The university announced that it has begun preparations for its 75th anniversary, according to an email sent to community members by Patsy Fisher, Vice President of Alumni Relations and Dan Kim Senior Vice President of Communications, Marketing and External Relations on Dec. 20. The university will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2023.
“Brandeis University will celebrate its 75th Anniversary in 2023, and we want to do all that we can to make sure it will be a memorable and momentous year,” wrote Fisher and Kim.
The university was founded in 1948, starting with 107 students and 13 faculty members, according to the university’s Our Story page. Brandeis was started by an American Jewish community that offered education to Jewish people, other ethnic and racial minorities and women. All of which were groups that experienced discrimination in higher education at the time, according to the university’s page.
For the 75th anniversary of the university’s founding, the university has assembled an anniversary staff planning and work group, according to the email. The committee is composed of 21 members of university faculty and staff, according to the Staff Planning and Work Group document. Fisher and Kim serve as co-chairs to the committee.
The committee will be responsible for creating “an outline and timetable of all activities, projects, and events that will take place as part of the celebration,” according to the email. This outline proposal of the committee will be presented to President Liebowitz in mid-February 2022, wrote Fisher and Kim.
“We want to generate as many creative ideas as we can and create a plan for celebrating the anniversary in a coordinated way across campus and beyond. In order to do those things, we need your help,” according to the email.
Brandeis community members were asked to submit ideas or plans they would like to see at the 75th-anniversary celebration next year, according to the email. For the commemoration of the university’s 75th year, the university would like to honor its “nostalgia and history, along with a bright optimism about what the future holds for this great university,” according to the email.
The university would like to involve community members in this process to deepen community engagement and get people excited for the celebration. According to the email, suggestions for the celebration should revolve around these prompts: what is the essence of Brandeis, and how should we celebrate it and how do we reflect on Brandeis’ storied past and look to its future.
To submit ideas to the committee for review, community members can use a form embedded in the email. According to the form, community members can submit ideas for each question separately. The form requests that individuals filling it out put in separate entries for separate ideas and ask that community members do not submit multiple ideas for each prompt in one entry. Community members are able to submit more than once on the form, according to the form.
“We know that, as members of our community, you care about Brandeis and have a deep commitment to the university. We want to tap into that energy—and your creativity—as we begin planning for the 75th Anniversary celebration,” wrote Kim and Fisher.
The form will be left open through Feb. 1. The university asks that community members do not submit the same idea more than once, according to the email.
