Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT)

November 28, 2023

Brandeis' Basement Records & COMPACT celebrated hip-hop's 50th with a three-part series, "Brandeis Celebrates 50 Years of Hip Hop." During one of the events, they hosted a showing of Kaz Supernova’s 2023 film, Wortown Rising, celebrating Worcester's Hip-Hop History.

November 3, 2023

On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the Brandeis Education Program hosted teacher, scholar and author Jessica Lander in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall. Lander spoke about her recent book, “Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education,” what education looks like in a classroom primarily filled with immigrant students and more. This event was sponsored by Brandeis COMPACT, Brandeis’ Environmental Studies Program, the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management and by Friends of the Waltham Family School.

October 26, 2023

Celebrated cultural critic and sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom urged students to be bold in asking questions, and to defend the right to be curious in an address at Brandeis on Oct. 27.

McMillan Cottom visited campus for a residency and award ceremony as this year's winner of the Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize. The prize was created in 2007 by the late Professor Joseph B. Gittler to recognize outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations. The annual award includes a $25,000 prize and a medal.

McMillan Cottom's work touches on a broad range of cultural issues, from the racial hierarchy of beauty standards and the class codes of dressing for work, to the predation of for-profit colleges and the historical impact of racial capitalism on plural democracy.

April 28, 2023

Growing up, Liz Sandoval ’25 found safe, creative spaces for people from marginalized communities were hard to come by. These days, she is dedicated to creating these spaces for students at Brandeis, in Waltham, and beyond.

Sandoval is one of the first students to participate in the Samuel Scholars program, an initiative created by the Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT) .The yearlong program offers first- and second-year students an introduction to community engagement at Brandeis, a stipend to support their engagement, and the opportunity to implement an "action plan" for making real change in the local community.

March 2, 2023

Over the past several years, the number of antisemitic incidents happening across the country, including on campuses, has proliferated at an alarming rate. In 2021, antisemitism reached an all-time high in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In higher education alone, the ADL reported, antisemitic events were up 21% from the previous year, during which violence against Jews was already at an elevated level.

Today, we are announcing that Brandeis is entering into a collaboration with the Kraft Group's Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) on a comprehensive, multi-pronged strategy to equip students, higher ed leaders and Jewish communal professionals with knowledge, resources and tools to engage diverse communities in the critical work to address this rise in antisemitism and hate.

March 1, 2023

Brandeis and the Robert K. Kraft Family and the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) have formed a partnership to address the rise of antisemitism across the country. The Robert Kraft Family–Brandeis Collaboration on Antisemitism is a comprehensive, multi-pronged collaboration to equip students, higher education leaders and Jewish communal professionals with knowledge, resources and tools to engage diverse communities in the critical work to address hate against Jews and other communities.

February 15, 2023

In the fall of 2021, Waltham Partnership for Youth and the Waltham Public Schools established the new Centro de Bienvenida de Waltham (Waltham Welcome Center) at McDevitt Middle School. The vision was to better provide information and resources to families entering the public school system, particularly Spanish-speaking immigrant families who have recently arrived.

When Megan Ross, associate director of the new Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation (COMPACT), learned about the important work that Waltham Partnership for Youth is doing to support newly arrived families, she saw the opportunity for what became an exciting collaboration between students in the journalism program and the Waltham community.

March 8, 2022

Brandeis has named Sara Shostak as the inaugural director of the Vic and Bobbi '63 Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation. Shostak is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Health: Science, Society, and Policy (HSSP) Program at the university.

January 4, 2022

Alumna and Fellow Bobbi Samuels ’63 and her family have made an extraordinary $10 million gift to create a center that will transform civic and community engagement at Brandeis. Endowed in honor of the late Vic Samuels ’63, the Vic and Bobbi Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation will bring together students, faculty, staff, practitioners and researchers in an innovative, interdisciplinary environment to address community needs and advance civic transformation.

January 4, 2022

I am pleased to share that Bobbi Samuels ’63 and the Samuels Family Foundation have made a transformational $10 million gift to create a center that will strengthen civic and community engagement at Brandeis. Endowed in memory of the late Vic Samuels ’63, the Vic and Bobbi ’63 Samuels Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation will advance the legacy of Vic's lifelong commitment to the millennia-old Jewish tradition of tikkun olam — using one's intellectual and material gifts to help heal the world.

June 30, 2020

Victor "Vic" Samuels ’63, a Houston, Texas, business entrepreneur and civic leader who gave generously to scholarships at Brandeis, has passed away at age 79.

Mr. Samuels, described by his family as a "rare seventh-generation Jewish Texan, outspoken liberal and proud American," joined with his wife, Barbara "Bobbi" Greenfield Samuels ’63, in supporting financial aid at their alma mater, creating the Bobbi ’63 and Vic ’63 Samuels Endowed Scholarship and the Vivian and Irving Greenfield Endowed Scholarship at Brandeis.