Brandeis Stories

Photos By Heratch Ekmekjian, Dan Holmes, Ashley McCabe, and Gaelen Morse
October 11, 2024

Nearly 700 Brandeisians returned to campus at the end of September for an Alumni Weekend celebration full of camaraderie, learning, and cherished tradition.

The festivities kicked off with Alumni College, a series of faculty-led panels exploring everything from innovation in engineering to art and architecture throughout the Jewish diaspora. Two panels in particular stood out for their popularity and timeliness. In “The Implications of Gaza,” four faculty members in the field of Middle Eastern studies exchanged ideas concerning the Israel-Hamas war. Later, former CNN journalist Bill Schneider ’66, H’08, and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Eileen McNamara discussed the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Meanwhile, the engineering open house and panel offered alumni a look at how the university is evolving its academics. Faculty shared how the new program will be unique in connecting the world class research already being done on campus with existing humanities and liberal arts programs. The idea? To produce a new generation of socially-conscious engineers dedicated to solving real-world problems.

On top of the amazing academic discussions, the weekend was as much about having fun and catching up with old friends.

At the Legacy Luncheon, families with parents, grandparents, and kids who went to or currently attend Brandeis got together to celebrate their shared bonds.

The weekend was also about celebrating alumni achievement. To that end, President Ron Liebowitz recognized the recipients of the Alumni Association’s annual awards, including the BOLD Rising Star Awards – which recognize alumni who have graduated within the last ten years and are already leaders in their fields – and two other awards recognizing outstanding volunteer service to the university. Most notably, the Alumni Achievement Awards – the university’s highest alumni recognition – were given to Adam Cheyer ’88, the creator of Siri, Martha Kanter ’70, the former under secretary of education under President Obama, and Leroy Ashwood ’71, an advocate for U.S. veterans.

But few things captured the spirit of the three days quite like the confluence of Alumni Weekend, Family Weekend, and Homecoming. Parents got to see their childrens’ college lives. Alumni got to reconnect with one another and spend time exploring their own favorite corners of campus. And throughout the weekend, students were out and about playing lawn games, selling arts and crafts, competing on the soccer field, and bustling to and from class, keeping alive some of the very things attendees were on campus to celebrate.