Brandeis First

Shabbat in India

Published on February 9, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed

Tomorrow night I will, as always when I am not traveling, be on campus for Friday night at one of our many student-led services. When I do so, I know that I will be remembering last Shabbat in Delhi during my trip to India.

Last Friday night, we attended services at Judah Hyam, a Sephardi congregation in central New Delhi that was founded in the mid-19th century, and were welcomed warmly. But Ezekiel Malekar, the leader of the congregation, told his visitors — from the United States, Europe and Israel — frankly, that if not for tourists and expats, Judah Hyam’s light would go out. As it is, a minyan is present only on Friday evening.

So, next morning, we set out in search of the only show in town — Chabad of New Delhi — at an address the concierge in our hotel could not pinpoint on either maps or computer. “Ask the rickshaw drivers,” he advised.

Our guide was also perplexed, but rose to the challenge. Accosting one driver, policeman and shop keeper after another, he helped us close in on a location in Pahat Ganj, a lively neighborhood where backpackers and students who in an earlier day would have been called hippies mixed with a crush of Indians flowing through a pedestrians-only bazaar.

We knew we were close when we spotted Avi’s silk shop and Farouk’s leather goods, both displaying their names in Hebrew and English characters.

Yet we would have followed our guide right past our goal had not Rabbi Shmuel Sharf, wearing his tallit and a long black robe, not come out in the street seeking to complete the Chabad minyan just as we were going by.

“We’ve been looking for you,” my companion and I said to him in one breath; in the same instant he said, “I’ve been looking for you.”

Through a warren of shops, up a narrow stair past a pile of backpacks and there we were — numbers nine and 10. “We’ve been waiting for you,” said one of the eight men there. Two or three others came in as the service was in progress, and several young men passed through from what seemed to be a hostel on the third floor. Our small group comprised young and old, and people from at least three continents — for that morning, a community.

Pass It On: “Brandeis Changed My Life”

Published on February 8, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed

MUMBAI, India — From the broad boulevards of New Delhi, through the science centers of Bangalore and on into the business bustle of Mumbai, India continually impressed me with the quality of its high technology and rapid modernization that exists side-by-side with the features of this emerging economy.

Still, I realized as our trip neared its end just how important word of mouth is, especially for spreading and validating a story like ours.

It is essential for representatives of the staff and faculty and others in the Brandeis family to talk to prospective students and their parents about Brandeis’ high academic standards, the nature and relevancy of liberal arts education embedded in a research university, our qualities as a small, caring community and its cornerstone commitments to social justice and engagement with the world. It is wonderful when parents of enrolled students see these things in action and tell their friends, who often are the parents of prospective future students, that they really like the changes, the growing up, that they are seeing in daughters and sons who are living the Brandeis experience.

I saw again and again during our time in India the power of person-to-person communication that validates our representations.

Given the host of opportunities we discussed with other institutions and the numbers of prospective Brandeis families we met through the good graces of current Brandeis parents, the future expansion and development of the Brandeis-India Initiative seems bright. I am confident that many more students, faculty, alumni and friends will be involved in India in the years to come as a result of this outreach.

It is important to note and remember the central role of personal engagement in getting us this far. This will continue to play a big role in executing our global strategy, not only in India but also in the other countries as well.

For all the wonders of high-speed global communications, marketing, branding and the rest, the continuing efficacy of word of mouth is good for Brandeis, and probably for the rest of the world, too.

To paraphrase a wise statement from Justice Brandeis that has long been one of my favorites, the answer to the impersonal speech that is so ubiquitous these days is personal speech. There is little more gratifying in my life than hearing a parent — or a student — say to peers, “I really like Brandeis. I’ll tell you why…” Better yet: “Brandeis changed my life….”

Identifying the direction of future collaborations

Published on February 6, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed

Photo of Brandeis President Fred Lawrence with Ramji, left, and Benu Bharaney, P'15

President Lawrence with Ramji, left, and Benu Bharaney, P'15, who hosted a reception in New Delhi for families with current or potential future students at Brandeis.

