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At its Dec. 5 meeting, the last of the fall semester, the Union Senate discussed the student leader payment program, which the previous year’s Senate approved, and chartered five new clubs.
The University was excited to welcome students back to in-person learning at the start of the fall 2021 semester. In addition to its students and returning faculty, Brandeis also opened its doors to 25 new faculty members, full time and visiting, according to a BrandeisNOW article. This addition of new members to the University’s community spans all of the School of Arts and Sciences and the Brandeis International Business School.
In the mid-morning of Jan. 15, it was confirmed that four people had been taken hostage at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, during their Shabbat morning services. The captor sought the release of his “sister,” Aafia Siddiqui from a federal prison in Fort Worth, near the synagogue. It was quickly revealed that the captor was not related to Siddiqui, according to a CNN article.
Jan. 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that the United Nations designated for remembrance of the genocide of six million Jewish people and millions of other victims. This day was picked because it marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, “one of the most infamous camps of the Holocaust,” states the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website. The museum's website writes that over 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz, one million of which were Jews.
Seven school districts in Virginia have sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin following his executive order banning mask mandates in the state. The school districts argue that this act endangers the lives of students and teachers alike. Over the past two years there has been strife amongst our education and governmental systems as both parties attempt to find a balance between high quality education and safety. How is the recent surge in COVID-19 cases impacting educators and students? What is at stake when teachers don’t feel safe in the workplace? What actions does our own University administration need to take in order to make sure that faculty feel heard and seen?
Brandeis University is keeping the community informed about its COVID-19 statistics through an online dashboard. This dashboard contains information about how many tests were collected, how many individuals were tested, how many individuals tested positive, how many students are in quarantine, how many students are in isolation and the seven-day average for positive tests on campus. The dashboard also includes various statistics about areas in Massachusetts. The Justice will produce infographics each week, visually displaying the information that the University releases online.
On Jan. 13, around 100 midyear students trickled into a frigid Waltham to begin their college careers at Brandeis. Although the surge of Omicron cases significantly altered orientation plans by forcing programming to take place virtually, students were able to move into their dorms at the originally scheduled time.
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Brandeis alumna and Fellow Bobbi Samuels recently donated a $10 million gift to Brandeis, which will be used to establish a new center at the University that focuses on civic and community engagement.
After their past three semesters were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Brandeis students were greeted with an exceptionally conventional start to the 2021-22 school year. However, this normalcy did not last long, as nationwide infections of the novel Omicron variant surged.. On Jan. 7, President Ron Liebowitz sent an email to Brandeis students, faculty, and staff to announce that the school would temporarily be going remote.
The University President’s Office sent out an email to faculty on Dec. 6, 2021 responding to a ProPublica article that mentions last November’s Zoom-bombing incident at a Brandeis panel on atrocities against the Uyghur people in China. The article, “Even on U.S. Campuses, China Cracks Down on Students Who Speak Out,” discusses student and Chinese government responses to student and scholar critiques of the Chinese government.
Brandeis University is keeping the community informed about its COVID-19 statistics through an online dashboard. This dashboard contains information about how many tests were collected, how many individuals were tested, how many individuals tested positive, how many students are in quarantine, how many students are in isolation and the seven-day average for positive tests on campus. The dashboard also includes various statistics about areas in Massachusetts. The Justice will produce infographics each week, visually displaying the information that the University releases online.
Kyle Rittenhouse, a man who shot and killed two protestors and wounded another, was sent to trial in early November of this year. Throughout the case his attorneys argued self-defense, making his slaying of two innocent people permissible. He was found not guilty on all six charges in court. What does this say about how our current criminal justice system operates? Are there biases that impact marginalized communities? What can we do going forward to mitigate social injustice within the legal and judicial system?
As the end of the semester quickly approaches and the holiday season is in full swing, there’s no shortage of events and festivities happening across campus. And, of course, what’s a party without food? Now, however, the question of who provides this food has become a point of contention among dining workers, students and the Brandeis administration.
In a Dec. 2 email to the Brandeis community, President Ron Leibowitz announced the release of a revised version of the University’s anti-racism plans. The website for this revision compiles the individual plans for each academic and administrative department along with a general overview of the University’s process in creating the plans and what the University hopes to accomplish. Liebowitz explained that this revision to the ani-racism plan was prompted by the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Citing a November 2020 report, he explained that 130 universities are currently undergoing a review of best approaches for addressing institutionalized racism in academia.
On Friday night, Nov. 19, over 250 people simultaneously sat down to 24 different Shabbat dinners across campus, participating in an event called "Shabbat Across Brandeis."
"Giving DEISday" has been an annual Brandeis fundraising tradition since the day’s founding six years ago. The day lines up with “Giving Tuesday” — described on their website as “A movement that unleashes the power of radical generosity around the world” — which occurs Tuesday following Thanksgiving.
In The 2020 recipient of the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize, Howard C. Stevenson, received the award on Nov. 18, 2021. The ceremony and subsequent residency, which took place from Nov. 17 to 18, had been postponed due to the pandemic.
Prof. Eileen McNamara first joined Brandeis in 1995 as an adjunct faculty member while maintaining a full-time career as a columnist at The Boston Globe, where she worked for nearly 30 years covering a vast array of topics from the nightly police beat to Congress. An award winning reporter and columnist, McNamara won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for her many-sided columns on Massachusetts people and issues” in 1997. She began teaching full-time at Brandeis in 2007, and eventually became the Director of the Journalism Program, a position that she held until last year.
The Waltham Public Library will host author David Baldacci to discuss his latest book, “Mercy.” The Tewksbury Public Library, Wellesley Books and several other Massachusetts libraries collaborated in planning the event, which will be held on Zoom on Dec. 9.