Justice Brandeis Semester (JBS)

Dear fellow Brandeis faculty members,

Please note that the Justice Brandeis Semester (JBS) proposals for summer 2012, fall 2012, and spring 2013 programs are due no later than Monday October 3, 2011, although earlier submission of proposals is both welcome and encouraged. Please submit your proposals by e-mailing an attachment to Elaine Wong at ewong@brandeis.edu and Alyssa Grinberg at agrin@brandeis.edu. We encourage you to connect with Alyssa Grinberg before the deadline to explore your program proposal before the formal deadline. 

Proposal guidelines are available here. You may also view drafts of several approved programs. Proposals must eventually be approved by your department chair, the JBS Committee, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Participating faculty will be compensated for their teaching either by:

• Reducing their course load during the following semesters, or
• Banking the courses for a future semester, or
• Being compensated at a rate comparable to that of a four-credit or a six-credit course.

Each JBS program will consist of a coordinated set of courses addressing a common theme. Ideally the courses are interconnected, creating a seamless overall program. Students are required to take all courses in the program. JBS should be an immersive program meaning that the students meet four or five days each week for several hours in experiential, real-world contexts as well as in seminar settings.

Our goal is to create innovative programs that will profoundly impact the lives of our students.  In a successful JBS program, the students would develop close working relationships with each other and with the faculty member(s) over the summer or semester. Ideally, the curriculum would reinforce their academic growth by helping to integrate their classroom learning and providing applications of their new understandings to real-world problems. 

JBS programs aim to achieve the following goals:

• Provide students with opportunities to delve more deeply into an academic field in both a theoretical and experiential context
• Apply classroom learning to real-world settings to help students develop transferable and field-specific skills that prepare them for the workplace and graduate school
• Attract an even larger cohort of bright, talented students to Brandeis so that our selectivity remains high as the student body size increases

A summer JBS program must consist of 12 credit hours and may be offered for either eight or ten weeks. The total budget for a single JBS summer program, excluding faculty salaries, will usually not exceed $6,000.  Fall or spring JBS programs follow the regular academic calendar start and end dates, although classroom instruction may be concentrated in fewer weeks.  Fall or Spring JBS programs should take place largely or exclusively off campus and ideally consist of at least 16 credit hours. Classroom space scheduled by the Office of the Registrar will not be available during the fall and spring.

There are several possible formats for JBS proposals.

• Summer JBS (following the regular summer school calendar start date and ending either eight or ten weeks later)
• Fall JBS (following the regular academic calendar)
• Spring JBS (following the regular academic calendar)
• Extended JBS (summer through fall or spring through summer): this option would include a 12-16 credit JBS program with an optional fall/summer internship or other experiential learning component for a total of 16-20 credits

We look forward to your creative and exciting JBS proposals. If you have any questions or would like to run some initial ideas by members of the JBS committee, please feel free to contact Alyssa Grinberg or Elaine Wong.

Sincerely,

Adam Jaffe