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Snubs and Surprises: in which Kent compares Oscars to participation awards

Disappointment is inevitable when reading awards show nomination lists; it’s ridiculous to think that a film or a performance can win “best art.” These lists are less about honoring artistic achievements and more about recognizing valiant efforts. Ignoring for a moment the fact that these awards are determined by million-dollar campaigns and heavily biased against genre films, the nominations are still reliable indicators of quality — especially if they are determined by peers in their respective industries. Observe the recognition given by guilds: Screen Actors, Directors, Editors, Producers, Production Designers, etc. The Oscars ceremony is a culmination of these guild nominations, creating a compromise that mostly benefits the network by nominating and rewarding popular films in order to secure higher ratings.

Board of Higher Education agrees to monitor private colleges’ finances

The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education signed off on a new system under which Massachusetts will monitor the financial circumstances of private colleges in the state. The plan, which the BHE agreed to at Tuesday’s meeting, aims to ensure that students are aware in advance if their school is planning to close or merge with another institution, according to a Jan. 23 Boston Globe article.

Professors launch free online PAX course textbook

Profs. Peter Gould PhD’02 (PAX) and John Ungerleider (PAX) held a launch for their free open-access textbook titled “The Inner Peace Outer Peace Reader” on Wednesday. The textbook contains a majority of the readings for the course Inner Peace and Outer Peace, which Gould and Ungerleider have taught  every spring semester since 2010 as part of Brandeis’ Peace, Conflict & Coexistence Studies Program.

Student panelists talk about studying ‘Black and Abroad’

Traveling abroad presents a number of novel and challenging opportunities, and to the panel of students who spoke on Wednesday, studying abroad was both a learning experience and an opportunity to examine their own identities. Sponsored by the Brandeis Black Students Organization and in collaboration with the Office of Study Abroad, the “Black and Abroad” event centered around individuals’ experiences abroad as people of color. The seven panelists had each studied in different countries, ranging from England to Chile. 

Lack of funding forces 'wind down' of Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism

After struggling to find the necessary funding, the University made the decision to officially close the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism on Dec. 31, 2018, Provost Lisa M. Lynch announced in a Dec. 20 email to the Brandeis community. The Schuster Institute, the nation’s first investigative reporting center based at a university and made possible by a generous donation from Elaine and Gerald Schuster, opened 14 years ago at Brandeis. Since its founding in Sept. 2004, the Institute’s team of editors, reporters, fellows and student research assistants worked to preserve investigative journalism as media outlets cut back on that type of reporting.

Midyear convocation and move-in brings campus together

With the conclusion of this year’s midyear convocation, the Class of 2022 midyears and transfer students moved into residence halls and bade farewell to their families last Sunday.

President Liebowitz announces "springboard" funding plan for University

The administration put forth a $73 million proposal, termed “springboard funding,” that will address gaps in University operations that must be filled before pursuing a major capital campaign, University President Ron Liebowitz announced in a Jan. 11 email to the Brandeis community last week. The proposal is split into two parts and spreads spending over three years, allotting $47 million for incremental operations and $26 million for capital expenditures.

EDITORIAL: Entering a new digital age without Schuster

Kent's 2018 Least-Favorites

Fractured Western

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Art from Netflix's "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs."

Writer and actress Anna Deavere Smith receives 2019 Richman Distinguished Fellow in Public Life

In a celebration of her public service, Anna Deavere Smith, the Ann O’Day Maples Professor of the Arts at Stanford University, is the recipient of the 2019 Richman Distinguished Fellow in Public Life, according to a Jan. 15 BrandeisNOW article.

Demagoguery has invaded the Student Union’s political scene

Artist examines past and present of Israeli museum

The story of exile from and return to a holy land is a timeless theme in Israeli art, but the artistic medium and style of Zionist representations have adapted to a technologically growing world, Israeli artist Nevet Yitzhak explained to the Brandeis community during her talk Thursday. The event was co-sponsored by the University’s Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Many of the audience members were students of the Fine Arts course “Palestinian and Israeli Art, Film and Visual Culture: Intersecting Visions,” taught by Prof. Gannit Ankori (FA), who also attended the event. 

Paint night teaches students about Jewish, Islamic art

Common Ground hosted a paint night on Thursday for members of the Brandeis community to make and learn about Islamic and Jewish art. Common Ground is a student-run club whose mission is “to unite Brandeis students for the purpose of understanding Judaism and Islam as complex religions with a lot of similarities and differences.” Its slogan is “together we can help everyone gain better knowledge of two commonly misunderstood religions,” according to their Facebook page.

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FINALS STUDY BREAK: Nathan Inkateshta ’19 created canvas paintings as others made tissue-paper stained-glass art.

Facing the music

Avi Hirshbein ’19 could have pursued his passion for music the old-fashioned way. Upon arriving at Brandeis, he might have honed his musical abilities by taking lessons in the three instruments he taught himself to play: the piano, the guitar and the ukulele. If that had gone well, he could have joined the Brandeis orchestra or a student ensemble. Instead, realizing the odds of fame and success as a musician were remote, he decided to create his own record label called Basement Records.

Documentary Sings to Your Soul

Earlier this month, the Introduction to Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation class  hosted a screening at the Wasserman Cinematheque in place of a lecture. The Nov. 6 class screened “Because of the War,” a documentary about four female singers who immigrated to the United States to escape the civil war occuring in their homeland, Liberia. The war caused a mass migration of refugees toward the neighboring countries of Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. The four women, Tokay, Zaye, Marie and Fatu, all found themselves in Pittsburgh’s Liberian community. Anthropologist Toni Shapiro-Phim, who attended the screening, documented their individual stories as director of the feature.

Cleveland museum curator leaves legacy of Chinese exhibits

Noelle Giuffrida, a research associate and an affiliate faculty member at the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Kansas, gave a lecture on Tuesday about the curation and study of Chinese art. Giuffrida’s talk, “Episodes in the History of Studying and Exhibiting Chinese Art in Postwar America,” focused on American museum director and curator Sherman E. Lee and how his work contributed to the integration of Chinese art into the American art scene. The event was sponsored by the University’s Fine Arts Department. 

Brandeis alumnus donates $10 million for Japanese students

Toshizo “Tom” Watanabe ’73 has donated $10 million in scholarship funds to be allocated to  undergraduate and graduate students from Japan. This is the single largest donation the University has received from an international graduate, according to the University’s Nov. 14 press release.