Brandeis Magazine
From the President
What Sets Brandeis Apart

Photo Credit: Gaelen Morse

Interim President Arthur Levine (Photo credit: Mark Finkenstaedt)
It is an honor to join — or, more accurately, rejoin — the Brandeis community of superb faculty, students, and staff as interim president. I owe an extraordinary amount to this university: my friends, my family, and my vocation. My closest friends today are people I met at Brandeis. They introduced me to my wife, Linda Fentiman. And I fell in love with the field of higher education at Brandeis.
I have spent my career studying colleges and universities. My work has taken me to hundreds of campuses around the world. Brandeis is different from them, not just because it’s my alma mater or because I’m the interim president. It is special because it is an institution that changes students’ lives. Alumni often speak about their “Brandeis experience” passionately, sometimes with reverence, and generally for much too long.
So, when I was thinking about what to write in this introductory letter to the community, the subject I kept coming back to was explaining why this is true.
Brandeis is unique in at least three ways. First, it is an institution that joins an outstanding liberal arts college and a preeminent research university in a manner that enhances the quality of both. This is a rare achievement. Typically, one dominates, generally the research university, and determines the institution’s character and priorities. In this sense, Brandeis is a unicorn, at once a college and a research university; the integrity of both is sustained, and each enriches the other.
Second, Brandeis, a nonsectarian institution established by the Jewish community, is imbued with the values of its founders — a love of learning, a dedication to academic excellence, an antipathy to hate and discrimination, and a commitment to repairing the world through social justice and social action. Beginning with the name of the university, these values are communicated to every Brandeis student inside and outside the classroom through the university’s teaching, research, and public service, and the community fostered on campus.
Third, Brandeis is a trailblazer, intellectually and socially. This has been true since its inception as an elite university for those discriminated against by traditional higher education, and it continues today. This spirit suffuses the campus. It’s attracted renowned scholars and promising academics early in their careers to the Brandeis faculty. They have produced leading-edge research, prepared succeeding generations of leaders, and garnered the most prestigious awards the academy grants. From the very first graduating class in 1952, known as “the pioneers,” this environment has attracted students who want to study with society’s greatest and most innovative minds. They taught Brandeis students how to think critically, creatively, ethically, and out of the box.
I believe these three attributes — the university’s structure and balance, the values that define the university, and its path-blazing history and commitment to social justice — constitute the Brandeis experience, and are the reason our alumni so treasure their time here. They received an education no other college had the capacity to provide.
I look forward to chatting with you about Brandeis in the days and months ahead.
Best,
Arthur Levine ’70
Interim President