Plans for the Future
Jan. 23, 2025
Dear Fellow Brandeisians,
Welcome back after winter break. I hope you are enjoying the snow more than I am.
I am writing to share some ideas about Brandeis’ future which I presented at the faculty meeting last Friday– to get your reactions and to let you know that I will be scheduling a Town Hall in February to discuss them with you.
I have spoken to several hundred students and attended many student events since coming to Brandeis in November. I've enjoyed our conversations. I am especially grateful to the students who allowed me to join them for lunch in Sherman and Usdan.
Here’s what you said to me:
You told me you wanted Brandeis to remain one of the most highly esteemed universities in the world for the quality of its students, faculty, and staff. You wanted Brandeis to remain a world class research and liberal arts university. You wanted Brandeis to remain a nonsectarian Jewish university imbued with the values of its founders. You wanted Brandeis to excel at preparing students to thrive in today and tomorrow’s world. You wanted a refurbishment of the physical plant, a richer student life, and a greater focus on careers.
In response to what you told me, I want you to know that Brandeis is planning for a capital campaign focusing on facilities, student life, faculty, academic programs, and graduate and undergraduate student support. Jordan Tannenbaum ‘72, who led the billion dollar campaign for the U.S. Holocaust Museum has returned to Brandeis to lead Institutional Advancement and prepare for our campaign.
Beyond this, the world is changing profoundly and rapidly as we move from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, knowledge economy–the world you will live in.
Accordingly, I proposed to the faculty that Brandeis lead higher education into this new era and create the programs all students will need to live successfully in the global, digital, knowledge economy. I proposed three initiatives.
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Expand Brandeis’s focus on career, life planning, and preparation for the future, this would begin with orientation and continue throughout college and beyond. This would include internships and work experiences– as well as a suite of liberal arts and work-related competencies (skills and knowledge) in areas such as communication, data analytics, critical thinking, A.I. literacy, and many more. Students would be awarded certifications or micro-credentials for mastering them. They would be recorded on a second transcript that could be sent to potential employers and graduate schools.
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Rethink the Brandeis Core to focus on the knowledge, abilities, and values that all Brandeis students need to live successfully in the global, digital, knowledge economy.
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Reorganize the academic enterprise, creating four new units, reporting to the provost - 1) Arts, Humanities and Culture, 2) Science, Engineering and Technology, 3) Economics and Business, and 4) Social Sciences and Social Policy. Every unit consists of liberal arts disciplines and their practical applications.
Taken together, enacting these changes will differentiate Brandeis from every other university in the country. Brandeis will indeed be the university that reinvented liberal arts education.
I’m looking forward to our conversation, and to charting the future of Brandeis together.
Sincerely,
Arthur Levine ’70
Interim President