On Tuesday, Feb. 25, Interim President Arthur Levine '70 held a town hall to discuss his plans for the University. With approximately 40 students present, the town hall began with the Brandeis Jewish Bund handing a copy of their list of demands to Levine — originally shared during a Feb. 5 vigil — and shaking his hand. The President pocketed the paper without reading it and began the meeting. A request was made that no recordings be taken of the event to honor students' privacy. 

Levine began with a short speech addressing his time at the University so far, executive orders made by President Trump, budget cuts and more. He expressed his love for the University. In his first three months he has met hundreds of students, staff and faculty, surveying people at the dining halls about the change they want to see. He mentioned a want for more student activities and more “fun” at Brandeis. Levine addressed Trump’s campaign to ban diversity, equity and inclusion policies by reassuring students that Brandeis is committed to preserving DEI in its curiculum and values. Levine asserted that Brandeis exists as a college because of such policies, even before they were called DEI. He predicted that President Trump’s cuts in overhead rates, a new law under the Trump administration that limits the funding that universities can use towards the costs of maintaining their campuses, won’t impact Brandeis after the case is heard in court. In discussing immigration, Levine asserted that Brandeis’ job is to support and protect international students and their families in any way possible. 

Levine described the job outlined for him by the Board of Trustees in three points: developing a path for the next decade and beyond, developing a job description for his successor and helping to choose his successor. He asserted that these tasks would be impossible without the support of students. 

Levine declared that Brandeis needs to stop performing budget cuts, as rather than having a budget problem, the University has a revenue problem. The admissions office will now be reporting directly to Levine’s office and Brandeis will begin a capital campaign effort. The money, said Levine, will be used for scholarships, student life, various activities, more faculty, and enhancing the labs, to list a few. He asserted this ambition, stating that success is not enough as the rate at which the world is changing is accelerating.

In his predictions for the future, Levine mentioned an “extraordinary demographic cliff” in which 20-25% of colleges will either close or convert into online degree programs. What will remain are universities and liberal arts colleges: Brandeis is both. Brandeis will need to innovate in order to keep up with societal and political change, starting with rebuilding the Brandeis Core requirements. Levine added that the new core requirements will prepare students for a “global digital knowledge economy.” There will be an increased focus on career training, starting at orientation. He proposed creating a second transcript, one that records the “micro-credentials” students have mastered, which would make students more employable by providing an official record of their mastered skills. 

Additional changes include general reorganization of the faculty, focusing on reducing layers of administration and connecting the Brandeis International Business School, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management and the College of Arts and Science. Separately from these schools, the proposed four units of study; Arts, Humanities, Culture; Science, Technology, Engineering; Economics, Business; and Social Science would have greater opportunities to become interconnected, and students would be able to gain more interdisciplinary education. However,  this would not affect current major and minor requirements, rather working towards the ultimate goal of advancing knowledge and making Brandeis more attractive. He explained that this would manifest in the micro-credentials and new courses through collaborations between professors from different programs. He ended his speech by emphasizing the goal of Brandeis remaining a good research school and an excellent liberal arts college that excels at preparing students for their futures.

Following his remarks, Levine answered student questions. 

First to speak were students in the Brandeis Jewish Bund. They listed out their demands for the University administration while connecting each point to his speech. During this period, a student began recording the speaker despite the initial request for no recordings. When asked to put their phone away by the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communication, Amy Morten, they refused and promised the video would not be shared. The Brandeis Jewish Bund’s demands included an apology to those mistreated at the Nov. 10 2024 protest, a functional plan to defend the rights of marginalized students during the Trump administration, the rechartering of Student Justice for Palestine, affirming the rights of free speech and protest on campus, financial transparency and more. 

