Brandeis University COVID-19 Statistics: Week of Mar. 13
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On Friday, March 11, following a student sit-in, workers and students gathered for a student-organized rally to push Brandeis to agree to the demands of the Brandeis Leftist Union’s “Petition to Support Union Dining Workers” ahead of the upcoming dining vendor bid decision.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Prior to entering the field of higher education administration, University President Ron Liebowitz was deeply entrenched in the study of the former Soviet Union. His grandfather emigrated to the U.S. right before the Russian Revolution and “instilled in my brother and me a fascination with the history,” said Liebowitz in a March 7 interview with the Justice.
On March 7, the University amended its COVID-19 health and safety regulations as cases and hospitalization waned in the state of Massachusetts. As a part of the new rules, Brandeis now requires students only to be tested once a week, given they are fully vaccinated, and faculty and staff are no longer required to be tested.
Seventy-six students and 15 faculty and staff members tested positive for COVID-19 in the weeks leading up to and throughout the February break. Dozens of students were placed in quarantine and isolation, but cases dwindled towards the end of break.
Brandeis undergraduate students pay, on average, $7,070 on meal plans per year, according to the Office of Student Financial Services. Since 2013, students have paid this price for Sodexo as stated by the Food Service Director website. Sodexo’s contract was meant to end in 2020; however, due to the pandemic, they received a two year extension, which is set to end in June 2022, the Office of the Executive Vice President, Finance, and Administration said.
With the recent reduction in positive rates on campus, the University has implemented changes to COVID-19 regulations on campus, including making masks not mandatory in many locations and reducing testing frequency.
While looking at a map will tell you that the wooded area just beyond the southeast edge of campus is Fox Park, most Brandeis students probably know it as simply the woods by “Grad,” the colloquial name for Charles River Apartment student residences. The woods — a two-minute walk from “Grad” and a twenty-minute walk from central campus — contain about a half-mile worth of public trails. With swampy inlets surrounding the forest on one side and campus housing on the other, the forest is mostly contained to a small strip of land that extends out from Mt. Feake cemetery.
On Monday, Feb. 28, the Journalism program screened the documentary, “My Name is Pauli Murray,” and hosted a conversation with one of the directors, Betsy West, on March 7. Pauli Murray’s legacy is widely considered to be unknown and unrecognized, despite the long lasting impact they’ve had on the education and judicial system.
For the past few years, University Police has received a lot of criticism for their lack of transparency and resolution to their discriminatory practices. This board feels that there hasn’t been sufficient change in improving their procedures, both in efficiency and effectiveness. University Police officers are known among the student body for their hostile responses to student needs. This has recently been exemplified by negative police interactions recounted by three students sources.
Judges 51, Carnegie Mellon 66
The American Red Cross is currently facing its worst national blood shortage in more than a decade, according to their website. On Monday, Feb. 7 and Wednesday, Feb. 9, Blood Drive, under the Waltham Group, hosted one of their triannual blood drives.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Since late 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has defined a close contact as someone who has been within six feet of a person who has COVID-19 for 15 minutes over a span of 24 hours. Brandeis has stated on their COVID-19 dashboard that they follow these protocols as. However, the University also stated in a Jan. 7 email that each positive test is dealt with on a case-by-case basis. According to Michelle Hart, lead administrator of the Brandeis Community Tracing Program, “The protocols currently in place are created and approved by the Clinical Director at the Brandeis Health Center, BCTP, and the members of the Brandeis Steering Committee with input from the [Local Board of Health], [Massachusetts Department of Public Health], and current CDC guidelines. Data is reviewed daily to ensure the protocols in place are reflective of the current COVID dynamics at Brandeis.”
After a Friday night men’s basketball overtime thriller, the Brandeis women’s basketball team hosted the Emory University Eagles at the Auerbach Arena. In this University Athletic Association (UAA) rematch, the teams battled hard until the very last minute, but it was the Eagles who left the court with the win after eight ties and 14 lead changes.
Architecture and the materials we build with are changing with global warming. At a lecture sponsored by the Fine Arts department, Architect Galen Pardee ’11 discussed his theory of “post-concreteness,” an idea that raises questions of the future use of limited resources and materials, like concrete, in architecture, as well as the role architects play today. Pardee presented his research to the Brandeis community on Feb. 7 as part of the Richard Saivetz ’69 Annual Memorial Architectural Lecture Series. He is currently a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, as well as the director of Drawing Agency, a design and research studio.
On Feb. 7, the University sent an email to the Brandeis community outlining changes made to on-campus COVID-19 restrictions. These changes were prompted by the “significant drop in positive cases on campus,” according to the email. The first difference is in mask policy: individuals on campus may now be allowed to take their masks off in a limited number of private spaces, such as private offices and enclosed lounges with up to four people, private labs, private rooms, and more, according to the COVID-19 response website. The email emphasized that even with this small change, the mask policies on campus are quite similar to those of the fall semester.