NEW DELHI – It has become almost a cliché to say that India is a nation of juxtapositions. But again and again I am struck by the dramatic contrasts here. Several examples make the point:

We have met with and been hosted by parents of Brandeis students and alumni who have been extraordinary in their hospitality, warmth and generosity. Yet as one foreign diplomat reminded me, “Each morning, before they can focus fully on other things, India’s leaders must figure out how to feed 1.2 billion people.”
I had the privilege some years ago to visit the temple city of Tirupati, the home of one of Hinduism’s holiest and most-visited sites. Up to 100,000 pilgrims visit the mountaintop shrine daily, many waiting in line for hours (or even days) to honor beliefs and traditions hallowed for many centuries. Yet I learned this week that Tirupati now draws most of the energy to prepare food for this mass of pilgrims from sophisticated solar technology.
Business is booming, and incomes are rising — at least for the educated. India possesses many of the assets of a fully modern nation, like excellent telecommunications, top-flight research facilities, superhighways and subways. But impoverished villages with poor roads, worse sewage and no clean water are always just around the corner from the 21st century. Something like 300 million people (roughly the population of the United States) live on less than a dollar a day. Yet something like 300 million people inhabit what can be described as a rising middle class.

A last example is most relevant to our current mission: Illiteracy is a serious problem here, yet India boasts some of the world’s great universities. Some of the schools are enormous – some 600,000 students at Mumbai University, 200,000 at Delhi University. But the need is much greater than the capacity of the education system. Only about one percent of applicants to top-flight universities are admitted. At every level, there simply are not enough seats.

Brandeis can’t fix all this, any more than direct donations from the wealthy would get all the cruelly suffering beggar children and amputees off the sidewalks. To be involved with India is to try to grasp both the strong and vital India and the discouragingly needy one.

Engagement is as much about “us” as it is about “them.” We must prepare our students to live and work in a world that is being changed in fundamental ways by emergent economies like India, Brazil and China and at the same time must maintain and strengthen our core commitment to social justice.

What we have to figure out is what we can do most effectively to provide opportunities for our students who work, study and volunteer here, to work with Indians striving to make their country and our world a better place, and to welcome the growing number of high-quality Indian students who are interested in a Brandeis education.

It has been inspiring to meet so many parents, friends and prospective students who get the Brandeis mission and are eager to lend their support and their energy. They are attracted to the promise of the liberal arts approach, and want to opt out of a system rigidly focused on careers from the very beginning of the college experience.

William Lodge '13, left, and Sophie Golomb '13, right, who are currently studying in India, with Professor Harleen Singh, faculty chair of the Brandeis-India Initiative.

Atul Punj, father of Shiv Punj ’13, Ramji and Benu Bharaney, parents of Umedh Bharaney ’15, and Ashim and Sonal Saraf, parents of Arnav Saraf ’15, all welcomed us into their homes and invited friends and interested students to talk about Brandeis.

Ramji Bharaney gave us a particularly powerful endorsement.

“I’m glad he got in,” Ramji said of his son. “He loves it. I love it. I can see the change in him, the sense of responsibility, the maturity.”

We want the best students in the world to come to Brandeis. Many are here, and families like the Bharaneys are encouraging them.

Identifying where exactly to direct our social justice efforts, and how to offer the best possible study and internship experiences here, comprise the harder work of our current mission. We are discussing specifics, both with social justice and service organizations and with universities and research institutions. There is a range of important possibilities on the table for faculty and student collaborations, placement of volunteers and other engagements.

How Brandeis’ deep connections can make a difference

Published on February 3, 2012 in Uncategorized. Closed

Photo of Jayaraman Subdarakrishna, director of Digital Equalization, explains the program to President Lawrence.

Director of Digital Equalization Jayaraman Subdarakrishna, right, explains the program to President Lawrence.

NEW DELHI – In an ill-lit, concrete-block building in a squalid squatters’ slum, Subham, 16, sits at a glowing computer screen, one of 10 in the room, painstakingly copying the story of a fictitious birthday party into a text file.

Neither the noises of pigs and cows around the puddle-pocked cricket pitch outside, nor the smell rising from the fetid water of the shantytown’s gutters can get in the way of Subham’s dream of becoming a computer engineer.

It is a dream made reachable by a program called Digital Equalization, administered by the American India Foundation, whose staff includes Payal Rajpal, M.A. ’08, a graduate of the Heller School’s program in sustainable international development.

Such programs, I learned today, are helping tens of thousands of youth across India. The need remains vast, but the opportunity for changing lives for the better is possibly greater than it has ever been.

Social justice and digital technology, I came to understand, is an underexplored area, full of opportunities for Brandeis students to experience some of the most distressing situations in the world and some of the truly novel solutions made available by technology already available to us.

