School of Arts and Sciences

For Students

Dear Students,

I am occasionally asked what I do in my role as a dean and, more specifically, what my typical day is like. Though I usually answer that there is no such thing as a typical day in the life of a dean, the truth is that it would be just as accurate to say that most of my days are filled with meetings. Meetings with my team, meetings with faculty, meetings with senior leadership, meetings with staff, meetings with students, meetings with visitors to the campus, standing meetings, ad hoc meetings. You get the picture.

But when I moved into administrative work, I made a promise to myself that I would not completely forego one of the primary reasons I went into academia to begin with, which was how it would provide me with regular opportunities to learn new things, not just in my chosen discipline of literary studies, but across the spectrum of scholarly and creative pursuits. In the last week or so I’ve been delighted and enriched by my attendance at a number of the events that happen regularly on our campus, and I want to share with you some of those experiences as a way of celebrating the vibrant intellectual and cultural life at Brandeis.

I joined a standing-room-only crowd of students, faculty, and staff at Rapaporte Treasure Hall to listen to a powerful conversation between AAAS Professor Shoniqua Roach and the extraordinary Hortense Spillers, groundbreaking Black Feminist scholar and Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor at Vanderbilt University (who earned her PhD in English from Brandeis in 1974). The exchange, so skillfully managed by Professor Roach, was moving and far-reaching, touching upon several aspects of Professor Spillers’s enormously influential scholarship and her important centering of gender and sexuality within the broader discourse of critical race studies. They left us with many rich and provocative ideas to chew on further.

I was completely riveted by a brilliant presentation by Dr. Pamela E. Harris, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, on “The Role of Undergraduate Research Experiences in Developing a Sense of Belonging.” Dr. Harris regaled us with her personal story as a Mexican-American immigrant and first-generation college student (whose parents had not completed high school), charting her path from taking 7 th -grade level math in her first year of community college to earning her PhD and her long romance with the beautiful science of mathematics. Her enthusiasm for her work was infectious and, even though I’m sure I didn’t fully grasp some of the mathematical concepts she discussed, it was impossible not to appreciate how the deep engagement she brought to her work with students was central to the success of those students, many of whom have similar backgrounds to her own. It was a truly inspirational event.

As part of its series celebrating the recent publication of Professor Ramie Targoff’s widely heralded book, Shakespeare’s Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance, the Mandel Center for the Humanities hosted a panel of three of our Brandeis colleagues, Professor Matthew Fraleigh (GRALL), Professor Ilana Szobel (NEJS), and Professor Harleen Singh (GRALL/WGS), on the topic of “Women’s Writing in a Global Frame.” We were privileged to listen in on a rich conversation about how gender informs and shapes literary production in early modern Sinitic Japanese poetry, contemporary Israeli and Palestinian texts by disabled women writers pushing for visibility and inclusion within their communities, and how the category of “the literary” demands a broader scope within the context of South Asian women artists. It was, alas, all too brief a time to delve deeply into any of these large and important areas of inquiry, but the discussion left me hungry for more, and I look forward to continuing these conversations.

On a recent evening I attended a fascinating lecture by former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, and Ambassador to the European Union, Stuart Eizenstat, who came to Brandeis to talk about his new book, The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World. Having served in six administrations (both Democratic and Republican) and played significant roles in some of the most important peace negotiations of the last five decades, there are few career diplomats who could offer the broad and deep perspective on the role of the US in international affairs. In both his formal presentation and the ensuing conversation with Professor Eva Bellin, Ambassador Eizenstat offered rich and surprising insights into the absolutely crucial role thoughtful, empathetic, open-minded and sustained diplomacy must play. As we are all too painfully aware now, these lessons seem more important than ever.

And speaking of timely, I also paid a visit to the Kniznick Gallery in the Women’s Studies Research Center to take in their Fall exhibit, “Wrongs & RIGHTS,” which has been co-curated by Laura Dvorkin and Maynard Monrow of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection. Bringing together five decades of work supporting the intergenerational battle for reproductive rights, the exhibit presents more than twenty pieces across a range of media created by artists from diverse backgrounds and identities to present this powerful struggle in moving and meaningful ways. Definitely worth a visit!

Of course, there are many more events, performances, and exhibits like these throughout the year and my examples are not meant to suggest that others are less important, interesting, or valuable. I do think it’s a helpful reminder, however, of what a rich, intellectually stimulating community we have at Brandeis and how fortunate we are to have colleagues engaged in such interesting work and with connections to others from outside our own campus.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey

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