is to hire more professors so they can offer more French language courses."These recommendations are in to the administration. The administration has to respond," Kaplan said.Fox-Hindley also said she would like to offer more Italian courses but cannot because there are only two professors in the program. "Every part of the department would like to be bigger, but one of the charms of Brandeis is that it's a smaller school," she said.She said the different programs in the department do not overlap much in their teaching, and it will be useful for them to share effective strategies and be more aware of what the others are doing. The committee also recommended that lower-level language courses be more coordinated with upper-level courses, Fox-Hindley said. "Students are not feeling prepared for upper-level courses," she said, adding that some members of the faculty feel the same way.Fox-Hindley said the review did result in Jaffe agreeing to lower the size of language classes from 20 to 18.Courses will have more sections next year, she said. "Twenty is really too big for language instruction, and the dean recognized this," she said. However, the process is difficult, she said. "You don't like to hear that some things need improvement," Fox-Hindley said, adding that it was helpful to have someone from outside the department offer new perspective. "[The administration] is listening. They're paying attention, and we feel like it's been a good process.
(03/07/06 5:00am)
University police officers say the policy that keeps them unarmed hinders their ability to protect the community.Three officers, who were granted anonymity because they feared disciplinary action, said that as police officers certified by the state and trained to operate firearms, they should be allowed to do their jobs armed. "Anybody who claims we don't need guns is completely ignorant," one officer said. "We don't have the equipment to protect the community the way we should." President of the Officers' Union Ronald Haley, who represents the union to the administration and the Board of Trustees, said police officers are supposed to be armed. "It's a standard tool of the trade," he said. Haley said the issue is not closed, and discussions will continue between the union and the University under a collective-bargaining agreement. Head of University Services Mark Collins said the issue comes up periodically, but he couldn't recall an incident when having campus officers armed would have impacted the situation. "I don't believe [a gun is] a necessary tool right now," he said.But the officers admitted to walking away from situations, mostly motor-vehicle stops, which they said they should have done something about, but felt they had no way of protecting themselves without a firearm."Why put yourself on the line if you can die yourself?" one of the officers said, adding he does not understand why they bother to wear bulletproof vests if they are unarmed. Haley said Brandeis faces the same crime as any other campus in the state. "Brandeis is no exception," he said. "It's no different [at Harvard University, where the police are armed] than it is at Brandeis."But Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan disagreed. Because Brandeis is a suburban campus, he said, its crime rate is "very low," and with the partnership of the Waltham police, arming the officers is unnecessary.The majority of situations requiring the campus police involve alcohol, theft, public-order and noise disturbances, Callahan said. "I don't see a whole lot of violence on this campus."But Haley said the University should be prepared for more serious situations."What if it does happen here?" he said. "The community that I'm working for doesn't care about me." When situations arise that campus police cannot handle alone, the Waltham Police Department is called to supplement staff and provide additional resources, Callahan said.However, officers say this protocol is inefficient and unnecessary. "[Waltham police officers] don't know their way around this campus," an officer said. "They come here and ask for directions. We know this campus like the back of our hands." The officer said such unfamiliarity can result in a 10-to-15 minute delay in response time. Officers said they recently had to escort a female student who was being harassed to class from her residence at the Mods. They said the situation was dangerous because they would have had no way of protecting her or themselves if the harasser had appeared armed. Another officer said that during an incident last semester during which a group of armed youths arrived at Grad housing, "someone could have died" while University police waited for the Waltham Police Department to arrive. "We just lucked out that nobody got shot," the officer said.Haley said they are unable to act until the Waltham police arrive. "I'm a trained, professional officer," he said. "I should be capable of doing the job I've been trained to do for my community." Although Haley said the Waltham force is "an immensely great partner," the city police are overextended in serving the University. Callahan said he stands by the University's policy not to arm the officers because it does not prevent his force from serving the community."I don't get paid for my opinion. I'm here to do my job," he said. Callahan said he hires municipal, state or federal officers for campus events when necessary. "When we need guns, we'll hire them," an officer said.In the last decade, the Massachusetts State Police has trained and sworn in college and university police officers, Haley said, a change from when officers on campuses were only a security force. However, Haley and the officers said the campus still views them as security officers. "Firearms training is one of the biggest things we do in training," said Haley, who became a state firearms instructor in 1995 and came to Brandeis in 2000. "It's very rare to find a college or university in Massachusetts without firearms," he said. Some schools of similar size to Brandeis, including Bentley College in Waltham, reported that they arm their campus police officers. Wesleyan University police officers, however, are unarmed.Denying an officer a firearm is like denying a doctor a scalpel, Haley said. "It's a tool that we need to utilize," he said. Assistant to the President John Hose, who came to the University in 1983, said he cannot remember any campus incidents involving firearms that could have been prevented had the campus police been armed.Hose cited an example from the 1980s, in which the husband of a former employee walked into a dining hall in Usdan Student Center, shot an employee and killed himself within a matter of moments.Collins said the time this issue was taken most seriously was following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks when it "came up everywhere." With student input, Collins said the University took a comprehensive look at the policy, but decided against arming officers.One officer said campus police are unarmed because the staff and administration have an "ultra-left mindset." "They're liberal and anti-gun," he said. "The University has a full police department that they don't utilize [because] they think guns are bad."One officer recalled a conversation with a member of the Board of Trustees, who said he opposes campus officers because his wife was killed by a gun. Collins said despite this issue, the officers have chosen to stay at Brandeis because of the quality of its work environment.The officers agreed, and said they stay for the paycheck and their coworkers. But they said the campus could still be safer."We are the number one target here in Waltham," one said. "You have a responsibility to be proactive instead of reactive.
