Humanities department chairs met with Provost Marty Krauss and Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe to discuss the allocation of space in the new Mandel Center for the Humanities last Wednesday. The meeting was an opportunity for the administration to discuss with the humanities chairs "what our thinking is about the process for identifying potential occupants for the building and to review with them what the original conception was for this building that excited the donor," Krauss said. She added that "the proposal [regarding the concept of the building] that was submitted to Mr. Mandel was not just for the humanities." "It was for the humanities and the social sciences," she said.

Chair of the Humanities Council Prof. Stephen Dowden (GRALL) said that nothing was decided upon at the meeting.

One certain occupant of the new building is the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, which received a gift of approximately $5 million to move into the new Mandel Center from the Schusterman family, who funded the construction of an additional section of the building, the Center's director, Prof. Ilan Troen (NEJS), said. Currently the Center is located in two offices in the Lown School of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.

Troen said, "We don't have offices for visiting faculty; [they] are scattered from Anthropology to Political Science. [A center] is a place where people can come together. We have no such place." He recalled that Lynn Schusterman came to the Center's offices and said, "Is this the Schusterman Center?"

The Mandel Foundation funded the construction of the building with $20 million. Construction on the Center began this past June, and the building is scheduled to open next fall, according to Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French in an Aug. 24 campuswide e-mail.

Krauss explained that the motivation behind the Center was to create a physical space to encourage deeper scholarship and research into many topics that are of interest to the humanities and social sciences in a building not defined by departments. Mandel "loved that idea," she said. "What he didn't love was the name that we gave it initially in the proposal. It was very long." The original proposal from the University had called it the Center for Integrated Research and Teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences, she said.

Shortening it to the Mandel Center for the Humanities "is in some ways a misnomer because it's not just for the humanities as narrowly defined, but rather a broader conception of the humanities and social sciences," Krauss said. She added that the "conception now is that on the Brandeis campus the building should serve those members of the humanities and social sciences, all of them, that have a potential interest in the mission of the Center."

Going forward from this idea, Krauss said, "The second task now is to go through a process to identify what combination of people and entities within the building would best exemplify the purpose of the building."

"The humanities chairs are really strongly interested that [the center] have only humanities, but humanities in the broadest sense," Dowden said. "A formulation people are using is humanities and the humanistic social sciences, and everybody is in full agreement on this. That would not include, in my personal view, any kind of nonhumanistic centers or nonhumanistic programs."

Dowden said that there had been no decision as to whether there would be a process through which departments or entities could make suggestions for the use of the space. He said that he had proposed to the provost that she form a panel of people in the humanities to consult about the issue.

He explained that "the problem is that the humanities cuts across departments-some departments, like mine, that are pure humanities-[but] there are some departments like American Studies that's kind of humanities and kind of social science."

Dowden added that "it's not just a question of what is humanities and what isn't. It's a question of what entities would work well together as a group." He also said that Krauss "is under a lot of pressure from other quarters, too," adding that the provost has control over all space on campus.

At the meeting, "clearly people felt like they needed more information. They were hearing bits of information and [the meeting] was a good opportunity to clarify where we stand right now," Krauss said.

She added that she has spoken with several units on campus prior to the meeting "about their interest in potentially moving into the building" and has received positive feedback from them. Krauss declined to specify which departments she had spoken to.

Because of other space needs on campus, she said, one of first duties was to engage in preliminary discussions to see if there "were ways in which [the new Mandel] building can help solve some persistent problems" with regard to space that she needed to address "consistent with the purpose of this building."

Krauss said that she engaged in those preliminary discussions with the aim of "still retaining a lot of unassigned space in the building."

She added that she thought "it was [her] exploration of those [space] issues that caused some concern as if there wasn't going to be a more open process about who would go into the building, and that's what we tried to clarify [at the meeting]. Yes, there will be a more open process."

Krauss said she did not think there would be a new panel or committee to assist in the decision making. She suggested that the steering committee for the Mandel Center, whose current main goal is the center's programming, could play a role. She said she anticipated reaching more definite decisions in six weeks to two months.

"Space is always a very contentious issue. It's always emotional and a difficult issue, so I understand why people can get concerned that they don't know enough and they want to know more, so we will try and provide lots more information," Krauss said.

With 30 faculty offices, the Mandel Center would open up more opportunities with regard to space, she said.

"It will allow for reconfigurations for some people; it will allow for some people to move from less than ideal space into ideal space, so it will give us a little more flexibility," she said.

Prof. James Mandrell (ROMS) said that he was disappointed with the outcome of the meeting.

"The issue really is that the administration isn't clear, and they haven't been open and frank with us about what they're trying to do, and there's a disagreement between what they're calling the building and what they're now saying that they want to with the space," Mandrell said.