Academic Excellence descriptive transcript
Text on screen reads: “Brandeis at 75.” Flags are shown in the background.
Text reads: “Excellence in Academics.” A group of students are shown sitting in the grass with open books in their laps.
Joel Christenen ’01, MA’01, Professor of Classical and Early Mediterranean Studies, is shown seated in an auditorium. He says, “As someone who’s been both a student at Brandeis and has taught here, I think that what makes it different from other institutions is both its scale and I think the spirit of the institution. Brandeis faculty are publishing and teaching and accomplishing at an R1 level.” Footage of faculty speaking at podiums and addressing classrooms full of students is shown.
Shantanu Jadhav, Associate Professor of Psychology, is shown seated in an auditorium. He says, “Brandeis is an institution of excellence for not just academic research, but also social justice, graduate and undergraduate training, and just as a place for all the things that make human civilization move ahead.” Footage of lab equipment and students protesting is shown.
Tory Fair, Professor of Sculpture, is shown. She says, “Brandeis is a place where you can really test out your ideas and a place where you can experiment. It's a place where you can really expand into who you think you might want to be.” Students are seen at work in the classroom.
Lisa Joffe P’23, Director, Shulamit Reniharz Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, is seated in a room full of books. She says, “The students are wonderful. The students have a lot of energy. They come to class well prepared, which is a real boon for an instructor.” Students are shown working on computers and walking through campus.
Joel says, “I had more students come to office hours in my first semester at Brandeis than I had in nine years at my previous institution. They were there all the time.” Students pack a classroom auditorium.
Yuval Evri, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, says, “The students are moving between different kinds of disciplines. They can take different kinds of courses, different kinds of majors. You end up in class with students coming from different departments, from music, from anthropology, from history, from science. It makes for very interesting class debates.” Students are shown speaking and writing in class.
Seth Fraden PhD’87, Professor of Physics, seated in front of a piano, says, “The size of Brandeis is very conducive to these cross-disciplinary ventures.”
Tory Fair says, “And that’s wonderful, because it brings into my studio, the sculpture studio, I often have people who are studying science, anthropology, environmental science. That makes for a very diverse dialogue when it comes to discussing the projects and the prompts.” Students are shown working on sculpture and other art projects.
Lisa Joffe says, “And they come sort of willing to take risks, willing to engage in difficult conversations, and be generous with each other, and have faith with each other, so we can talk about hard and challenging topics in ways that are really fruitful.”
Ramie Targoff, Professor of Humanities and English, seated in front of a piano, says, “Brandeis has always had a nice balance between the sciences and the social sciences and the humanities and I think it’s really important that we keep emphasizing that as we move forward. I hope in other words it's not just that science is advancing at a rapid pace. We need to kind of focus on making sure the humanities keep up and steward that progress as we move forward and I think this university is well poised to do that.”
Text reads, “Celebrating Brandeis at 75.” The Brandeis University logo is shown. Text reads, “Visit us at Brandeis.edu/75.”