The Finance and Administration leadership team will be holding its annual town hall on Friday, Dec. 4 at 11 a.m. This year's town hall will be a virtual event, registration is required. If you would like to submit questions in advance of the meeting please use this form. The event will be recorded and posted on the EVP for Finance & Administration website for those who are unable to attend.

The last of the student-focused community input sessions for re-imagining public safety on our campus is Monday, Dec. 7, at noon.  Feedback from all of the twenty community sessions will be incorporated into the Re-imagining Public Safety report and will to be provided to the Search Committee for the next director of public safety/chief of police.  Our independent experts, Brenda Bond-Fortier, PhD’15 and Christi Hurt, will be asking questions like:  What is your sense of safety on campus overall and in specific locations? What factors impact your sense of safety at Brandeis? What else would you like to say about feeling safe on campus?  

Registration is required.

In addition to the open forums, the Brandeis community can provide feedback via the Re-imagining Community Input Form.

Brandeis community members are encouraged to provide input to the search process for the next director of public safety/chief of police – e.g., suggestions for the job description, ideas for recruitment, recommendations for candidates, etc. – via the Search Input Form on the Search Process website.

The Payroll Office has issued the annual memo regarding important calendar year-end paycheck and tax information for 2020 and 2021. This includes requests for duplicate W-2 forms and changes in tax filing status.

The memo is available on the Payroll website, under Payroll Year-end Memo 2020.

The new Massachusetts Paid Family Medical Leave Act goes into effect on January 1, 2021. Brandeis has designed its own private plan that will provide leave benefits under this new law. To learn more about Brandeis’s new medical and family leave program, please attend the session that lines up with your employee status below:

Benefits Eligible Faculty Session: Dec. 9, 2-3 p.m. | register

Benefits Eligible Staff Session: Dec. 11, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | register

Benefits Eligible Staff Session: Dec. 14, 2-3 p.m. |  register

Non-Benefits Eligible Faculty/Staff Session: Dec 16, 1-2 p.m. | register

In addition to these sessions, communications describing the new benefits will be emailed to employees. A new dedicated website outlining Brandeis’ Paid Family and Medical Leave Plan will go live later in December. For more information about the new benefits contact Kevin Pierson or Liz Tierney. To see a schedule of upcoming workshops please visit the HR Training website or contact Cynthia Farquhar with training questions.

December is well known as a month in which Christian and Jewish holidays celebrate light. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple, and is celebrated over eight days and nights, usually falling in December. Hanukkah observances include lighting a Hanukkiah (Hanukkah menorah with eight branches) each night, eating special foods, and saying special prayers.

The Christian faith spends four weeks in preparation for Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, who is sometimes called the Light of the World. This preparation time, which began on November 29, is called Advent, and may be celebrated by scriptural readings from the prophets, lighting candles, caroling, and reaching out to those in need. 

You can learn more about the observance of these and other holidays on the Spiritual Life Guide to Observances webpage.

With the continued use of Zoom for remote learning and working, ITS would like to remind everyone to follow Zoom best practices including using a Brandeis Zoom account when hosting a university-related event. Users should regularly check for updates on the Zoom app as new features and security measures are added.

Take advantage of a new security feature that enables a meeting host to pause a meeting in the event of a disruption. Hosts can select ‘suspend participant activities’ from the security icon in the meeting toolbar to remove an unwanted participant without needing to end the meeting. Learn more about this new feature and other in-meeting security options.

Check out ITS’ updated Zoom Security Resources for best practices to secure your virtual meeting. Refer to these guidelines prior to hosting a Zoom event. Zoom also provides helpful documentation and tutorials on its features in the Zoom Support Center. For additional help or questions, contact the Technology Help Desk.

Here are several key Zoom articles worth bookmarking:

• Zoom’s Privacy & Security web page
• 3 New Ways Zoom is Combatting Meeting Disruptions
• Securing Your Virtual Classroom
• How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event

As we continue to work, teach and learn remotely, and the online holiday shopping in full swing, phishing scams are more prevalent and rampant during this time. While the university has email filters and information security tools to block most of these messages, some spam emails still get through. ITS is asking faculty and staff to enroll in Proofpoint to protect your Brandeis account from spam, viruses or fraudulent email messages. Proofpoint will automatically filter spam and/or bulk email from reaching your inbox. Once enabled, you will receive a daily digest around 8 a.m. ET containing any message(s) that have been filtered and allows you to manage which message(s) and sender(s) you’d like to receive in your inbox.