(03/07/06 5:00am)
A faculty committee presented changes to tenure-clock policies in the Rights and Responsibilities handbook at a faculty meeting Thursday afternoon.The committee presented a change to the University's Family Medical Leave Act policy, which grants professors time off for family and health emergencies. Under the current rule, when professors take leave for seven weeks, they receive an extra semester on their tenure clock, University Provost Marty Krauss said. The new policy would grant those professors an additional year to their tenure clocks, she said. The handbook committee also wrote a revised policy to extend the tenure clock for assistant professors on the tenure track by one year. Under the existing policy, after six years of working at the University, an academic dean, Krauss and the respective department chair decide whether tenure-track professors should receive tenure. Krauss said she was pleased with the FMLA aspect of the discussion. "It's very consistent with what other universities are doing and we want to maintain that level of competitiveness with our peer institutions," she said. The FMLA change was passed at the meeting, Krauss said, but it must be presented again to faculty and voted on at April's faculty meeting to become official. The second policy change proposed would grant an optional seventh year to those professors who want more time to prepare themselves for the tenure review process, chair of the faculty rights and responsibilities committee Richard Gaskins said at the meeting. The faculty did not vote on that part of the proposal, Krauss said, citing a motion to postpone the vote brought by Prof. Marc Brettler, chair of the NEJS department. The additional year gives faculty members more flexibility in working toward receiving tenure, Krauss said at the meeting. Provosts from Vanderbilt, Columbia and Rice Universities say they are "very enthusiastic" about their university's decision to extend tenure clocks," Krauss said. "Apparently, there's a lot of diverse opinion about [tenure] across campus ranging from people who think, sure, this is a no-brainer, to on the other end, people who don't feel that there's enough compelling evidence that's been presented." Making the faculty more "family friendly" without weakening the University academically makes amending the FMLA tenure-clock policy difficult, Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS) wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. "If we add a full year on the tenure clock to faculty who give birth or have medical problems, might we inadvertently be hurting weaker faculty, by stringing them along instead of cutting them loose?" Sarna wrote. In regards to extending the tenure clock for assistant professors, Sarna said it is unclear whether those faculty who take the earlier tenure review would also be eligible for a second opportunity after seven years. "If we have a seven-year tenure clock instead of six, will the best and most energetic young faculty look to other universities where they can advance more quickly," Sarna asked. "My hope, in the end, is that we can come up with a clear, well-crafted and balanced policy that will reflect our highest values and serve as a model for other universities," he also wrote. At the meeting, Sarna said the proposed changes sounded "vague and illogical." "I know it sounds pedantic, but I really do not think we should be approving language that none of us can really understand," he said. Faculty Senate member Prof. Ira Gessel (MATH) wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that he is supportive of Professor Gaskins' proposals. "[They] seem to me a reasonable approach to a problem that is more complicated than it might appear to be, and I think that on the whole they will help to enable the faculty to make better tenure decisions," Gessel said. Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe addressed a concern at the meeting that the standards to receive tenure would change if the clock is lengthened. "There is not any evidence in our experience over the last ten years of tenure either becoming more difficult or easier to get at Brandeis," Jaffe said.
(02/14/06 5:00am)
A state medical authority granted a license to the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps this month to operate as an ambulance service, allowing the campus EMT group to serve as a resource during city and state medical emergencies, Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan said. The Class V ambulance license was issued by the state's Office of Emergency Medical Services Feb. 3, BEMCo. officials said, and took two years to acquire. The license requires renewal by Feb. 28 next year. Callahan said "The city can [now] utilize BEMCo in extreme situations," calling on the Brandeis EMTs to transport ambulatory patients. "It's good PR for BEMCo and the University," he added. BEMCo will also be able to carry basic life-support drugs, including Epinephrine auto-injectors, Aspirin and Albuterol given through a Nebulizer, according to a BEMCo press release. "These can be administered to patients on hand and we don't have to wait for the ambulance to come and do that, so it's really a great increase in care for us," BEMCo Operations Director Jonathan Sham '06 said. Sham said the license itself costs between $200 and $300 annually and the drugs cost around $450 to purchase each year. He said these costs will be covered under the group's budget, which comes from the Student Activities Fee.Without the license, BEMCo had been certified to give out oxygen and take students to Sterling Medical Center, Callahan said. "For the last 23 years BEMCo has been operating as a 'quick response service'," and has been unable to carry drugs on-hand, Sham said.All BEMCo members are required by the state to go through "continued education classes" during the certification period. Sham said he expects training to be completed by the first week after February break. Eastern Medical Educators, an outside company of instructors, is training the EMTs on the administration of the drugs, Sham said. The process of receiving the certification was more difficult than it needed to be, Sham said. "Basically, we had to run through a lot of red tape [and] get all of our protocols approved," he said.Because the Newton-Wellesley Hospital sponsors BEMCo and grants the group the power to administer these drugs, BEMCo had to get the hospital's approval in the process.Callahan said the director of the Office of Emergency Medical Services from the state's Department of Public Health inspected BEMCo's transport vehicles.BEMCo also had to receive University approval for the license upgrade, Sham said.Callahan said the administration was very supportive of BEMCo professionalizing their services, and called the initiative a "partnership between administrators and students." Still Sham said,"As far as support goes, it wasn't overwhelming." BEMCo's "biggest champion" is their medical director Dr. Debra Poaster at the Health Center, Sham said. Dean of Student Life Rick Sawyer and former University Treasurer Jeffrey Solomon signed a statement last year, which said, "We do not object to the administration of these protocols." "That was sort of the extent of the University's support," Sham said. "I'm not going to complain, we finally got it done.
