Here are the 11 most common names at Brandeis: David. Jonathan. Rachel. Sara(h). -stein. -baum. -berg. Cohen. Shapiro, Shapiro, Shapiro.The Center for Modern Jewish Studies released a report a few months ago detailing Jewish life on campuses similar to, but not including, our own. Not surprisingly, it found that, for the most part, Jewish students are more likely to participate in social Jewish organizations than religious ones. Unfortunately at Brandeis, that distinction doesn't exist.

There are about 20 clubs listed on the myBrandeis Web site with Hebrew or "Jewish" words; some are religiously centered, others are Zionist and still others are performance-based. There are plenty of other aspects of campus life that highlight Brandeis' Jewish roots-building names, the vacation schedule and the huge Judaic studies department, to name a few.

There are many Jewish students who resent Judaism's pervasiveness, myself included. I'm sick of "Brandeis humor" being largely "Jewish humor" and the general assumption that everyone is Jewish. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people talk about Brandeis as the "Jewish university." It does a huge disservice to the school when it is known as that over its other, more important merits.

Forty years ago, the label was both more accurate and more desirable. With the quota systems in place at prestigious universities through the 1950s, Brandeis filled an important space in the lives of the minority-especially Jewish-high-school graduates fortunate enough to attend the University. But times change.

The University has been playing a balancing act ever since, between promoting itself as a high-caliber liberal arts school and as the place for Jews to be the majority. Officially, Brandeis may be institutionally nonsectarian, but it's hard to believe that claim in practice.

This balancing act is a precarious one: The University wants applicants of all stripes to apply in the same numbers that the Jewish community does, but doesn't want to alienate its primary donors. It comes down to scaring away hundreds of fantastic potential Brandeisians, or not being able to receive a much-needed check from a would-be Jewish philanthropist.

Unfortunately, it's cyclical: Our reputation as the "Jewniversity" attracts a disproportionate number of Jewish applicants, so the pool for new students is skewed from the get-go. But now that Jews are no longer institutionally discriminated against, there's no need for a "safe haven." The post-Brandeis culture shock is entirely avoidable, so long as Brandeis actually matches up with the outside world just a little bit more. The University's Judeo-centricity will attract enough Jewish applicants to keep the numbers higher than average.

A 30 percent-Jewish student body should be fine. While it is a disservice to the students now here to have an unrealistic religious mix, Judaism is so important to Brandeis that it's also unrealistic for the percentage to mirror the national average. If one-third of the undergrads were Jewish, the community's size would still be larger than at most other universities, but not suffocating.

Were there less Jews at Brandeis, it would be much more feasible to have a spring break at the same time as most other universities. That ours is during a Jewish holiday only emphasizes that the school is too Jewish. Furthermore, there'd be more happening on Friday nights. Hopefully, that would not be limited to the dining halls being open for longer hours. Because Jewish religion currently overpowers Jewish social-ness, many people rightly complain that the campus seems dead those nights.

Shifting the University's emphasis, were the majority of community members even to desire it, is indeed tricky, as it is unreasonable to ask any institution to shift away from its roots and its sources of funding.

But of course, it wouldn't even get to that point. This year's hiring of an assistant dean of student life for the support of diversity was a good move-recognition of a problem is the first step on the road to recovery. But more needs to be done.