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.
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.
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.
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.
In particular, this board takes issue with the University’s closure of an entire testing site on upper campus, the current policies and practices surrounding contact tracing and isolation for infected students, and the general sense of confusion and difficulty that has accompanied these changes that have hampered experiences in classes and elsewhere.
Prioritizing safety is especially important for those who have experienced a potential exposure from a close contact or who are experiencing symptoms. Of course, we should all be following University guidelines and adhering to instructions provided by the Brandeis Community Tracing Program (BCTP) and the Health Center if placed in quarantine or isolation — this is the least we can do to slow the spread and respect our fellow community members. But the apparent delays and communication failures of the BCTP and Health Center in notifying students when they are identified as a close contact have made it clear that simply following instructions is not enough.
As students enter the 10th week of the semester, many are just coming out of the long and arduous midterm season. This board requests that the Brandeis administration require a wellness day in March and incorporate it within the academic calendar moving forward.
This board had previously questioned the sensibility of reducing testing frequency at the same time as lifting the campus-wide mask mandate. While we appreciate that community members have been able to continue to test at any chosen frequency, we believe that this campus-wide requirement is best-suited to keep everyone safe.
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