How Brandeis University is reimagining the liberal arts for a new generation

Brandeis University, known for its proud past, is reimagining itself for the future.

Located in a Boston suburb, Brandeis opened in 1948 at a time when Jews and other minorities faced open discrimination at many American universities. Named for Justice Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish member of the US Supreme Court, the university’s founders pioneered a nonsectarian, research-oriented institution focused on undergraduate education and grounded in Jewish values.  

Nearly 80 years later, Brandeis builds on its founding ideals with a bold new vision to prepare students for our increasingly global and digitally connected world. Last year, the university launched the Brandeis Plan to Reinvent the Liberal Arts, an initiative to combine the university’s renowned academic rigor with an unprecedented emphasis on career readiness.

“The liberal arts have historically been most effective when connected to the world beyond the classroom,” said Arthur Levine, the president of Brandeis. They “were only successful when they had one foot in the library, the accumulated knowledge of humanity, and one foot in the street, the real world.”

Brandeis is focusing on the connection between academic learning and post-graduation achievement, emphasizing internships, job shadowing, and “micro-credentials” skills such as computer program mastery or project management proficiency that can be learned in a short time. These credentials will be part of a secondary transcript that Brandeis students will receive.

Brandeis has also opened a Center for Careers and Applied Liberal Arts that focuses on the connections between academic learning and career preparation.

At the same time, Brandeis has joined a growing number of colleges and universities offering increased financial aid, including free tuition for children of families making $75,000 or less and half scholarships for children of families making between $75,000 and $200,000. They’re also emphasizing cost transparency: In May, Brandeis launched Faye, an interactive cost calculator that provides prospective students a personalized net price based on their financial and academic information.

“Today’s students need more than knowledge; they need the skills, experiences, and confidence to lead in a world we cannot yet predict,” Levine said. “We are advancing a new model. We need reinvention. And that’s exactly what Brandeis is establishing.”

As these three profiles of current students show, Brandeis undergraduates are taking advantage of the myriad opportunities on campus to challenge themselves academically, engage with Jewish ideas and prepare for career success.

The Israel advocate and future lawyer

For Matthew Pfeffer, Brandeis turned out to be a case of mother knows best. When Pfeffer’s older sister and their mom visited the school when she was looking at colleges, his mother thought Brandeis would be a great choice for Matthew.

At the time, Pfeffer was in eighth grade. But just a few years later, it turned out his mother was right: As a university that offers a warm Jewish community, rigorous but not cutthroat academics and solid preparation for the job market, Brandeis checked all of Pfeffer’s boxes.

After visiting campus three times, he applied early decision to the school and was overjoyed when he was accepted.

Now a senior, Pfeffer is just as happy with his decision. Indeed, if Brandeis had an official school cheerleader, Pfeffer might be that person.

“The amount of support here is incredible, from professors to administrators,” he said. “I love it here.”

Pfeffer is double-majoring in economics and art history and minoring in French and Judaic studies. A Long Island native, he’s also been involved in Brandeis’ Hillel, where he serves as the organization’s Israel engagement coordinator, spearheading Israel advocacy and cultural and dialogue-building events. He also helped plan last year’s Israel Fest, which was held on campus for Israel Independence Day.

In addition to spending a semester in Paris, Pfeffer has done three summer internships in the New York City area while at Brandeis. At one of them, he interned at UJA-Federation of New York, where he worked in development and fundraising and learned about planned giving, endowment trusts, and estates. He also worked at a law firm in New York City, where he was supervised by a Brandeis alum.

These experiences have helped lay the foundation for his career path: He plans to work for two years in the client services, legal, or Jewish nonprofit industries before going to law school.

“I wanted to be set up for career success,” Pfeffer said. “Brandeis wants you to succeed.”

The Southerner who’s exploring her Jewish identity

After growing up in a small Jewish community in Jackson, Mississippi, Lauren Balfour found the smorgasbord of Jewish experiences available at Brandeis to be eye-opening.