ITS will be enabling Proofpoint for all faculty and staff in early 2021. More information will be shared in the next InBrief as well as other communication channels. Don't wait - secure your account and enroll in email protection today! Visit the ITS website for a getting started guide, video tutorials, and FAQs. For more information or questions, contact security@brandeis.edu.

The Library has scheduled a slate of exciting workshops for intersession on topics such as Find Funding Opportunities using Library Databases, Data Services & Software, Digital Photography, Podcast Production, Figure Drawing in Illustrator, Fundamentals of Digital Audio, 3D scanning, Arduino Electronics, LATTE Open House for Students, and Library Research Skills. All members of the Brandeis community are welcome to attend.

The Brandeis community and their families are invited to participate in an online version of the annual Holiday Sing on Friday, Dec. 4 at 2:30 p.m.

Vice President of Student Affairs Raymond Lu-Ming Ou will welcome you and introduce the main event, a 15-minute video recorded at the 2019 holiday concert by members of the Brandeis University Chorus, Brandeis Chamber Singers and Brandeis-Wellesley Orchestra under the direction of Neal Hampton, associate professor of the practice of music. The video is captioned so that you can sing along. After the Hallelujah chorus, join host Deborah Rosenstein (Music), Reverend Matt Carriker (Center for Spiritual Life), and other special guests for carol singing and more holiday fun. Presented by the Department of Music, Arts Engagement, and the Center for Spiritual Life.

While we're sad that we can't be together this year, we hope you will enjoy sharing the experience with your loved ones. So warm up your favorite beverage, get cozy, and join the chorus.

To participate, click on this link (no registration is necessary).     

This year's Employee Recognition Awards will be a virtual event on Tuesday, Dec. 15 at 1 p.m. The event will be a webinar for the honorees and presenters. The recipients of the Louis Ennis Staff Award and the Louis and Helen Zirkel Staff Award will also be announced.

Remember to celebrate your colleagues by joining this Zoom event. Looking forward to a great event.

Due to an unprecedented use of Zoom and exponential growth of cloud recording storage, the retention period for Zoom cloud recordings will change starting with Spring 2021 semester. Effective Feb. 1, 2021, Zoom cloud recordings will be retained for 180 days. Any recordings older than 180 days (from the recording date) will be deleted from Zoom’s cloud storage service. The upcoming change will optimize the allotted Zoom cloud storage space for Brandeis Zoom users.

ITS is asking all Zoom users to voluntarily manage their cloud recordings to help storage space. Recordings that need to be permanently retained should be downloaded to a local hard drive or uploaded to cloud storage such as Box. Learn more about managing cloud recordings and how to download a Zoom recording.

Alternatively, users can manually upload media content to Echo360. For academic-related content, instructors can upload directly to Echo360 from within a LATTE course. Users who have an account on both Zoom and the Echo360 platform can take advantage of Zoom cloud recordings that are automatically copied to Echo360. Recordings will remain on the Echo360 platform for 18 months. Visit echo360.org to log in to your account and view recordings. While the Zoom cloud retention period is being reduced, users are encouraged to utilize Echo360 for hosting media content for an extended period of time.

ITS is working with various academic and administrative committees including IT Governance to ensure the community is aware of the upcoming change and provide assistance as needed. For questions or additional information, please contact the Technology Help Desk.

For questions or additional information, please contact the Technology Help Desk.

Amidst the many challenges that this year has brought, staff and faculty may be confronted by unexpected illness or loss, intense uncertainty or loneliness, or challenged by newfound tensions around personal and professional priorities. Recognizing the need for spiritual support among staff and faculty, the Center for Spiritual Life and Hillel are offering caring, pastorally-skilled, experienced listening, spiritual guidance and pastoral care.

Sign up for a 1-1 conversation today.

Life as a Brandeis undergrad, sports & antiracism, thinking about a medical career - and more.

If you have high school teens, Precollege Programs is hosting free webinars this fall and winter to help keep students informed and stay connected to the Brandeis community.

Upcoming webinars will cover a variety of topics, including: meeting members of the Waltham Group to discuss community service at the college level; as well as a lively presentation and conversation about the state of American Jewry following November's historic election.

We invite all high school teens to attend these free sessions - view upcoming webinars and register now using the Precollege event calendar.