(02/14/06 5:00am)
The faculty senate last semester found that University Provost Marty Krauss acted outside her authority by granting tenure to two contract faculty members without first conducting a nation-wide search, according to senate minutes. The incident has sparked debate over guidelines for the inside and outside appointment of tenured faculty.The senate approved a statement at its Nov. 3 meeting, claiming that Krauss's decision "contravenes the Faculty Handbook." The body reached this conclusion after hearing from the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities Committee.Krauss and the senate requested that the Rights and Responsibilities Committee review the handbook's policy regarding whether the provost acted within her authority, according to the committee's chair Prof. Bulbul Chakraborty. The committee was also charged with reviewing procedure for appointing outside faculty to tenured positions.Krauss declined to comment, but Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, in an e-mail to the Justice, wrote that the two professors work in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. He also said Krauss had not violated the handbook."She acted consistent with the handbook and with past actions, securing a waiver of fair search, which is the standard thing to do in this circumstance," Jaffe wrote.Heller School Dean Stuart Altman was unavailable for comment.Unlike contracted professors, tenured professors are not subject to the same periodic reviews by their department chair, academic dean and the provost. In an Oct. 20, 2005 letter to Faculty Senate Chair Harry Mairson, the committee said there are precedents for appointing outside candidates to tenured positions without conducting a nationwide search. But the letter states that the committee knows of "no precedent" regarding the provost's actions.Mairson was not available for comment.Chakraborty said that since the handbook is vague, it is within the provost's and academic deans' authority to write guidelines on hiring professors without conducting a nationwide search. Chakraborty said any such guidelines have to be approved by her committee. But because none had been approved when Krauss made the appointments, the senate voted that the provost had circumvented the handbook, Chakraborty said.A passage of section five of the faculty handbook reads: "Appointments to faculty positions in the tenure structure are made by the appropriate academic dean or provost, on the basis of fair and open search procedures."Chakraborty said at the Dec. 8 faculty senate meeting that her committee plans to introduce some reform to the handbook regarding outside tenured appointments. Creating guidelines on this issue will ensure clarity in any future potential waivers of nationwide searches, Chakraborty said. Chakraborty said Krauss submitted guidelines after the Nov. 3 senate meeting, but her committee was unsatisfied with her proposal. "We're still working on her to get a guideline in place because we were not comfortable with the language completely," Chakraborty said. Prof. Robert Moody (THA), a faculty senate council member, said the controversy stems from "miscommunication" between the administration and the faculty. Moody also said while he has a great deal of respect for the administration, it is the senate's duty to act as the administration's conscience, and to question their actions.
