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Brandeis University
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brandeis University
("Hebrew for "Truth")
Established: 1948
Type: Private
Endowment: US $770 million
President: Jehuda Reinharz
Faculty: 326 full-time, 139 part-time
Staff: 961 full-time, 216 part-time
Undergraduates: 3,216
Postgraduates: 1,872
Location: Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
Campus: Suburban, 235 acres (1.00 km²)
Colors: Blue and White
Mascot: Ollie, the Owl (named for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.)
Athletics: NCAA Division III UAA
Website: www.brandeis.edu
Brandeis University (pronounced: brand-ice) is a private research
university with a liberal arts focus,[1] located in Waltham,
Massachusetts, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner
of Waltham, nine miles (14 km) west of Boston. The University has an
enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate
students.[2] It was ranked by the U.S. News and World Report as the
number 31 national university in the United States.[3]
Brandeis was founded in 1948 as a coeducational institution on the site
of the former Middlesex University. The Heller School for Social Policy
and Management, founded in 1959, is noteworthy for its graduate programs
in social policy, social work, and international development[citation
needed].
The university is named for the first Jewish Justice of the United
States Supreme Court, Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856–1941).
Brandeis is also sponsor of the Wien International Scholarship for
non-American students.
Athletics
The Brandeis University athletic teams The Judges compete in the
University Athletic Association (UAA) conference of the NCAA Division
III.
Brandeis has 10 varsity teams for both men and women, and 1 coed varsity
team. The varsity teams are in:
Baseball
Basketball
Cross Country
Fencing
Golf
Indoor and Outdoor Track
Sailing
Soccer
Softball
Swimming and Diving
Tennis
Volleyball
Brandeis also has more than 18 club sports, including rugby union,
ultimate, crew, lacrosse and martial arts.
Brandeis has had an impressive list of coaches for its athletic teams.
Bud Collins coached the men's tennis team in the late 1950s and early
1960s. Chris Ford (2001-03) was the third former Boston Celtics player
to become head coach at Brandeis, following K.C. Jones (1967-70) and Bob
Brannum (1970-86). Benny Friedman, who was enshrined in the Pro Football
Hall of Fame in 2005, served as athletic director from 1949 to 1961 and
head football coach from 1951 to 1959, when the football team was
disbanded due to high costs. Pete Varney, a former Major League Baseball
player for the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves is the current head
coach of the baseball team.
Nelson Figueroa, currently a starting pitcher for the New York Mets , is
the only Brandeis alum to play in Major League Baseball.
Brandeis graduate Tim Morehouse ('00) is the school's first and only
Olympian so far. He will compete in the 2008 Olympics in Men's Saber in
Beijing China. He was also an alternate on the US Olympic Men's Saber
team sent to Athens in 2004. Tim is a five-time US national team member
and has been ranked as high as 11th in the world and 1st in the US. The
Brandeis Judges consistently send many fencers to the New England
Regional NCAA championships, often with several continuing on to the
NCAA National Championships.
The Brandeis Men's Soccer team won the ECAC Championship in the
2006/2007 season. The Women's Soccer team followed up in the 2007/2008
season with their first ECAC Championship since the program started.
History of Brandeis
Founders
Names associated with the conception of Brandeis include Israel
Goldstein, George Alpert, C. Ruggles Smith, Albert Einstein, and Abram
L. Sachar.
Usen Castle, the most recognized building on campusC. Ruggles Smith was
the son of Dr. John Hall Smith, founder of Middlesex University, who had
died in 1944. In 1946, the university was on the brink of financial
collapse. At the time, it was one of the few medical schools in the U.
S. that did not impose a Jewish quota; but it had never been able to
secure AMA accreditation—in part, its founder believed, due to
institutional antisemitism in the AMA[5]—and, as a result, Massachusetts
had all but shut it down.
Israel Goldstein was a prominent rabbi in New York from 1918 until 1960
(when he immigrated to Israel), and an influential Zionist. Before 1946,
he had headed the New York Board of Rabbis, the Jewish National Fund,
and the Zionist Organization of America, and helped found the National
Conference of Christians and Jews. On his eightieth birthday, in Israel,
Yitzhak Rabin and other leaders of the government, the parliament, and
the Zionist movement assembled at his house to pay him tribute.[6] But
among all his accomplishments, the one chosen by the New York Times to
headline his obituary was: "Rabbi Israel Goldstein, A Founder of
Brandeis."[7]
C. Ruggles Smith, desperate for a way to save something of Middlesex
University, learned of a New York committee headed by Goldstein that was
seeking a campus to establish a Jewish-sponsored secular university, and
approached Goldstein with a proposal to give the Middlesex campus and
charter to Goldstein's committee, in the hope that his committee might
"possess the apparent ability to reestablish the School of Medicine on
an approved basis." Goldstein was concerned about being saddled with a
failing medical school, but excited about the opportunity to secure a
100-acre (0.40 km²) "campus not far from New York, the premier Jewish
community in the world, and only 10 miles (16 km) from Boston, one of
the important Jewish population centers."[5] Goldstein agreed to accept
Smith's offer.