As I watched Subham and a dozen others work to master software and learn critical reasoning amid grinding poverty and deprivation, I saw that it is now possible to take kids from an environment in which there cannot be anything even approaching a true library, and launch them into the world’s great virtual library.

What would be required to make that happen on a much larger scale? More people dedicated and trained to heal the world.

Payal told our little delegation that the American Indian Foundation would be glad to help. The staff is too small to take large numbers of interns or fellows, but it has experience with more than 100 nongovernmental organizations with projects in India, many of which are implementing Digital Equalization and other AIF programs.

Payal offered to facilitate contact between scores of reliable NGOs and undergraduates seeking summer internships. A colleague said their organization also is looking for partnerships with universities that can provide high-quality graduate students to AIF’s William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India, which seems very well suited to the Sustainable International Development program’s fieldwork requirement.

“We’re looking for a long-term relationship with a university,” Payal said. “If you organize the volunteers at Brandeis, we can put you in touch with reliable NGOs, We can help with the placements.”

It is a very intriguing opportunity, the sort of opening we are looking for in pursuing Brandeis’ strategy of selective, deep global engagement that is based on our own character and values. The AIF staff are repeat players; they are in country. They know where there is good supervision and training for interns or fellows. As it would be hard for us to get this kind of information on our own, the idea of having a partner like this as an interface to connect our students with NGOs could be important.

Payal’s own story demonstrates the benefits of deep commitments and thick connections of the sort that characterize Brandeis.

Born in Singapore of Indian parents, raised in Hong Kong, Payal did her SID fieldwork for Oxfam in Cambodia. After graduation she volunteered for a year in New York at an advocacy agency for youth of Southeast Asian descent. She then decided to move to India because her father had retired and her family had returned here.

She spoke little Hindi. She was scared. She reached out for help to then Brandeis network in India. One who responded was Sarah Figge Hussain, who graduated from SID in 2004. Sarah came to India to do her SID fieldwork and stayed; she now is employed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), works for the Brandeis-India Initiative too, and has become a fast friend of Payal — who now is offering new opportunities to Brandeis.

All of it — Payal’s history, the opportunity to connect with dozens of NGOs for internships, the efficacy of the Brandeis network — illustrates the Brandeis approach to social justice and to global engagement in action.

Thoughts on India and Israel

Published on February 1, 2012 in Global, India and Israel. 1 Comment

The India Gate, in the heart of New Delhi

NEW DELHI – As we embark on Brandeis’ second overseas mission since I became president, one of the uppermost thoughts in my mind is how much the first trip, to Israel, and this second, to India, have in common.

The goals of the missions — broadening scientific collaboration, increasing opportunities for our students to study abroad and for students from abroad to study at Brandeis, strengthening our alumni networks — are virtually identical.

And this is so not only because these are among the cornerstones of our strategy for global engagement, but because Israel and India have so very much in common. Both are front-runners in the global competition in scientific research and technological innovation. Both are pioneering new thinking on global issues and new solutions for global problems. Both are vibrant and diverse democracies, with all the strengths and challenges that presents. It is thus not surprising that India and Israel are at the top of the list of countries where Brandeis sees opportunities.

India and Israel are growing steadily closer. This is reflected in their rapidly expanding bilateral trade, reported recently by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be at $5 billon a year, nearly 30 times the level when formal diplomatic ties were inaugurated just 20 years ago. A Free Trade Agreement the countries say they intend to finalize this year is expected to accelerate the trend.

Both Israel and India are home to outstanding institutions of scientific research that have links with Brandeis’ own world-class scholars. Many on all sides of this nascent triangle are interested in further developing those relations. We took steps in that direction during last summer’s trip to Israel, and will be exploring those possibilities next week in Bangalore, India’s science and technology center.

The two countries also are committed to the goal of sustainable international development, because of the realities of their own food, water and energy situations and out of a sincere desire to make our world a healthier place. Brandeis is a pioneer and acknowledged leader in the study and practice of sustainable development, and already has links to practitioners in both countries.

Humayun's Tomb, the first mature example of Moghul architecture

India and Israel are challenged as well as bolstered by the diversity of their populations, challenges sharpened in recent years by restive minorities and aggressive sub-groups within the majorities. The questions that confront them resonate with questions of identity with which many of us at Brandeis grapple.