(01/31/06 5:00am)
No arrests were made last week in the investigation of a Jan. 18 e-mail that threatened a "planned terrorist attack" against the University, Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan said. Callahan received the anonymous e-mail, sent from the Newton Free Library, about 11:30 a.m. The e-mail read that a terrorist attack would take place at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. After receiving the e-mail, Callahan informed the Waltham Police and Fire Departments who arrived on campus to evacuate the Heller School about noon and the science buildings about 1:30 p.m. as an added precaution, but no dangerous materials were found.Callahan said the FBI is now the lead agency in the investigation. Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Boston field office, did not say Monday if any arrests have been made, nor did she disclose anything else regarding the case.Waltham Police Chief Edward Drew said at a press conference the day of the threat that the department is working closely with the FBI on the case. No one at the police department Monday evening could provide any information about the case. The University shut down its operations at 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 18, and advised everyone on campus to remain indoors while buildings were searched until 6:30 p.m. Callahan said this is the first threat against the University warning of a "terrorist" attack, although six bomb threats have been made since 2003, including one last May that caused the suspension of final examinations in the Sachar Academic Complex. -Rachel Marder
(01/24/06 5:00am)
Khalil Shikaki, a senior fellow at the University's Crown Center for Middle East Studies, has been accused of having ties to a Palestinian terrorist organization. The New York Sun reported last week that government wiretaps used in the December trial of Sami Al-Arian, an Arab scholar at the University of South Florida who was acquitted of charges that he funded terrorism, contained a 1995 conversation with Shikaki about transferring money to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.Though Shikaki did not respond to the Justice by press time, The New York Sun reported that Shikaki has consistently denied any connection to the terrorist group."He's been at the forefront of discussion with Israelis and Palestinians on trying to resolve the conflict," Shai Feldman, the director of the Crown Center said. "He has talked to U.S. law enforcement, they found nothing in the story, reflected in the fact that no one's ever charged him with anything."But Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, said he is urging donors to reconsider their support for Brandeis unless University President Jehuda Reinharz conducts a serious investigation into Shikaki's background. "I don't think Jewish money should be spent funding Khalil Shikaki types to be doing research," he said. "It's really shocking that they would have such a person there being funded by Brandeis funds."Islamic Jihad is responsible for, among other attacks, a suicide bombing in 1995 that claimed the life of Alisa Flatow '92. In a University press release Thursday, Reinharz said there is no "real evidence" against Shikaki and the University will not act unless official charges are raised against him. "Action on [the Zionist Organization of America's] part is misdirected based on misinformation," John Hose, Reinharz's executive assistant said. "I haven't heard anything, the president hasn't heard anything that constitutes any evidence or anything substantive and every indication would seem to point in the opposite direction."Hose also said Flatow's father Stephen opposes the boycott. Feldman described Shikaki as one of the most prominent scholars on Palestinian affairs and an esteemed lecturer at American colleges and Washington think tanks. He said Shikaki spoke at a 2004 conference for the American Israel Political Action Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying organization. Still, the University has recently received questions from the press and alumni regarding the allegations, Hose said, including a letter by an alumnus which read: "Justice [Louis] Brandeis would be horrified were he alive today." However, Hose does not think the efforts by Klein's organization are having much of an impact. Klein, who said he has tried to contact Reinharz and Shikaki, told the Justice he has not heard back from either of them. Hose said the University has not received any letters, e-mails or phone calls from Klein.Feldman said he is not concerned about Klein's accusations. "I don't deal with Mort Kleins and I don't deal with the Zionist Organization of America," he said.In an interview with The Jewish Week earlier this month, Feldman said he had not known about the accusations against Shikaki when he first hired him to work at the Crown Center, which opened last spring.However, he told the Justice this week, "This story has been known for a long time."Feldman could not be reached to comment on the discrepancy Monday.Myles Weisenberg '78, Brandies' vice president of development, said he thinks people will continue to support Brandeis despite Klein's accusation. "We haven't received calls from any Brandeis donors saying they're not giving to Brandeis because of this," Weisenberg said. "I guess it's a non-issue, really." Sara Aharon '08, president of Zionists for Historical Veracity, said her group wants Brandeis to take the allegations against Shikaki more seriously.Aharon said she was shocked when she read the Zionist Organization of America's statement. Should the allegations prove to be true, she "would be absolutely appalled that a university that champions academic integrity, freedom and morality would hire somebody with ties to a terrorist organization." Samuel Siegel '06, who studies under Shikaki, said he has great respect for the professor and the work he has done to bring an end to the conflict in Israel. "I would really hope that as a university that espouses social justice and has a history of being a liberal center, that we can bring alternate viewpoints into our perceptions here," Siegel said. Shikaki, who is director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah in the West Bank, is also the brother of the founder of Islamic Jihad. Shikaki served as director of the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), at the University of South Florida from 1991 to 1992. Al-Arian, the founder of WISE, was acquitted last month of eight lesser charges in a 17-count indictment for supporting terrorist organizations. During Al-Arian's trial, several conversations between Shikaki and others associated with WISE were introduced as evidence, which Klein said proves Shikaki's connection to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.In the conversations, Shikaki agreed to transfer money to the "orphans," which Klein said is code for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. However, in a second conversation, soon after former President Bill Clinton labeled the group a terrorist organization, Shikaki said he was no longer able to deliver the funds.
