Brandeis President Arthur Levine receives lifetime achievement award from global education investment collaborative
April 23, 2026 • General
President Arthur Levine was recently honored with a lifetime achievement award at the ASU+GSV Summit, an annual gathering of entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropists, educators, workforce leaders, and policy makers transforming the education and skills sector.
The summit and awards, held this year in San Diego, Calif. on April 13-15, are a collaboration between Global Silicon Valley and Arizona State University to promote equal access to the future, “grounded in the belief that scaled innovation across ‘PreK to Gray’ learning is the most powerful force for purpose, prosperity, and progress.”
In accepting the award, Levine shared wisdom he gleaned over the course of a long career, including that nothing matters more than friends and family and that it’s important to seek out mentors and employers you can learn from. He noted he has found success in playing to his own strengths and finding out where he fits in organizations, and said he believes that if you dream it, and if you want it bad enough, you can do it.
“I have always believed that,” Levine said. “First out of naivete, and now out of experience.”
As part of the award, Levine’s peers in educational technology and leadership – including Paul LeBlanc, former president of Southern New Hampshire University; Marjorie Hass, President of the Council of Independent Colleges and a member of the Brandeis Board of Trustees; Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun; Ann Kirschner, President and CEO of Comma Communications; John Katzman, founder and CEO of Noodle and a Brandeis trustee; Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Amit Sevak, CEO of ETS – spoke of his influence.
A national leader in higher education, Levine, a 1970 Brandeis graduate, previously served as president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and as president of Teachers College at Columbia University and Bradford College. He is the author of 14 books and numerous articles about the future of universities and the challenges facing higher education today.
He is currently leading the university as it implements The Brandeis Plan to Reinvent the Liberal Arts, a vision for the future of higher education that blends a rigorous liberal arts foundation with an intense focus on career readiness.