My public program here begins with a conversation with Soli Sorabjee, a former attorney general of India and internationally recognized human rights champion, for whom a distinguished lecture series at Brandeis is named. Our topic is “Justice in Diverse Societies.”

India is the perfect place for the program, just as it is the perfect place for my second Brandeis mission.

Reflections on Sept. 11, 10 years later

Published on September 9, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed

(Note: This 9/11/11 remembrance was published in today’s electronic and print editions of The Hoot, one of the two student newspapers on campus.)

I was in Boston on 9/11/01, on the faculty of the Boston University School of Law. It was a beautiful morning, but otherwise a routine day as the law school and the university got into the flow of fall term. I had driven our children and several others to their school that morning — it was my turn to drive carpool.

I arrived at the office just in time to hear the news that the first jet had hit one of the Twin Towers. As of that moment, there was still the hope that is was a terrible and tragic accident. The radio was on in our suite of offices and as each person arrived, he or she joined the group of us listening intensely for more news.

When the second aircraft crashed shortly thereafter, of course, we knew it was no accident.

Then we heard about the other planes, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, and the scope of the attack was astonishing and frightening. We knew, instinctively, that we were immediately living in a new world — one shaped by terrorist acts that we struggled to comprehend in those first awful minutes. Like everyone, we simply could not believe what we were seeing then, or throughout the day.

I went to find my wife, Kathy, who had a quiet place in a university library where she had been working on an article she was writing. I remember seeing her across the room and thinking that she was still in the “old world” and I had crossed over into this new and still uncertain but more threatening world; she was the first person I told who had not previously heard.

I remember as well the emails from overseas friends, expressing sympathy and solidarity. Their heartfelt gestures of caring made a major impact on me then and it has affected my response to tragedies in other countries ever since.
After the Nov. 26 bombings in Mumbai, for example, I was on the phone to friends in India that night, offering support. This was largely because of those who called or emailed me after 9/11 and the comfort that those contacts provided me during such a frightening and bewildering period.

There are many lessons we can take from 9/11, as individuals, as a campus community and as an institution. Many of them have been discussed this week, and rightfully so.

But on a personal level, I am reminded that communicating simple caring in times of crisis resonates deeply with those in crisis. It certainly aided me, and that is a debt I will always strive to “pay forward” to those in need.

Right at home

Published on August 29, 2011 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Orientation Leaders help a family unload a car at Massell Quad

The Class of 2015 move-in showed the best of Brandeis. I was so proud of the entire community. Hurricane Irene was no match for the enthusiasm and energy of our newest Brandeisians, their parents, our amazing Orientation Leaders, Community Advisors, and our dedicated student life, facilities, and public safety staff.

Walking the halls of Massell Quad, I witnessed a kind of team spirit worthy of Louis Brandeis. No sooner had a car arrived from Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky or Illinois, than a group of OL’s had emptied it and were running up three flights carrying hampers, microwaves, bedding and books. In fact, one family’s belongings were taken out of their car in 12 seconds flat. Now that has to be some kind of record. Irene called for flexibility and creativity and our team excelled in both. Perhaps more than anything, I was struck by the number of first-year students, still setting up their rooms, who said that they already felt at home here. Now that’s Brandeis!

The theme that the OL’s selected for this year could not have been more appropriate: we have truly “hit the ground running.” I look forward to welcoming all the members of the Class of 2015 as well as the returning students and transfer students, as we begin what I know will be a great year for Brandeis University.

Myra Hiatt Kraft ’64

Published on July 22, 2011 in Uncategorized. Closed

Myra Hiatt Kraft '64

With the passing of our Myra Kraft ’64, a great light has gone out in the world. Myra was a distinguished alumna, a wise and generous trustee, but perhaps more than anything, a cherished friend. When hundreds of members of myriad communities — local, national and international — gathered this morning at Temple Emanuel in Newton, united in grief over her loss, it was also in profound thanks for all that she gave to so many.

Myra was a true Brandeisian. She was the daughter of one of the visionary early leaders of Brandeis, a distinguished graduate and a trustee for a quarter century who had a deep understanding of the university as a community. She was always reaching out to students, faculty and other trustees and served as a model to all of us in so many ways. Myra was not just a philanthropist, she was a humanitarian in both a personal sense and a community sense. Her contributions to causes big and small, from greater Boston to Israel, have been well documented this week. Her financial contributions were extremely generous, but beyond that, she was remarkable in the ways in which she gave of herself in her time, her concern and her tenacious advocacy for the people and causes in which she believed.

