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T h e I n d e p e n d e n t S t u d e n t N e w s p a p e r o f B r a n d e is U n i v e r sit y S i n c e 1 9 4 9 Volume LXXV, Number 18
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Waltham, Mass.
HOUSING STRESSORS
UNREASONABLE CONDITIONS
Department of Community Living assigns housing selection numbers ■ The Justice helps clarify
the complicated and often fraught housing selection process. By RIVER SIMARD
JUSTICE STAFF WRITER
JACK YUANWEI CHENG/the Justice
FINALE: Orientation leaders lead “Light the Night” for first-year students at the Rose Art Museum in August 2022.
Orientation Leaders go on strike, declare unionization ■ Former Orientation Leaders
list their demands for reforms needed before they are willing to return to the program. By SOPHIA DE LISI
JUSTICE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Orientation Leaders drive the University’s incoming class’s experience on campus as resources and role models to first-years, guiding them through their busy Orientation programs. However, the extent of their involvement in welcoming new students to the community is more taxing than their cheerful dispositions let on. Instead, OLs report that Orientation is an exhaustive experience that has been undercompensated in past years, causing a group of OLs from the August 2022 Orientation to write a petition to the administration, declaring proportional pay to the extent of the work they dedicate to the program. According to the Brandeis Department of Orientation and First-Year Experience, “Orientation Leaders are representatives of Brandeis University who assist new students in their transition to Brandeis University. OLs serve as role models and resources to incoming students and are provided opportunities to develop leadership skills, interact
with students, faculty, staff & administrators, and learn more about the Brandeis community and its resources.” However, it’s clear that isn’t the full story. Following the August 2022 movein and Orientation, former Orientation Leaders wrote a petition explaining that this description does not adequately describe the full extent of their work. Instead, it causes students to apply for work that has not been described in detail, failing to outline hours of breakless work, high physical and emotional demands, and low compensation. In their petition, the OLs highlight a variety of issues such as unfair compensation, extended hours, and lack of job transparency, as well as provide solutions to each of these problems. Included on the petition is an OL Pledge that explains that any OL who signs it agrees “to no longer sign up to be an OL until the University implements the demands and changes outlined in the Unionization Plan.” The Unionization Plan’s writers — Tamara Rubin ’25, Edgar Garcia ’25, Jason Gordon ’24, and Marcus Sutton ’25 — met with the Justice on March 25 to talk about their experiences leading the 2022 Summer Orientation, their reasoning behind unionization, and how administrators have responded to their claims up to this point. Each student had
a personal reason for becoming an Orientation Leader, whether it was to recreate their positive experience for incoming students and help integrate them into a community that had previously welcomed them, or to form more valuable connections with students and other OLs. Sutton explained that Orientation is crucial to first-years because it provides them with the opportunity to create lasting friendships among one another and their OLs. “I appreciate the establishment of such connections,” Sutton said. Since “Brandeis is small, such connections are valuable because we’re going to be seeing each other all the time, I think fostering that nice sense of community as soon as you land on campus is so crucial to your success on campus — or your comfortability adjusting — and I wanted to be a part of that for the [nextyear’s] students.” Although they were passionate about joining the OL ranks in August 2022, none of them were entirely certain as to what their new job entailed. The job description explained some intricacies of helping new students transition into the Brandeis community, attending training and Orientation, and supporting the Orientation staff. However, most of the descriptions were brief. For example, “leaders are
See ORIENTATION, 4 ☛
On March 21, Brandeis rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors received their numbers for the upcoming housing selection process. The Department of Community Living informed students of their randomly assigned number through the MyHousing portal. Rising sophomores were assigned a number between 126-1200, while rising juniors and seniors were assigned a number above 1200. The lower the number the student received, the earlier their time slot for picking their housing for the upcoming school year will be. DCL’s Assistant of Dean of Student Affairs Tim Touchette explained in a March 22 interview with the Justice that the reason numbers are initially assigned as
opposed to time slots is because as students decide that they are going to try and find off-campus housing or rising sophomores decide they want to live with rising juniors/ seniors, they may forfeit their assigned housing number. Students forfeiting their numbers would change the time slot that the person behind them gets for housing. If selection times were all assigned initially, they would likely be frequently changing. Students with lower numbers have priority over popular living areas such as the Rosenthal Quad or the recently developed Skyline Residence Hall. Due to the unpredictability of the housing selection process, students have turned to forums such as Sidechat to see what type of housing is available for their specific number. It’s difficult to know what will be available based purely on numbers, but when students are assigned specific time slots in the coming weeks they can look at what was available during that time in past years in order to better predict what will
See HOUSING, 7 ☛
ISRAEL STUDIES
Schusterman Center explains Israeli democracy ■ Six political experts
gathered to discuss the current political crisis in Israel. By SOPHIA STEWART
JUSTICE CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Editor’s Note: Justice Editor Dalya Koller contributed to the reporting of this article. On Wednesday, March 22, the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and the Crown Center for Middle East Studies hosted a panel titled “The Future of Israeli Democracy: Judicial Reform and Political Crisis.” The Chancellor of the Hebrew University and former Chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, Menahem Ben-Sasson; Prof. Jeffrey Lenowitz (POL); Prof. Yehuda Mirsky (NEJS); Prof. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe (NEJS); Prof. Rima Farah (HBRW); and Prof. Alexander Kaye (NEJS), dove deep into the political implications of the recent potential judicial reforms rocking Israel and the Jewish world. The Israeli government is working to pass reforms that will grant less judicial review power to Israel’s Supreme Court and give the
Knesset, Israel’s parliament, more power than it currently holds. The proposed reforms will allow a simple majority of one in the Knesset to overrule court decisions. The government will also have decisive say regarding who will become a judge. Additionally, ministers, by law, are currently required to obey the advice of legal advisers who are guided by the attorney general, but the new reforms will no longer require ministers to do so. A reform that removed the power of the attorney general to deem the sitting prime minister unfit for office has already been passed. There has been talk of the current attorney general planning to do so with Netanyahu, after the attorney general warned Netanyahu that he has violated the country’s law regarding conflict of interest for working on these proposed reforms while himself undergoing a trial for corruption, according to the Associated Press. The panelists explained that if these judicial reforms are passed, the Knesset will have a much easier time changing basic laws without the judicial branch being able to step in. “[The change of basic laws] is cruel; it doesn’t give an opportunity for the opposition to talk…
See DEMOCRACY, 7 ☛
Shuttle driver Bob
‘Pride and Prejudice’
Jimmy Kang leads audio workshop
Bob Castiel talks about driving the BranVan as he prepares to leave the Univ.
Isabel discusses adaptations in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Predjudice.”
By GRACE DOH
By LEA ZAHARONI
By ISABEL ROSETH
Brandeis housing falls short By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NEWS 3 FORUM 10
Softball sweeps Carnegie Mellon LEA ZAHARONI/the Justice
FEATURES 8
Photo courtesy of CREATIVE COMMONS
For tips or info email editor@thejustice.org
ARTS AND CULTURE 18
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By JOSH GANS
COPYRIGHT 2023 FREE AT BRANDEIS.
SPORTS 16