June, 2007
Dear Entering Student,
It is my pleasure to inform you of an important and exciting educational program, The Helen and Phillip Brecher New Student Forum, in which you will participate before classes begin in the fall. On Wednesday, August 29, 2007, as part of the President’s Convocation, members of the faculty will join with the first-year students to discuss Old School by Tobias Wolff. Old School is the story of a scholarship boy at a New England prep school who grapples with literary ambition and insecurity. The story is set in the early 1960s and narrated by he unnamed protagonist from the vantage point of adulthood. The book articulates themes that are common during the first year experience: identity, the complexity of human interactions, coming to terms with ones’ own identity and finding a place in a larger community. I think that you will find it a compelling and thought provoking book.
The evening will begin at 6:00 p.m. You will meet with a member of the faculty and several of your classmates for a small group discussion that will explore the themes and questions raised by the book. You will then go to Spingold Theater to meet with Mr. Wolff. He will discuss the book’s origins and its impact, answer questions from the audience and be available to talk to individual students once the formal part of the program has ended.
This is the fifteenth year of the Helen and Phillip Becher New Student Forum. Our hope is that an early and lasting sense of intellectual community will be generated by bringing the entire first-year class together with members of the faculty, providing you with a sense of belonging to a special university dedicated to humanistic studies. I urge you to approach the reading as a moment to experience the pleasures of learning and a springboard toward awakening in yourself the passion to join with faculty and your fellow students in a search for insight and understanding. In the fifty-ninth year of Brandeis University’s existence, this seems an ideal way to welcome you to a university named for the Supreme Court Justice who devoted his life to improving the human condition.
The enclosed copy of Old School is gift of the University. I wish you a relaxing summer. On behalf of the entire community, we look forward to your arrival at the end of August.
Sincerely,
Adam B. Jaffe
Dean of Arts and Sciences
Fred C. Hecht Professor in Economics