(01/17/06 5:00am)
Human rights activist Prof. Kanan Makiya (IMES) has spent most of the last four years in his native Iraq gathering evidence and accounts of human rights abuses committed under Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party regime. He returns to Brandeis this semester to teach "Describing Cruelty" (NEJS), which he said explores the importance of remembering and memorializing cruelty. He will also teach a new course on the post-Saddam era titled "War and Reconstruction in Iraq" (NEJS). "It's useful to take [the course] both for myself and for the students, to sit there and reflect on the last three years," Makiya said.As the founder and president of the Baghdad-based Iraq Memory Foundation, Makiya said that over the last three years, he and his team have amassed approximately 11 million Ba'th Party documents, primarily from the party's intelligence services, have conducted around 100 interviews with survivors of atrocities and have collected between 50 and 60 pieces of artwork on "cruelty, violence, war, [and] uprising" by Iraqi artists."This is an enormous archive that will shape how future generations remember the Saddam era, remember what the war was all about and also begin to shape who they are in relation to that past," Makiya said. The foundation is an outgrowth of the Iraq Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) at Harvard University, which Makiya began in 1992 to collect evidence of human rights violations committed under Saddam's regime since the first Persian Gulf War. Makiya was granted extended leave from Brandeis in 2002 to relocate the research program to Iraq.Makiya said he is looking forward to returning to teaching. "While I've had a very exciting four years it's going to be very interesting to try to bring that to bear in the classroom," he said. As the foundation of research in Iraq is in good shape right now, he said, he can afford to be away for a few months. "I felt Brandeis had been very generous in allowing me without questions to stay away for so long and it was time to come back." As a principal author of the draft Iraqi constitution following the war and the convener of the Human Rights Committee in the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, Makiya said it was his duty to return to Iraq and hear victims of the regime express "the real experience of Iraq" and help create a new identity outside of the "rhetoric of the Ba'th Party [and] nationalist mythologies." "I'd been an important person in the argument for the removal of this regime so going back was not even a choice," Makiya said. Additionally, the foundation has aired 40 interviews with survivors on Iraqi television, and is in the process of working on 50 more interviews. "We'll have 100 in-depth interviews with individuals who've suffered terrible, terrible pain and cruelty in their lives." Makiya said in the next few months the foundation will also make its holdings available to scholars and researchers over the Arabic and English translated Web site, which already has an active discussion forum. Continuing as president of the foundation, Makiya plans to visit Baghdad for ten days during the mid-semester break. "I think that should just allow me to do what I have to do," he said. University President Jehuda Reinharz, "delighted" that Makiya is returning to Brandeis, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that Makiya's knowledge of human rights abuses under Saddam's regime and his experience creating the Iraqi constitution offer a magnificent learning opportunity. "Students will gain a unique first hand perspective from his experience as one who has been involved in the day-to-day struggles of the Iraqi people during and after Saddam." Makiya is the author of three books, including Republic of Fear, a 1989 bestseller, and Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World, which received the 1993 Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international relations in English.
(01/17/06 5:00am)
Fourteen people, including 11 Brandeis students, were displaced Monday morning after a kitchen fire broke out at their three-story South Street residence. None of the residents were hurt in the blaze, authorities said.The fire broke out at about 8:30 a.m. as Debora Lyon '06, who lives on the top floor of the three-unit building, was frying Tater Tots on the stove, according to Waltham Fire Capt. Tom MacImmis. While the flames were confined to the kitchen, the rest of the house suffered extensive water and smoke damage. It took firefighters half an hour to extinguished the fire, which left the kitchen charred and ruined. Misha Miller-Sisson '07, who lives on the second floor, was jarred out of bed after he heard "an explosion."It was huge," he said. "There was a large fireball that burst out the window. All the windows in the kitchen were broken and there was smoke everywhere."The landlord, Robert Maguire, said his insurance company would cover all the damage to the house, although at press time the cost had not yet been appraised. Maguire expects that his first and second floor tenants will be able to move back in one week, while it will be at least a month before third floor residents can return. Other parts of the house suffered significant damage from smoke and water, including the kitchens in the other two units. The bathroom and a closet on the first floor are "gone," first floor resident Matthew Francis '07 said. Francis also said the ceiling collapsed in his unit's hallway.Residents have come up with different accommodations while they wait to move back in. Some, including Lyon, will be staying on campus. Assistant Dean of Student Life Maggie Balch, who oversees Residence Life, said yesterday afternoon that while she will find housing for the students, "I have no idea where we'll put them." Lyon eventually found a bed in the Foster Mods, while her roommate ended up in the Village. But Balch added that her office would accommodate the displaced students as long as necessary."If they come in here and say we want to stay here for the rest of the semester we can figure out how to make that happen," she said.Francis, meanwhile, will be going home to Newton while his apartment is repaired. Other residents of the house said they are staying at friends' houses around Waltham. The Red Cross also responded by accommodating the students from other colleges at local hotels. Maguire said the stove where the fire broke out was relatively new, but thinks the blaze might have been avoided had the tenants kept the cooking surfaces cleaner."They probably never cleaned the stove," he said. "If she didn't clean it, whatever she cooked on there ignited."Lyon went through a range of emotions throughout the day. She said she was relatively calm when the fire broke out, but this changed when she surveyed the damage. "It was very eerie because you don't think about your house burning down," she said. "The whole day's been pretty surreal.I hope my roommates don't hate me," she added. And sure enough, there was some levity after the fire, as her fellow residents have teasingly, but humorously, nicknamed her "Tater Tot."
