LE: Students bring smiles to Vietnamese poor

This past Christmas and New Year season, the lives of 280 poor Vietnamese children have been touched by endless efforts, love and financial support from Brandeis in many ways.

LETTER: A More Perfect survey? Not quite.

I was recently contacted and asked to participate in a survey on club funding for the Student Union AMP Task Force. As I read the very first question, I felt that the survey was already starting off on the wrong foot. It began:

GOLDSTEIN: Justice theatre reviews insulting, poorly written

I dont envy the position of the arts critics here at Brandeis;

those who choose to write for The Justice, or more recently, The Hoot, about the many theatre and music events on campus have their work cut out for them. Talented critics are sharp, concise but effectively spoken, observant, informed about both the work with which they are presented and the works that relate to it and objective about their study difficult traits to cultivate without serious experience or guidance. And as our university lacks an intensive journalism program, little training for newspaper staff writers, and few if any classes on film, theatre or music criticism, it is difficult to find a place on-campus to develop the necessary skills to write a solid newspaper critique of an arts production.

Conservative coming out week

Like many small, liberal-arts colleges in the Northeast, a majority of Brandeis students are liberal Democrats. However, this week is Conservative Coming-Out Week, featuring a series of events designed to bolster awareness that Brandeis has a conservative community. According to self reported political affiliations on thefacebook.com, which about half of Brandeis students are part of, there are about 1148 liberal leaning Brandeis students registered and about 149 conservative.

SMR system changed

The Union Senate changed the Senate Money Request (SMR) system in a by-law passed by a vote of 12 to five at the March 20 Senate meeting. Previously, any club or person who needed funding could bring an SMR to the Senate requesting the funding. The newly passed by-law only allows Student Union officers and the members of Senate committees to bring SMRs. This means any club wishing to request money from the Senate must now get one of these individuals to do it for them.

Popes Brandeis ties

On April 2, 2005, 9:37 PM Pope John Paul II died after a long struggle with Parkinsons Disease. Born into humble circumstances in 1920 as Koral Wojtyla, he had risen from being an unknown priest from a small Polish town to the highest religious office in the Catholic Church and spiritual leader to an estimated 1.1 billion Catholics around the world.