READER COMMENTARY: Admins made poor decision on AMST

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Posted: 5/19/09

To the Editor:

Looking back on my years at Brandeis, I remember both the good and the bad. Unfortunately, a lot of the bad that sticks in my mind concerns the University's administration and its inability to make responsible and well-received decisions.

During my years, it was the Classical Studies department that Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe targeted, favoring the more politically correct track of East Asian Studies. Now, American Studies, one of Brandeis' signature departments, faces radical changes at the hands of incompetent leadership. Am I surprised? No. I do believe, however, that the students benefiting from such a wonderful program can rise up and educate the ignorant Adam Jaffe and the out-of-touch Jehuda Reinharz on the value of AMST and the rich contributions that the department has made to the lives and continuing educations of its alumni.

Brandeis has a strange setup when it comes to what is labeled "political science" at most other high-caliber institutions. We have a Politics department, an American Studies department and a History department. Together, these three departments, though distinct and valuable alone, look more like the typical academic polisci setup. The beauty of the system, however, is that each department enables students to dive much deeper into their personal areas of most passionate interest. AMST professors such as Jacob "Jerry" Cohen, Steve Whitfield and Brian Donahue all touched my education in invaluable ways. Others in the department guided my now-wife through the major and helped her create a second independent major that fit her utmost passion.

Now in the name of a few dollars that Jaffe and Reinharz (and yes, the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee) want to save, they make yet another rash and panicked decision-first the Rose Art Museum, and now academics intricate to the quality of credentials handed out each May. The AMST faculty is not only made up of published scholars. It is made up of accessible, grounded and simply invaluable teachers of school and teachers of life. Brandeisians of all time-past, present and future-cannot allow the trend of irresponsible leadership that has prevailed under Jehuda Reinharz to continue. Yes, he is a fantastic fundraiser, but the Brandeis community needs responsible, farsighted and in-touch leadership before it needs money. Financial stability is important, but it is time for feel-good leadership and rash, thoughtless decision-making to exit.

To a Brandeis strong in its academic principles and mission-not just in its operating accounts!

-Jason Levine '06