(12/06/05 5:00am)
A faculty committee has recommended that assistant professors on the tenure track receive an optional additional year "to get their portfolios together" before coming up for tenure review, according to the unanimous report submitted to University Provost Marty Krauss on Nov. 10.Krauss charged the task force in late September with reviewing the length of the tenure clock, the years during which a professor focuses on producing publications and research before being considered for tenure by the department chair, appropriate dean and provost. Under the current system, professors first come up for review after three years of teaching. If their contracts are renewed, they come up for review again in the sixth year, and are then considered for tenure. The committee recommended that consideration for tenure instead occur during junior professors' seventh years. Krauss said that some professors in the humanities and sciences are being "disadvantaged by the current length of the clock." Committee chair Prof. Michael Rosbash (BIO) said the group compared Brandeis with 12 similar universities, including the University of Washington in St. Louis, Brown University, the University of Virginia and Princeton University, and found that four have the same policy and the other eight have a longer clock. "We're within the norm but on the low side," Rosbash said.Rosbash said that the committee could not find a downside to a "modest" increase in the tenure clock. "We think it's to the benefit of the junior faculty," he said. The extra year does not affect tenured faculty and should not raise tenure review standards, he said. "I don't think it'll affect whether people get or don't get tenure, but it will help us make better decisions in difficult cases," Rosbash said. The charge also included a review of the current tenure clock policy in relation to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which gives professors time off with pay in the case of a new baby, family illness or emergency. The committee recommended lengthening the extension that a tenure track professor receives under the FMLA from a semester to one year.Tenure track Assistant Prof. Donald Katz (PSYC), who is in his fourth year at Brandeis and under the current system will apply for tenure during the summer of 2007, said the tenure clock is ready for changes. "In the current environment funding is hard to get, many fields are flooded with new scholars, more and more scholarship is required for tenure ... the age-old tenure process has begun to seem awfully unrealistic," Katz wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. Tenured Prof. Gary Jefferson (ECON), who heard Rosbash's presentation of the committee's recommendations at last Thursday's faculty meeting, said, he expects junior faculty to benefit from an additional year of work. He also said he "very much support[s]" the FMLA extension, though tenured professors, too, might benefit from extra time to care for children.Katz mentioned that Brandeis should consider "that every discipline is different from every other one," and that "it's possible that the tenure clock that's best for English scholars may not be the same as the one that's best for Psychology."The committee did not recommend different tenure rules for different departments, Rosbash said. "That would be a drastic change for Brandeis," Krauss said.The committee is against different tenure timelines for different departments because it is "unfair and impractical," Rosbash said during Thursday's presentation.The faculty initiated the committee because some departments, including Rosbash's own biology department, noticed that professors were coming up for tenure before they were ready and before they had done enough research.It can take up to four years to apply for and receive a research grant, and only around 15 to 20 percent of requested grants are awarded nationwide, Rosbash said. A professor in the English department expressed concern at the meeting that a longer tenure clock would affect his department's strategy to grant early tenure as a recruitment tool. "People are attracted to the fact that [we] offer tenure faster," he said. Krauss said the whole faculty, the faculty senate and various standing committees will discuss the recommendations before passing them. If the recommendations pass, the next step would be discussing how to implement them. Students, Rosbash said, are usually unaware of the issue of faculty tenure, until "a great teacher whose scholarship is a little lacking, according to the tenure committee" does not receive tenure. An extra year, he said, should help that great teacher get "his portfolio up to snuff.
(11/08/05 5:00am)
After 25 years as musicians in the Lydian String Quartet, music professors Judith Eissenberg and Mary Ruth Ray will take paid leaves next fall for the first time in their careers.That's because, beginning next fall, contract faculty members who have been here for an "extended period of time" will be eligible to take paid leave, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said.Both Eissenberg, who teaches chamber music performance, and Ray, who is the department's chair, are contract faculty members, whose jobs are reviewed each time their contracts expire. Contract faculty are not on a track toward tenure, a system unique to academia which allows continued employment not subject to periodic review.Leave has traditionally been reserved for tenured faculty, who are currently eligible for a sabbatical leave after every six years of full-time employment, when they can be paid full salary for one semester of leave or half salary for each of two semesters' leave, according to the Faculty Handbook."It's not true that no contract faculty member has ever had a paid leave, but in the past it has been rare and very ad-hoc and special case," Jaffe said. The Faculty Handbook subcommittee of the Faculty Senate will discuss changes in the handbook regarding salary during the leave, the specific criteria for eligible faculty and the procedure to apply for paid leave.Because of recommendations submitted by a faculty committee on the status and treatment of contract faculty last spring, Jaffe began developing a process for senior contract faculty members to apply for paid leave. "I think certainly the fact that [contract faculty] have not had leaves has been the major source of resentment," Jaffe said. Some contract faculty members "feel that their contributions and their need for time for professional and scholarly development is comparable to that of the tenured faculty."The committee, assembled by Provost Marty Krauss and composed