On Friday, Oct. 3, The Hoot had an interview with Brandeis University President Arthur Levine, who recently started in the role full-time after serving as interim president from November 2024 until September of this year. The Hoot was able to ask Levine about topics including his recent reorganization of the schools, federal pressure from the Trump administration, Brandeis’ recent drop in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, and more. In the Best Colleges Rankings issued by U.S. News and World Report, Brandeis fell to 69th place. This continues a trend of Brandeis dropping in recent years. Brandeis was ranked #40 in 2020. In 2023, Brandeis ranked #44 before dropping to #63 in last year’s ranking. When asked by The Hoot about the ranking drop, Levine pointed to recent changes in the rankings’ methodology, which he claims hurt Brandeis. (For more on the ratings drop see page #). The
During the last academic year, The Hoot covered Interim President Arthur Levine as he led Brandeis through a transitional period marked by shifting national politics and rising tensions around higher education’s role in advancing diversity. At several campus events, Levine repeated a phrase that came to define his public messaging: “Brandeis was DEI before DEI was DEI.” The line referenced Brandeis University’s founding in 1948, when the institution emerged as a response to the exclusionary admissions policies that barred Jewish and other marginalized students from elite colleges. The statement reflected a belief that diversity, equity and inclusion were not recent bureaucratic additions but rather embedded in Brandeis’s very DNA. At the beginning of this academic year, the university disbanded its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) with little public
On Sept. 9, 2025, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released its sixth annual college free speech rankings. The rankings are based on several factors, including the university’s written policies, any free-speech-related controversies that occurred on campus and
In the 2026 edition of the U.S. News and World Report Best National Colleges Ranking, Brandeis University was ranked as number 69. This ranking puts Brandeis in a four-way tie along with Tulane University of Louisiana, the University of Connecticut
On Thursday, Sept. 25, at 5:30 p.m., an unofficial student organization, the “Jewish Bund,” held a vigil for those killed in Palestine, Iran, Yemen and Lebanon. The event opened with a coffin walk, an event for which the group has
Let’s do a thought experiment. Think of a video game. I’ll give you 10 seconds. OK, now, does that game have a protagonist? Can you name them anything from Dennis to Poopface? Have you ever thought about why that is (or isn’t)? The main character of a video game is one that the player takes control of. It’s how it works. Mario is the main character of Super Mario Bros., so you play as Mario. Nathan Drake is the protagonist of Uncharted, so you play as him. Sometimes the game has secondary characters that have gameplay as well, like Mary Jane in Spider-Man PS4 or members of your traveling party in Final Fantasy. But in some role-playing games like early Final Fantasy and pre-Switch The Legend of Zelda,
One might ask, why are you, an 18-year-old American, watching British cable? And that is a great question that can be answered in everyone’s least favorite way: COVID-19. As a little sixth grader, like many others, I was trapped within
The sun is gone. The stars shine bright. I seek revenge. Fragile cuts of coal line the shelves, marking the warped wood with black scratches. Already grey and flaking, I place them within a circle of Bleakstone and Palewood
I’m back with yet another concert review, and it’s a band readers of our last edition should be fairly familiar with by now. After traveling back home to Maryland for a few days, I trekked up to New York City
Before going to Paris, I was given a lot of warnings. “Paris is overrated. You’re going to be disappointed. You’re going to develop Paris syndrome.” Having returned from Paris, however, I can confidently say that the city met, and even exceeded, my expectations. Is Paris the utopic city we all know from the media? No. The air pollution is horrible, there’s garbage and graffiti everywhere and the tourist attractions can get quite crowded. Even still, Paris is the most elegant city I have ever visited. Every street, every park and (almost) every building is designed with a stylishness and grace that is totally alien to one raised in American suburbia. So, is going to Paris worth it? Yes … but lower your expectations just a tiny bit. Let’s break it
This week, The Hoot’s editors were feeling some major FOMO. With the work and stress piling up and music blasting through our headphones along the way, we begin dreaming about a sweet escape. A concert, perhaps? And it’s our dream,
Everything seems to be working out for Taylor Swift. The global pop sensation released her anticipated 12th album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on Friday, Oct. 3, with lead single “The Fate of Ophelia” being one of her largest debuting
Content warning: This article includes discussion of suicide. Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is a buzz word that is thrown around constantly. One cannot go on any digital platform without being pushed towards talking to some chatbot or generating partial or whole
On Friday, Oct. 3, The Hoot had an interview with Brandeis University President Arthur Levine, who recently started in the role full-time after serving as interim president from November 2024 until September of this year. The Hoot was able to ask Levine about topics including his recent reorganization of the schools, federal pressure from the Trump administration, Brandeis’ recent drop in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, and more. In the Best Colleges Rankings issued by U.S. News and World Report, Brandeis fell to 69th place. This continues a trend of Brandeis dropping in recent years. Brandeis was ranked #40 in 2020. In 2023, Brandeis ranked #44 before dropping to #63 in last year’s ranking. When asked by The Hoot about the ranking drop, Levine pointed to recent
Thank you for writing to SSIS! Generally, orgasms are moments of intense sexual pleasure. Orgasms can be experienced differently by each individual; however, some universal indicators that one has reached orgasm include physical sensations such as increased heart rate and
On Sept. 6, the Brandeis Botanical Society (BBS) led a group of about 25 plant-loving students into the Sachar Woods, a not-so-well-kept Brandeis secret. These students were allured by the idea of Woods Walk and were then treated to a
If you have ever attempted to learn French and communicate with a native speaker, or scrolled for five minutes on the short video clip dispenser of your choice, you will know how evil the French are. No matter how perfect
On Sept. 28, seven college quadball teams from the New England region came to Brandeis for Openers, an unofficial tournament hosted by the Massachusetts Quadball Conference (MQC). The purpose of Openers is to give new players real-game experience without the pressure of immediately needing to produce results. This year, no team needed the Openers experience more than Brandeis, who are coming off of the best year in the program’s history. With captains Eli Fighter ’25 and Ben Lambright ’25 leading the way, Brandeis Quadball completed an undefeated run through MQC, capping their season with two lopsided victories against Boston University and securing Brandeis’ first D1 championship in quadball. Additionally, Brandeis matched their best result on the national level, finishing in the top eight. However, seniors like Fighter and Lambright made
Recently, the Brandeis Baseball team has played in two University Athletic Association (UAA) Conference series. The first was an at-home four-game series against the Emory University Eagles, and the second was against the Washington University at St. Louis (WashU) in
Since the last publication of The Hoot, the Brandeis softball team has played seven games. The first three were a part of a home-series against the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Tartans. The next three were away against the Washington University
Since our last publication, both the women’s and men’s tennis teams have played four matches. The women faced Endicott College, the #12-ranked Wellesley College, Trinity College (Conn.) and Springfield College. On the men’s side, they faced the US Coast Guard
