Brandeis University Top Questions

Describe a day on campus you'll never forget.

Leah

The Brandeis Hoot prints on Fridays, and every Thursday the office is overflowing with people hurriedly writing articles, editing photos, and putting together pages of layout. I began writing within the first few weeks of classes, and I decided to stop by for a few minutes on Thursday to submit my first article, talk to my editor about a few things, and meet the people I'd be working with for the next four years. That Thursday also happened to be the day President Jehuda Reinharz announced to trustees, administrators, faculty and staff that he would be resigning pending a replacement. He also told representatives from the two college newspapers so that we could write about it, but we weren't allowed to tell anyone until midnight. With only a few hours to go, senior writers and editors were frantically putting together articles about his tenure at Brandeis, his future plans, and what it meant for the university. The excitement in the room was absolutely addicting, and I ended up staying until the end of the night, watching the clock count down to midnight until we were allowed to post the breaking news banner on our webpage. We scooped the other campus newspaper by an hour and the Boston Globe by several—although in retrospect, while it certainly was important news, why would a staffmember at the Globe count down until midnight to post it? That was the night that I knew The Hoot would be more than just a sideline extracurricular for the weeks I wasn't very busy. A year later, I became an editor, and every week I get to relive the excitement in the newsroom as deadline gets closer. Nothing beats your first time, but it's still incredible and the memory of that day has kept me coming back for more than two years.