of contract and tenured faculty members and several administrators, also suggested new contract faculty job titles be added to the handbook, as well as guidelines for the processes of appointment, reappointment and promotion to address concerns over job security. "We are trying to design some employment procedures that I think will give [contract faculty] a sense of clarity and transparency about what they can expect because they just haven't had that consistency," Krauss said. "If [the contract] is not going to be renewed, [faculty] would have ample opportunity to go into the job market."The Faculty Senate meeting this Thursday will include discussion of the proposal to add the titles of "senior lecturer" and "associate professor of the practice" to the handbook. The recommendation will also be reviewed by a Faculty Handbook committee.Prof. Susan Dibble (THA) has been an artist in residence for 17 years and is currently up for review on her three-year contract. She is also a member of the committee on contract faculty and said she is eager to have her title changed to one that better reflects her position."What we do doesn't match the title that we have," she said. "We do everything that tenured faculty do."Dibble said some tenured professors have voiced concerns over the creation of new job titles and the extension of paid leave. She said that to some professors, tenure status is a privilege, and "for contract faculty to be the same, it lessens the position of tenure."However, she added, "I've been here a really long time and worked very hard myself."Krauss said some members of the tenured faculty do not understand the vital role contract faculty play. "Through inadvertent language or behavior, [tenured professors] convey a lack of respect to the contract faculty that I think is very unfortunate [because] we are all employees of the University," she said.Prof. Ruth Charney (MATH), a tenured member of the contract faculty committee, said contracted faculty fill a different role than tenured faculty."Many of the contract faculty are performing jobs that are not part of the regular faculty jobs," including more administrative work, and in general, occupying fewer research-oriented positions.Many tenured professors do not realize the variety of jobs that contract professors perform, Charney said. "It's not that they're doing the same job at a lower level. To a large extent they're doing different jobs and they're doing them extremely well and they should be given respect for that," she said.Prof. Leonard Muellner (CLAS) served on the foreign language oversight committee several years ago, which started the process of reviewing the status of contract faculty members.Muellner said when the committee met with the provost about its concerns, the provost told them "it was not her top priority, but it was a priority." He said he is glad to see the process moving forward now.Ray and Eissenberg, the contract music professors about to take leave, agree. "There's a sense of dignity with this whole process and it makes a big difference to me," Eissenberg said. "It feels like a sign of confidence from the administration in us.
(10/25/05 4:00am)
A sprinkler head on the sixth floor of Pomerantz Hall in East Quad burst on Sunday evening, causing at least several hundred gallons of water to flood the hall and residents' rooms.Several students playing football hit a sprinkler head in the middle of the hall, activating the sprinkler system and fire alarm, Director of Residence Life Maggie Balch said Sunday, as facilities workers drained water.East Quad Director Megan Drangstveit said members of the administration would meet Tuesday to determine where financial responsibility for the damage would fall.Rooms in the middle of the sixth floor were flooded, but the outer edges of the hall stayed dry. Water also leaked into rooms on the fifth floor. This marked the third such incident in as many semesters. Sprinkler heads burst twice in Ziv Quad in the fall of 2004, once on Aug. 29, and again two days later.Jason Fenster '08, who lives on the fifth floor, said he sped to his room from play rehearsal when he heard about the incident around 7 p.m. When he arrived, he found water leaking through his ceiling and walls. He said his neighbor's room "got hit worse" than his. "We got towels and [Tupperware] and trashcans and buckets taking in water," Fenster said. "We moved everything away from the walls where the water was coming in." Several students said the sprinklers were going off for more than a half an hour, but Director of Public Ed Callahan said "facilities worked as quickly as possible to turn off the system."Collins said that even once the sprinkler system was shut down, it took longer for all the water flow to stop.After shutting off the sprinkler system, facilities drained all the water from the affected floors and had a plumber replace the broken sprinkler head, Collins said. Community Advisor for the sixth floor Andrew Eilbert '08 estimated that two feet of water had accumulated on the floor."People in the middle of the hallway were hit hardest," Eilbert said. "In the stairwells, it was raining."The sprinklers, a fire prevention system, are attached to a network of piping that is constantly filled with water under pressure, Collins said. The sprinklers release water when the head is either tampered with or melted off from the heat of a fire. There was "70 pounds of pressure coming through the pipes," Collins said."Even after the sprinklers went off there was still water coming in because there was still water leaking through the ceiling from the standing water on the floor above," Fenster said.Fenster said the smell on his floor is the worst part of the experience"The steam pipe is spewing out smelly things," he said. "The water's mildewy and gross and towels are going to rot, so it's pretty nasty."Balch asked residents to make lists of damaged personal items, in order to help the Administration assess the extent of the damage.East Quad Senator Jacob Baime '08, who met with most of the affected residents on Sunday night, expressed concern for students with damaged mattresses."Some people whose mattresses got extremely wet did not receive replacement mattresses that evening," he said. "Several residents are exasperated that it took so long to shut the sprinkler off and that it was so sensitive in the first place."Carly Field '08, who lives on the sixth floor, said the students who set off the sprinklers should be held at least partially responsible. "I think Brandeis needs to do something, either reprimand the people who did that or reimburse [the affected students]," she said.
