The Justice

Media Credit: Robyn Spector McCaela Donovan, a student in the graduate Theater and Arts program, dances in "Suzuki," a Theater and Gym class.

At a graduate student open forum about the Brandeis 2020 Committee's proposals, master's students in Cultural Production, MFA students in Theater Design and Ph.D. students in Anthropology spoke to Provost Marty Krauss and Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe against the closure of their programs, while undergraduate students also expressed some skepticism about the proposals at a separate forum. Both forums took place last Thursday.

The Brandeis 2020 proposals, slated to save $3.8 million annually, include reorganizing the major in Hebrew Language and Literature and the minor in Yiddish and East European Jewish Culture as tracks within the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department, reorganizing the science departments into a new Division of Science to reduce overlapping research areas and terminating the Italian major.

As part of the Faculty Handbook-mandated deliberative process, the Faculty Senate, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Graduate Council reviewed the proposals last Thursday. The Faculty Senate has called for a special faculty-only meeting to discuss the proposals this Thursday. Krauss plans to release her final decisions about the proposals next Monday, before the Board of Trustees meeting March 24.

Krauss addressed the timeline for coming up with and reviewing the proposals by March 8 in both forums. "I think that this truncated process has allowed for an intensity of communication, and I don't see much need to go beyond that Monday." She added that when Board of Trustees member Meyer Koplow '72, chair of the Board of Trustees Budget and Finance Committee, set the plan for the committee in motion, he initially wanted the proposals to be released by early March before the University negotiated with him to get one more week.

Both Krauss and Jaffe addressed the factors affecting the decision-making process regarding the Brandeis 2020 proposals. "We are a research university, ... but I think the [Board of Trustees] feels that we already are not in graduate education in every area, so one of the ways to rein in our ambitions should be to think about being somewhat less ambitious about what we do in graduate education," Jaffe said.

Continued...

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