Levine joked that there was an easier way to get a meeting with him and claimed that if the students had asked to meet with him, he would have obliged. He also responded by stating that diversity is Brandeis’ strength but that universities needed to be neutral on public policy issues and maintain their positions as places for varied perspectives. He cited his own time as a student at the university protesting against the Vietnam War while the president stayed neutral on the topic. He asked for students to “judge me by my actions, not my words.” He expressed his concern about what would happen to the University if he was more outspoken, saying, “I don’t want an ICE raid because we spoke.” He claimed that as a president, he is unable to be outspoken but that once he ends his time at Brandeis, the community should “watch out.” He added that students came to complain about the Jewish Bund’s sit-ins but that he had no issue with the events since they followed the rules. He expressed his belief that university statements regarding politics are meaningless, to which the Bund member who asked the initial question responded that the original founding of Brandeis was in itself a policy stance. Levine argued that Brandeis started with a mission to include those left out of higher education rather than as a policy stance.

A later question addressed the large-scale plans Levine proposed during his initial remarks and asked about the time scale and first steps of the project. He clarified that there will be opportunities for internships, new general education courses, and microcredentials that will be useful for job applications. Some of these changes will be in effect next year and others will be in full force the year after. There will be a faculty vote on changes to the curriculum, and he hopes to shape core classes to meet student needs with additional classes being offered to benefit transfer students. The vote will be sometime in March, and work for other aspects of the plan will begin in July. He assures students that everybody enrolled before these changes will not be impacted by the change in curriculum and will not have to meet the new requirements.

One student expressed concern about how housing would be impacted by an increased student yield. Levine said he doesn’t expect any sort of housing issue, claiming the University has enough dorms and has a new dorm underway. The same student asked about the rumors of language programs being scaled back, specifically the Russian and Yiddish departments, and how this would impact majors and minors in those programs. Levine denied knowledge of the rumors, claiming nobody told him, Provost Carol Fierke or Dean Jeffrey Shoulson about these programs getting scaled back. He instead suggested an expansion of the programs in which they interact with other subjects such as history, business, and politics. 

The next student asked about the state of student employment on campus, asking if there would be efforts made for access to jobs. Levine responded that the University would compensate for a lack of student jobs with new internships.

The following question asked about the status of the Title IX complaint against the Brandeis Softball Field. Levine said they were waiting on the Office of Civil Rights to approve the plan before taking any action.

The next student was an International Wien Scholar who was unable to obtain a visa as a result of him having a weaker passport. Levine promised to support international students to Brandeis' full capacity, requesting that students inform the administration about specific issues they are facing to receive the support they need.  

Another member of the Brandeis Jewish Bund responded to Levine’s goal of staying outwardly neutral about issues such as “Israel’s invasion of Palestine,” Trump’s ban on DEI, the ICE raids and the private police brutalizing students on campus while taking action within the University. They asked if there was a threshold for taking an open stance, to which Levine responded, “I’ll know it when I see it.” He asserted that campus police have gone through intensive police training and encouraged students to talk to Chief of Police, Matthew Rushton, for any questions or concerns. The student then asked if Brandeis would continue to call private police. Levine promised that the only case in which he would do that would be if there were guns present on campus and students were shooting at each other, before acknowledging that this is not the nature of most protests. He shared that he has participated in protests before and that he is supportive of them as long as they don’t cross any lines.

The following student asked how he was going to protect students and staff from ICE arrests. Levine said that the previous day, he had asked the council if he could block the doors to ICE agents, but they said no. He claimed that Brandeis will make sure ICE agents follow every law if they come on campus, saying that while the University can’t violate the law, administration will do everything short of it to protect students.

The final question was about how Trump is cutting grants dedicated to DEI and “gender ideology” while holding special regard for grants surrounding America’s 250th anniversary, a recent move by the National Endowment of the Arts that has cut funding from  programs that focus on representing underserved communities. Certain grants gifted to the Rose Art Museum were called into question and the student asked what the action plan would be for grants that came with strings attached. Levine expressed his distaste for such grants and said that alternative funding mechanisms would be needed and that the University must compensate for grants that come with conditions.

After the Town Hall concluded, many students stayed to discuss their unanswered questions with Levine, who remained for approximately fifteen minutes after the official end of the meeting. He urged all students to set up a meeting with him if they had any unaddressed  questions or concerns. 


— The Justice Editorial Assistant Esther Balaban ’26 contributed to the reporting for this article.