(10/18/05 4:00am)
Provost Marty Krauss has assembled a faculty committee to advise her on lengthening the tenure clock for assistant professors, allowing them more time to establish funded research and publish, according to the charge her office issued to the committee on Sept. 28.Krauss, who said that she would like to extend the tenure clock an additional year, has asked the task force to submit its report and recommendations by Nov. 15. "I don't know anyone against this," she said. "This is a reality."In the current tenure track system, assistant professors are hired under a three-year contract, which, if renewed for an additional three years, then brings the professor under tenure review at the end of the sixth year.The five-member committee is chaired by Prof. Michael Rosbash (BIO) and includes Profs. Marion Smiley (PHIL), Tzvi Abush (NEJS), Jacqueline Jones (HIST) and Rachel McCulloch (ECON/IBS). Committee members declined to comment because they have only met once and feel it is premature to release any public statements. According to the provost's charge, departments and individual faculty members have expressed concern over "the difficulties of faculty in the sciences establishing funded research and of faculty in other disciplines publishing books" during the six years. Tenured Prof. Susan Birren (BIO), said reviewing the tenure process for the sciences is reasonable. "Five years can be a real push to get a lot of publications out."But not all faculty are convinced the one-year extension is necessary. "I'm not sure it would make a difference," said Prof. Patricia Johnston (CLAS), who also has tenure.Faculty can be hired either on the full-time or part-time tenure track, meaning a professor is eligible to receive either full or partial tenure. Faculty can also be hired outside the tenure structure on contract. Some professors are concerned about how lengthening the contract for the assistant professor position may impact distinguishing between full-time tenure and non-tenure track faculty."Tenured faculty are first-class university citizens; they can't lose their jobs for expressing opinions about academic policy, or for following their intellectual agendas. Contract and junior faculty, by definition, don't have that protection," Senate Faculty Chair Harry Mairson wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. "Extending the tenure clock, awarding partial tenure, and proposed changes in the role played by contract faculty risk a weakening of faculty citizenship, and a blurring of the roles of contract, tenure-track and tenured-faculty," he said.The committee's charge includes investigating the tenure practices of other research universities and analyzing Brandeis' current policies on tenure review, including research on the standard "variations in practice based on discipline/professional school [and] the impact of FMLA on length to tenure review."FMLA, the Family and Medical Leave Act, mandates temporary leave for faculty in cases of childbirth and health emergency, and may impact a professor's ability to conduct research and get his or her work published in the six years.Some professors are also unsure whether a standard tenure clock is necessary because depending on the department, levels of academic success may be measured in different ways."A dean who oversees promotion procedures needs to behave like an anthropologist studying academic societies," Mairson said. "He must look at the departments and the academic cultures surrounding their fields, and understand each discipline's totems of professional success."Johnston said some standardization is necessary, but depending on whether or not a change is proposed in a professional school or in the School of Arts and Sciences, the dean or provost should be sensitive to individual circumstances."Our situations are all so different," Johnston said.Birren said she is looking forward to seeing the findings and recommendations of the committee because she and other faculty members need more information before they can effectively evaluate the extension of the tenure clock.Editor's Note: This story was first posted errorneously attributed to Dan Hirschhorn. The Justice regrets the error.
(10/18/05 4:00am)
Monday marked the start of a two-week visit by Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, the leader of a South Asian grass-roots movement for peace and development that reaches out to 16,000 villages in Sri Lanka to help them become more self-reliant.Ariyartatne, brought to Brandeis by the program in Sustainable International Development at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, will be here until Oct. 31. During this time, he will offer a seminar for students and lead sessions during lunches and dinners for students and faculty."My speciality is development from grass-roots up, development with people's self-reliance and in participation," Ariyaratne said.In 1958, he founded the Sarvodaya Shramandana Movement when he brought a group of upper-caste high school students to a poor village to help rebuild it. One village grew to be several villages, and eventually became a network of 16,000 villages-half the number of villages in Sri Lanka, according to Ariyaratne. Sarvodaya is now Sri Lanka's largest Non-Governmental Organization.These efforts from the bottom up are crucial, Ariyaratne said, because governments, inter-governmental organizations and large financial institutions like the World Bank have taken "macro approaches ... to eradicate poverty," but have failed. "We have not succeeded," he said. "Nowhere. We have really aggravated the situation.""So ours have been micro approaches," Ariyaratne said. "For example, we get the people themselves to suffer, to get themselves organized." He tries to help people "rediscover their ancient values" and remember the "days when they were not poor and powerless." By rediscovering this value system, he said, the villages can organize themselves and re-enter "regular society." This, he said, "is a society that is deciding what to do and how to do things."The movement helps communities develop in six main spheres: spiritual, moral, cultural, social, economic and political. "In all these six sectors, [villages] have demonstrated that when given freedom, they can improve their own living conditions," Ariyaratne said. "It has proved to be a successful venture. That's why the entire world community is looking into it."Sarvodaya responded to last December's tsunami by implementing its "5 R program": relief, rehabilitation, reconciliation, reconstruction and reawakening. The United Nations presented the organization with the Habitat Scroll award this month in Jakarta. According to the U.N. Habitat Web site, Sarvodaya had opened a national operations center only hours after the tsunami hit, and raised half a million dollars of aid in the three months that followed. Ariyaratne said he was inspired by his parents, the Buddha, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
