We’ve begun the fall semester of the 2022-23 school year! If you’re anything like me, an overzealous, career-driven maniac, you might be confused as to why you’re already burned out. You have all these plans for your future and the drive to get there, but you’re having trouble making concrete steps to achieve those goals.
This editorial board recognizes that it might take some time for these suggested changes to be implemented and that Brandeis Hospitality remains open to receiving feedback from the student body. To Brandeis students, please be patient with the dining experience – the University is still in a transitional phase —and keep in mind that the dining workers are doing their best to serve us.
Although happy to welcome the class of 2026 to campus, this board believes that the University is accepting more students than it has the capacity to house safely and effectively. If current trends continue, this problem is unlikely to go away. It is in the best interest of first-year students in particular that the University figures out a way to accommodate these students, whether by admitting fewer or finding more acceptable housing options for the ones that they do admit.
A combination of truth-telling, easy and digestible headlines, and more diverse representation would help improve young people’s engagement with current events and news.
I had been to the city countless times, but when I arrived and walked into the Moynihan Train Hall, it felt different. People in neon pink feathers and heeled metal boots rushed past me on their way to shows. I made my way to Ninth avenue and into my hotel. I nervously waited for the morning when I too could join the spectacle of New York Fashion Week.
The Brandeis administration has fallen short of fully supporting student efforts to make Brandeis a safe supportive place for all students. The University needs to recognize student activism as in line with their mission of social justice.
Enjoy your first year — it passes fast. Eat at the dining halls, try to decorate your cinder block dorm, and attend your courses. And look forward to looking back.
Despite calls for the administration to maintain these policies, the University has instead reversed course, encouraging faculty to return to pre-pandemic policies. As much as we all want to put the pandemic behind us, to ignore valuable lessons from Brandeis’ COVID-19 era is irresponsible, and it could harm students who have benefited from the more accessible learning environment of the last two years.
Welcome to Brandeis, class of 2026! Congratulations on finishing high school amid the pandemic, and joining us here on campus. This board hopes that your first few weeks have been pleasant, and would like to provide some tips and tricks for surviving and thriving at this special university.
In the words of Ernest Hemingway, expressing similar sentiments in “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the protagonist, Robert Jordan, debating with himself if life is worth living in the face of such widespread atrocity and destruction in the Spanish Civil War, has a moment of clarity when he reflects, “If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.” It is not the certainty of success that should predicate hope; rather, it is its possibility that things can go another way, and that even an individual can change it. Have a little hope.
Bidding farewell to our graduating editors is always a bittersweet moment: although we hate to say goodbye after countless late nights spent together, our hearts are filled with pride and hope for all that they will accomplish next.
We urge you, your colleagues, and all concerned members of the Brandeis community to put students first and to take concrete, decisive action on campus climate and the state of DEI, anti-racism, and accessibility at all levels within our institution. We repeat that we are living, breathing students suffering from very real problems to address. Let’s do something about them.
We support our professors’ cutting-edge research – and we are the futures of our disciplines. We have invested so much in Brandeis. To realize its values, our University must invest in us as it promised to do when we entered.
This board calls on the appropriate University departments to communicate and coordinate to ensure that important events do not overlap with one another. More importantly, we ask these departments to select dates for these events that do not coincide with particularly busy and stressful times for students.
CAs and students have signed a letter outlining demands that CAs need in order to continue to serve the Brandeis Community to the best of our ability. I, along with other students and CAs now await a response and follow-up actions from administrators regarding our important community impacting concerns. Will Brandeis demonstrate its social justice principles? Finally, are we as students and CAs valued by the administration of Brandeis University or will our concerns, like that of many other students on campus, be pushed aside once again?
In light of a recent petition circulating with the hope that the University would begin compensating meal plans for Community Advisors, this board would like to bring attention to the importance of supporting said petition. While the University has already rejected the previous proposal, we would like to bring light to why it should be reconsidered.
As many students are trying to secure on-campus housing for the next academic year, this board would like to offer some suggestions for the Department of Community Living regarding the current student housing system to streamline the user experience and make it less stressful for students.
Students of various faiths can celebrate with their families, wherever their families might be located. It’s incredibly important for students to take this break, for lack of better wording, to take a break. If you’re one of the many folks who feels like they’ve just been holding it together, or if you’re actually doing pretty well, either way, get some rest. We all need it.
If you have any questions, concerns, or are simply interested in getting to know the Kiwibot team, please get in touch: john.tarin@kiwibot.com. We are always open to feedback and are devout in our belief that students should be at the center of how our new mobility solutions are deployed.
During the time this article was being written, the 22 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were delivering speeches about their positions on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination. It would be a travesty if, as predicted, it will be an 11-11 tie, since no Republican members of the committee appear courageous enough to vote for her.
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