Faculty & Staff Updates from A&S

 

News from the Dean

Jeffrey Shoulson has short grey hair and wears a blue suit.

Dear Colleagues,

May is the time for celebrating achievements and I have had the great pleasure of attending several wonderful pre-commencement festivities in honor of our students over the last few weeks. Some highlights for me have included the First Year Closing celebration for the Myra Kraft Achievers Program (MKAP), the GenOne Night of Celebration honoring graduating seniors who are the first members of their family to earn college degrees, the Exceptional Achievement Endowed Awards in the Creative Arts (sponsored by Herbert and Sandra Fisher), the Creative Arts Commencement Celebration, and the GSAS Reception honoring our newly minted Masters and PhD graduates. Of course, there were many more I couldn’t attend—there are only so many hours in the day—but I am sure they were all filled with the same joy and well-deserved sense of achievement that I witnessed at the events I was able to join.

I’ve worked in higher education for more than thirty years, and these celebrations never fail to move me. Indeed, the more time I spend in the academy, the more powerful they feel, perhaps because I have an ever-growing appreciation of the challenges and struggles (many of them hidden from view) that our students must overcome to complete their degrees. And, as I am sure you all will agree, so many of them not only complete them, but excel in the process, achieving things that may have seemed unimaginable even a few years earlier.

Like many of you, I have felt the alarming and demoralizing impact of the pervasive attacks on higher education coming out of Washington since January 20. These springtime celebrations offer something of a salve to the wounds inflicted by those attacks. They remind us more powerfully than any op-ed or petition, however well-written or well-intended, why what we do continues to matter, continues to change lives, continues to enrich the world. The students who graduate from Brandeis this May will play an essential part in how we respond to—and recover from—the havoc being wreaked on so many of our important cultural, social, and political institutions. Thinking about all the impressive things our students have already accomplished, I feel more hopeful now than I have in a while. I hope you do, too.

Speaking of achievements worth celebrating, I also want to acknowledge the significant career milestones several of our colleagues in Arts and Sciences reached through promotion and tenure. This was an especially active year for this process—and it is not yet complete, with several cases still working their way through the system—but I offer my warm congratulations to the following faculty, whose promotions and tenures were approved by the Board of Trustees in its final meeting of the year:

Promoted to Associate Professor and Awarded Tenure
Anne Berry (Psychology)
Greg Childs (History)
Yuri Doolan (History/WGS)
Michael Heller (Music)
Tymon Sloczynski (Economics)
Michael Strand (Sociology)
Steven Wilson (Politics)

Promoted to Full Professor
Jonathan Anjaria (Anthropology)
Jill Greenlee (Politics)
Shantanu Jadhav (Psychology)
Kate Moran (Philosophy)

Finally, this will be my last newsletter to you as Dean of Arts and Sciences. It has been a real privilege to work with you over the last two years, two of the most challenging and fulfilling years of my career. I knew I was fortunate when I was selected to serve as Dean, but I don’t think I fully appreciated just how much of that good fortune would be a function of my wonderful, brilliant, and dedicated colleagues. Thanks to all of you for welcoming me and working so hard to make Brandeis the very special place it is.

But of course I am not going anywhere, and I look forward to the challenges I will be taking on in my new role as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs and Dean of Undergraduate Education. I am excited to be a part of the new academic structure we’ve developed and eager to move forward in our efforts to reimagine general education, develop new and innovative undergraduate programs of study, and create comprehensive and sustainable structures to provide all our students with meaningful experiential learning opportunities both on and off campus. We’ve got a lot of work still to do, but having already met with the working groups engaged in these efforts, I am optimistic about the possibilities before us.

Wishing all of you a productive and restorative summer break. I look forward to seeing you back on campus in the fall.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey

For previous messages from the Dean, please see the archive.


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May 13 Library's Research Excellence Prize deadline
May 16 Community Engagement Survey deadline
May 18 Brandeis Commencement
July 10 - 16 New undergraduate registration
July 17 Registration opens to all students

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The School of Arts and Sciences features a division each month of the school year in its newsletter. To see a full listing of recent accomplishments in the School of Arts and Sciences, please see the Faculty Achievements page.

Note: Faculty who are interested in being featured can email Kathleen McMahan. Items must fall into one of the following categories: Book or Chapter Publications, Grants, Fellowships, Performances, Compositions, Exhibitions, Other Creative Works (e.g., Director, Set Design), Interviews or Guest Appearances. Due to the volume produced by our faculty each month, published articles are not accepted at this time.