“I was like a kid in a candy store,” Balfour said.

She dove right into Jewish life on campus. As a first-year student, she was involved in the Reform Jewish group, where she served on the board and planned social events.

Today, as a junior, Balfour is the vice president of Masorti, the Conservative egalitarian group on campus. She is also a lifeguard at a local JCC and works at a local Sunday school teaching third-graders.

To prepare for her role as a Sunday school teacher, participated in the Mandel Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship Program, a Brandeis program that offers professional learning, mentorship and a stipend to undergraduates working in supplemental Jewish education.

The program “helped me catch up on my Jewish education and fill in the gaps,” she said.

And despite moving hundreds of miles away, studying at Brandeis helped Balfour connect with her Southern roots. The summer before her sophomore year, she interned at the Institute for Southern Jewish Life, headquartered in her hometown. During the internship, for which she received a stipend from Brandeis’ World of Work fellowship, she did archival research on Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement to help create a curriculum for Hebrew schools.

Balfour’s classes also shaped her identity. One of her favorite classes she took at Brandeis is called “Religious Education in America.” Taught by Professor Ziva Hassenfeld, the course helped her understand her Jewish upbringing in the South and the historic complexities and pain of the Jewish experience there.

Jewish life and learning aren’t the only things keeping Balfour busy on campus. A biology major, she’s a teaching assistant for a biology lab course. She’s also on Brandeis’ swimming and diving team, which means she’s at the pool early in the morning six days a week.

As for the future, Balfour is considering medical school or another medicine-related career. She’s gained experience in the medical field while at Brandeis; she shadowed doctors at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is getting certified to be an EMT.

“Brandeis creates an environment where I’m able to do it all,” Balfour said.

The entrepreneur who’s also a film major

Allison Fuller is the epitome of an undergraduate student focused on career readiness, even if she’s not yet sure what path she wants to take. After graduation, she hopes to move to New York to work in the film and TV industry, either in production management or marketing.

Before enrolling at Brandeis, the Long Island native spent a gap year studying at a yeshiva in Jerusalem. While there, Fuller, now a junior, also did freelance work for FEED, a New Jersey-based video production company.

The summer after her first year at Brandeis, Fuller worked in digital marketing for the ROC Nation management company. This past summer, she worked as a management intern for Zero Gravity Media, an emerging film and TV production company, and she’s also been a social media manager for Here I Am, Israeli activist Shai Davidai’s podcast.

For Fuller, who is double-majoring in business (with a concentration in marketing) and film/TV/media, part of Brandeis’ attraction was being able to study “what I love while also doing a practical thing,” she said.

“If you only do one major here, you’re out of the ordinary,” Fuller added. “Brandeis makes it easy to do that.”

In addition to her work experiences, Fuller is a teaching assistant for a financial accounting class, and she said that her classes are giving her practical skills, too. For example, a marketing class taught her how to pitch ideas to potential clients and how to design a marketing plan.

“I’ve used those skills in real life,” she said.

Fuller also has an entrepreneurial streak; she and a friend are working on an app called Bento that is focused on helping students who eat at college dining halls make the best choices for their nutrition goals. They launched the app at Brandeis and hope to expand to other schools soon.

A Long Island native, Fuller is also part of Brandeis’ Orthodox minyan, one of many options at a university with a large Jewish student population. “You don’t have to be friends with the only five Jews on campus,” Fuller said.

Brandeis gave Fuller and other university students career-related experience last winter when, over the February break, they visited Bloomingdale’s and Horizon Media in New York City as part of a Brandeis-sponsored networking event.

“That’s something out of the box that they thought of,” she said.

These kinds of ideas make her feel happy about her college choice. "Brandeis cares about my future,” Fuller said. “It’s nice to feel that my school is supporting that.”

This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with Brandeis University, a private R1 research university in Waltham, Mass., with a focus on undergraduate liberal arts education that embraces the values of academic excellence, critical thinking, openness to all, and a commitment to making the world a better place. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.