On Sept. 25, Ronald D. Liebowitz announced that he is resigning from his job as President of Brandeis University after eight years in the role. With this announcement, the Board of Trustees notified the Brandeis community that upon Liebowitz’s resignation, which will be made effective on Nov. 1, Dr. Arthur E. Levine ’70 will take over as the university’s interim president. The length of Levine’s future interim presidency has not yet been made clear. Levine has had a long career in the world of education. In order to make sure the community is well-informed about the person being put in charge of their university, here are some of the facts and job history behind the school’s new interim president.

Levine graduated from Brandeis University in 1970, receiving his Bachelors of Arts (B.A.) degree in Biology. He will be Brandeis’ first president to hold an undergraduate degree from the institution (Jehuda Reinharz, PhD ’72, who received his doctorate from Brandeis, is the first president to have any degree from the university). Following his B.A., Levine got his PhD in sociology from State University of New York at Buffalo. After receiving his doctorate, from 1975 to 1982, Levine was a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation and the Carnegie Council for Policy Studies in Higher Education. Following this fellowship, Levine was the president of the now-defunct Bradford College for seven years, from 1982 to 1989.

Following his term at Bradford College, Levine served as the chair of Harvard University’s higher education program, along with being the chair for their Institute of Education Management and a senior lecturer for the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After his time at Harvard, Levine became the president of and professor of education at Teachers College, a part of Columbia University, the largest and oldest graduate school for education in the United States, from 1994 to 2006. Following this tenure, Levine was the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation from 2006 to 2019. The foundation is a non-profit meant for education enrichment and development. During his time as president of this non-profit, Levine designed and worked on a variety of fellowships and programs that enhanced the resources and opportunities available for many schools and teachers. Then, in 2020, Levine joined NYU’s Steinhardt Institute of Higher Learning Policy, where he taught a course entitled “Topics in Higher Education: The Future of Higher Education.” Along with these roles, Levine has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the United States’ oldest learned societies, since 2006.

In addition to the various positions that he has held, Levine is also the author or co-author of 13 books, with the majority of them focusing on the topic of college students. His books include “When Dreams and Heroes Died: A Portrait of Today’s College Students,” “Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College” (with Jana Nidiffer), “When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today’s College Student” (with Jeanette S. Cureton) and “The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future” (with Scott Van Pelt). Levine is also the author “Reform for Undergraduate Education,” which won him the American Council on Education’s Book of the Year award in 1974. Along with that recognition, he has also won the Educational Press Association’s Annual Award for Writing in 1981, 1989 and 1993. In addition, Levine has written numerous commentaries for various prestigious publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. 

Levine holds 26 honorary degrees and has been a consultant for over 250 universities. In addition, he also won the Council of Independent College’s Academic Leadership Award in 1996 and was called “One Of The Most Outstanding Leaders in the Academic Community” by Change Magazine. Throughout his adult life, Levine has devoted his time and energy towards the enhancement of schools and students, ever since his time at Brandeis. In a 2014 interview with Brandeis Magazine, Levine said, “I had a wonderful experience at Brandeis. I was a first-generation college student at the front end of the baby boomer generation, and Brandeis opened up a world I could never have imagined.”