Brandeis analyzed their organization, governance and academic programs in the second part of a Sept. 2018 self-study conducted as part of the university’s reaccreditation process by the New England Commissions of Higher Education (NECHE).
This self-study allows Brandeis to reflect on the nine standards provided by the NECHE. These standards of accreditation establish the criteria for institutional quality, according to the Brandeis website, with each standard looking at a specific aspect of institutional quality.
Standard III: Organization and Governance
The third standard, organization and governance, ensures that each institution has a sustainable environment that is able to encourage teaching, learning, service, scholarship, research and creative activity, according to the NECHE website.
Following the start of Liebowitz’s presidency, new personnel filled five major senior administration positions, including the Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration.
At the start of the 2018-19 academic year, the new leadership team was finally in place, according to the self-study. Since this time, a number of other positions have been opened up and filled, including Vice President of Operations and Vice President of Student Affairs, according to earlier articles by The Hoot.
Brandeis’ Board of Trustees is the governing body of the university, with 32 voting members, and a number of additional non-voting members. The five main responsibilities of the Board of Trustees revolve around administration, faculty, students, academic programs and finances. The responsibilities include approving tenure for professors, awarding degrees to students (including honorary degrees) and approving all the budgets that the university utilizes.
In fall 2016, the board also saw significant changes after an internal review conducted with members of the board and an external source, Richard Chait, a professor of education emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The board approved the changes in September 2016.
According to the self-study, the changes include abolishing the former Executive Committee and assigning its responsibilities to a new committee, called the Coordinating Committee. The Coordinating Committee oversees all other standing committees. There was also a consolidation from 10 standing committees to six, “allowing committees to have longer meetings with more extensive examination of issues,” according to the self-study.
The chair of the Faculty Senate was also added to the board as a non-voting faculty member. This seat was added following uproar from faculty and members of the Brandeis community about a $5 million executive compensation given to former President Jehuda Reinhartz, according to an article by Inside Higher Ed. “That seat will allow faculty members to be in the loop and to put a president’s pay in a context as the [compensation] committee does its work,” the article added.
In terms of the other forms of governance of Brandeis, besides high senior executive officers that report directly to Liebowitz, the President’s Management Council has other senior leadership that regularly meets with Liebowitz to discuss major issues and coordinate activities.
At the same time the board was reorganizing, there were changes to the senior administration at Brandeis when former President Fredrick Lawrence was replaced by current President Ronald Liebowitz in July 2016.
University governance bodies also have representation by both undergraduate and graduate students. Two undergraduate students and one graduate student serve on the Board of Trustees as non-voting members. The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC)—charged with determining the new general education requirements that the class of 2023 will first experience—has three undergraduate students and one graduate student. And the Committee for the Support of Teaching has two undergraduates and two graduates. This committee works towards “efforts to improve teaching and learning on campus and mediate between the expectations of accreditation bodies and the norms of faculty,” according to Brandeis’ website.
All the undergraduate student representatives are voted on by the undergraduate student body. Graduate representative to the Board are typically members of the Executive Board for the Graduate Student Association, according to their website. Members of the Executive Board are voted on by the graduate student population.
Standard Four: The Academic Program
The fourth standard, The Academic Program, looks to ensure academic quality and integrity for all academic programs on campus and what can be done to better execute teaching methods for both undergraduate and graduate degree programs, according to the NECHE website. It also looks towards general education requirements set forth by the respective university.
The university noted in the study that one of the biggest problems that faced them in the past years was the general education curriculum, which has not been reviewed in 25 years, the self-study stated. Brandeis’ basic premise on general education is “providing Brandeis students with a set of knowledge and skills that will prepare them to navigate and succeed in a rapidly changing world,” according to the study.
Starting in fall 2019, all new students at Brandeis will take part in a new general education program. The new curriculum has five major themes under which all students have to take courses, according to an earlier article by The Hoot. This curriculum will undergo a fifth-year assessment by the UCC in 2024 as part of an internal review conducted every three to five years.
Internal reviews are conducted by the UCC and are limited to interdepartmental programs in the arts and sciences. External reviews are for departments, graduate programs and centers/institutes, states the self-study. All existing academic programs must undergo various reviews, both internal and external. Both forms of review include “a self-study by the academic unit (department/program or center/institute), examination of relevant documents by the review committee and meetings with faculty and students,” according to the self-study.
Brandeis is also working toward improving degree audits, which are available in some, but not all undergraduate majors. Degree audits demonstrate the progress a student has made on completing their major/minor, according to the Brandeis website. These audit improvements will also be made in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to expand online degree audits to the master’s programs and refine the online degree audits that are currently at the Heller School.
Undergraduate Degree Programs
The self study also reviewed undergraduate degree programs at Brandeis, and found that faculty teach all classes at Brandeis, besides basic calculus, pre-calculus and half of the University Writing Seminar (UWS) courses. Faculty members oversee all curriculum given to students.
60 percent of classes have fewer than 20 students, 15 percent less than 30 and 10 percent have more than 50 students, the self-study reported.
Students have the opportunity to major in 42 different subjects on campus. They also have the opportunity to study abroad with over 350 different approved programs in 70 countries to fulfill university requirements and 38 percent of students will have gone abroad by the time they graduate.
There are three Brandeis-led programs: Brandeis in Copenhagen, Brandeis in Siena and Brandeis in The Hague, according to the study, however, the Hague program was cancelled in August 2018 just before the publication of the study on Sept. 14, according to an earlier Hoot article.
This is the second part of a series that looks into Brandeis’ self-study.