Goldstein then proceeded to recruit George Alpert, a Boston lawyer with
fund-raising experience as national vice president of the United Jewish
Appeal.
George Alpert (1898-September 11, 1988) was a Boston lawyer who had
worked his way through Boston University School of Law and cofounded the
firm of Alpert and Alpert. His firm had a long association with the New
York, New Haven and Hartford railroad, of which he was to become
president from 1956 to 1961[8][9] (He is best known today as the father
of Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass)[4]). He was influential in Boston's
Jewish community. His Judaism "tended to be social rather than
spiritual."[10] He was involved in assisting children displaced from
Germany.[11]. Alpert was to be chairman of Brandeis from 1946 to 1954,
and a director from 1946 until his death.[8]
Goldstein also recruited Albert Einstein, whose involvement, while
stormy and short-lived, was extremely important, as it drew national
attention to the nascent university. The founding organization was named
"The Albert Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning, Inc." and early
press accounts emphasized his involvement.
The Einstein incident
The origin of what was to become Brandeis was closely associated with
the name of Albert Einstein from February 5, 1946,[12] when he agreed to
the establishment of the Albert Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning,
Inc., until June 22, 1947, when he withdrew his support.[13]
The trustees offered to name the university after Einstein in the summer
of 1946, but Einstein declined, and on July 16, 1946 the board decided
the university would be named after Louis Brandeis.[14]
On August 19, the plans for the new university were announced by
prominent rabbi and Zionist Israel Goldstein, president of the Albert
Einstein Foundation. Goldstein said that the planned university was to
be supported by contributions from Jewish organizations and individuals,
and stressed the point that the institution was to be without quotas and
open to all "regardless of race, color, or creed." The institution was
to be "deeply conscious both of the Hebraic tradition of Torah looking
upon culture as a birthright, and of the American ideal of an educated
democracy."[15] In later stories the New York Times' capsule
characterization of Brandeis was "a Jewish-supported non-quota
university."[13]
Einstein and Goldstein clashed almost immediately. Einstein objected to
what he thought was excessively expansive promotion, and to Goldstein's
sounding out Abram L. Sachar as a possible president without consulting
Einstein. Einstein took great offense at Goldstein's having invited
Cardinal Spellman to participate in a fundraising event. Einstein
resigned on September 2, 1946. Believing the venture could not succeed
without Einstein, Goldstein quickly agreed to resign himself, and
Einstein returned; his brief departure was publicly denied.[16][13]
The Foundation acquired the campus of the Middlesex University in
Waltham, which was almost defunct except for the Middlesex Veterinary
and Medical College. The charter of this small and marginal operation
was transferred to the Foundation along with the campus. The Foundation
had pledged to continue operating it, but began to feel that it would
never be more than third-rate, while its operating costs were burdensome
at a time when the Foundation was trying to raise funds. Disputes arose
whether to try to improve it—as Einstein wished[17]—or to terminate
it.[16] Einstein also became alarmed by press announcements that
exaggerated the school's success at fundraising, and on June 22, 1947 he
made a final break with the enterprise. The veterinary school was
closed, despite "indignant and well-publicized protests and
demonstrations by the disappointed students and their parents".[16]
George Alpert, a lawyer responsible for much of the organizational
effort, gave another reason for the break: Einstein's desire to offer
the presidency of the school to left-wing scholar Harold J. Laski.
Alpert characterized Laski as "a man utterly alien to American
principles of democracy, tarred with the Communist brush."[12] He said,
"I can compromise on any subject but one: that one is Americanism."
Six years later, Einstein would decline the offer of an honorary degree
from Brandeis, writing to Brandeis president Abram L. Sachar that "what
happened in the stage of preparation of Brandeis University was not at
all caused by a misunderstanding and cannot be made good any more."[12]
Historians Slater and Slater commented that "plagued by infighting,
Brandeis in early 1948 seemed a project in serious trouble. Nonetheless,
the school opened in the fall with 107 students." They list the opening
of Brandeis as one of their "Great Moments in Jewish History."[18]
In 1954 Brandeis inaugurated a graduate program and became fully
accredited.[18]
Other incidents
The student takeover of Ford Hall
From January 8-18, 1969 about 70 students captured and held
then-student-center, Ford Hall.[19] The student protesters renamed the
school "Malcolm X University" for the duration of the siege
(distributing buttons with the new name and logo) and issued a list of
ten demands for better minority representation on campus.[20] Most of
these demands were subsequently met. Ford Hall was demolished in August
2000 to make way for a new student center, the Shapiro Center which had
its groundbreaking October 25, 2000, and was opened and dedicated
October 3, 2002. |
