Staying safe during spooky season

It’s Halloweekend and you know what that means—it’s prime time for college students to party all weekend! You’ve finished your midterms—or maybe not, because Brandeis’ midterms season notoriously never ends until finals—and now you can enjoy the fun side of college. While Brandeis might not be the biggest party school like some state schools, we […]

Hoot Recommends: What’s your worst Halloween costume?

With spooky season in full swing, the members of The Hoot’s Editorial Board are giving our thoughts on the worst Halloween costumes we’ve ever donned. Do you agree with our choices? Disagree? Read on to find out!   Cooper: The year I was a surfer dude One time, when I was in middle school, I […]

Time after time: goodbye to standard time

Nov. 6 will mark the end of daylight savings time across the continental United States with the one exception of Arizona—the only state to not follow daylight savings time. However, the Sunshine Protection Act, introduced in March of 2021 by Florida Senator Marco Rubio could change all of that. The bill would ensure that the […]

Brandeis Days are not the right way to fix our schedules

Brandeis’ academic calendar has a unique designation for “Brandeis Days” a few times each semester. On these days, Brandeis follows a different weekday class schedule. This past week, we had the Oct. 13 Brandeis Monday and followed a Monday schedule on Thursday.    Brandeis Days are—at best—inconvenient. You have to alter your sleep schedule, rearrange […]

The time for making excuses is over

We were willing to give Harvest Table the benefit of the doubt at first. It is only natural that when you are adjusting to a new work environment you hit a couple of bumps along the way. There was undoubtedly a slow start to the semester, but it was all errors that could be easily […]

Building into the next generation

You may have seen it—or potentially heard it during your lectures—but the university is making some changes to campus. Some of the updates are long overdue and we are excited to see the final projects and how they will propel the university in the future. The university has never been known for its cohesive architectural […]

Year of Climate (lack of) Action

The Year of Climate Action is Brandeis’ attempt at “bold, coordinated action and leadership” to combat climate change. Kicking off with Peter Frumhoff’s visit to campus late in the spring 2022 semester, the Year of Climate Action is now in full swing. The Year of Climate Action is a year-long affair, and this semester includes […]

Brandeis is a second-half team

This semester is off to a slow start. Students and faculty alike are adjusting to the new and oddly-timed class blocks, students are exploring the new dining options from the new vendor and Harvest Table is struggling to provide the services Brandeis students are used to post-Sodexo. Harvest Table has added new dining options in […]

Enjoy every bit of Brandeis that Brandeis has to offer

To all Brandeis students, incoming and returning, we encourage you to do something new as the fall semester descends upon us. A feat that may seem terrifying but assuringly well worth it in the future. College is meant to be a time where we can explore our passions—and find new ones—surrounded by like-minded people our […]

Thank you to our seniors

The end of the semester has come and we couldn’t send you off without saying how grateful we are for each and every one of you. Sometimes we get a little caught up in making the paper and we forget to say how thankful we are for the people who came before us and taught […]

3IC says goodbye

We have seen a lot of interesting things and changes at Brandeis during our last four years. From people threatening to sue us, to someone trying to shut us down, to a bomb threat our junior year. There was also the case of cyanide in Mods, the mice in Ziv, the fire in Village. Every […]

There’s a lot going on right now

It’s the last full week of classes at Brandeis, so fittingly, it’s the busiest week of the entire year. It feels like every organization on campus is choosing to insert themselves into students’ lives at the exact same time.   Upperclassmen have their housing selection this week. Many housing options were taken by rising sophomores, […]

Brandeis needs to be better at communication

With COVID-19, we are all under a tumultuous period during Brandeis history where communication and transparency is as important as ever. However, we have noticed that in recent times, Brandeis administration has not been communicating with the community as effectively as it could be.  There were communication issues as early as orientation. This year’s orientation […]

COVID-19 positivity spikes on campus

The university saw an increase in positivity rates on campus last week, with 135 students testing positive on the week of March 20, according to the Brandeis COVID-19 dashboard. Even though the numbers have decreased in comparison to last week, the numbers are still strikingly higher than what the university is used to seeing, with […]

Wellness Days need to be planned in advance

Who is actually getting to take advantage of the Wellness Day?    On March 17, Dean Dorothy Hodgson sent an email out to the Brandeis community that read, “I have joined Provost Carol Fierke and the other academic deans to encourage our faculty to consider a ‘Wellness Day’ on Friday, March 25th, and either cancel […]

Brandeis does housing right

It is everyone’s favorite time of the year: housing selection season. The time where everyone is wondering whether they will end up living a blissful life in Ridgewood or stuck in the swamps of East. We also know that we here at The Hoot are quite critical of the university, so we wanted to acknowledge […]

Our role in the Brandeis community

We, as the Brandeis community newspaper, take immense pride in being the community’s source of information and elevating the voices of community members. We love connecting with groups on campus and telling people’s stories. But we also recognize that a lot of members of the community don’t know who we are or why or how […]

Easing of COVID-19 policies is premature

On Thursday, March 3 all Brandeis students received an email update explaining upcoming relaxations of the COVID-19 policies on campus. This relaxation of policies comes with excitement, of course, it feels as though the world may be going back to some sort of normal for the first time in nearly two years. But, this change […]

Univ. maintains R1 status 

The university was under some pressure when the preliminary report of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education was released, due to projection that the university would be bumped from R1 research institution to R2.   R1 denotes the highest ranking of the Carnegie Classification System and is reserved for institutions that have “Doctoral/Very High […]

A reflection on the return to in-person classes

Welcome back to in-person classes! We know everyone is eager to get back to learning in person, after nearly two years of hybrid/online classes, and we are just as eager too. However, we are also cautious about diving right back into in-person learning.  We are all extremely happy to be back to in-person classes. We […]