There were many moving remarks made this morning. But to me, none was more poignant than that of the oldest of her four sons, Jonathan, who urged us to view the world the way his mother did, through empathetic eyes. And one of her eight grandchildren, Harry, spoke for all of us when he pledged to follow the legacy of giving and caring his grandmother left her family.

Myra is missed by her countless friends and by all those who benefited from her tireless work, her wisdom and her personal acts of kindness. Here, we will forever remember Myra Hiatt Kraft, a true daughter of Brandeis.

The Culmination of a Trip — The Renewal of a Profound Engagement

Published on June 25, 2011 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

The magnificent Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, in the hours leading up to the welcoming of the Shabbat.

As the sun set over the Old City of Jerusalem this evening, I reflected on all that our Brandeis delegation has accomplished here in just two weeks. It is rare for one experience to be both so moving and satisfying personally, and also so substantive on matters of policy and strategy; but that best-of-both-worlds combination is exactly what characterizes Brandeis’ burgeoning engagement with Israel. Brandeis’ global reach is significant as is evidenced by the 116 countries that send students to our campus. We as a university also stand to be strengthened by sustained, deep and broad strategic engagement with a smaller number of partner countries around the world. The historic ties between Brandeis and Israel make Israel a natural place to begin this mission.

In two weeks, our delegation spent time with leaders and colleagues from all the major research universities of Israel: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC), Weitzmann Institute of Science, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev — as well as Al-Quds University, one of the leading Palestinian universities. At several Israeli high schools, we shared the Brandeis vision with some of Israel’s most inquisitive and energized — I dare say, Brandeisian — students.

We held a number of alumni events as well. As we contemplate enhancing our engagement with Israel, it was inspiring to see the enthusiasm, spirit and support of Brandeis alumni on the ground in Israel, as demonstrated at our two packed alumni events during our time here, one in Jerusalem and one in the greater Tel Aviv area. I know that these members of the Brandeis family will be very helpful to our efforts.

In Haifa, we dined with several members of the Boston-Haifa Connection, the sister city program that binds together Brandeis’ home city with Israel’s most famous hub of multiculturalism. I had the privilege to engage in a public conversation with my old friend, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak of Israel, among the most courageous intellectuals and jurists of our time. We had a fruitful and inspiring visit to Teva Pharmaceuticals. And I represented Brandeis by speaking at the Israeli Presidential Conference, where the theme of the symposium was “Tomorrow,” and where I put forth the Brandeis vision of preparing students not only for the literal tomorrow, with its challenging job market, but also for the figurative “tomorrow,” the next generation, in which skills of rich analysis and clear communication will be more crucial than ever before.

Each place where we went, we were both moved emotionally and energized to find that Israelis always wanted to know more about Brandeis. They wanted to know more about Brandeis’ academic strengths, its strategic foci and its vision for the future. Brandeis’ identity as a nonsectarian, diversity-embracing institution with roots in the Jewish community also resonated with them; many Israelis voiced the idea that Israel too, at its best, aspires to this vision.

I leave Israel profoundly grateful to all the members of the Brandeis delegation, and all the members of our staff back on campus, who worked so hard to make this trip the resounding success that it was. There will be a great deal of follow-up work in the weeks and months ahead, to realize the full potential of the endeavors that we have only just begun. But in the meantime, in this moment, we as a community can take great pride in what we have accomplished — as always, together.

Now, I am off to The Hague, The Netherlands to check in on the passionate, spirited Brandeis students who are hard at work in our Hague program in international law! A good week to you all, and I look forward to continuing to work together in the days to come.

Reflecting on prospects and connections

Published on June 22, 2011 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

This morning we made our way — not without misadventure due to a dead battery — from the city of Haifa to the Tel Aviv suburb of Rehovot, where we visited another of Israel’s premier institutions of higher education, the Weizmann Institute of Science. Unlike Brandeis, Weizmann is focused exclusively on research and graduate education, with no undergraduate component at all. But President Daniel Zajfman and I found common ground over our shared commitment to world-class research and outstanding opportunities for young scientists.

Historic particle accelerator on the Weizmann Institute campus

Professor Alon Chen, an expert on the biology of stress, gave us insight into his groundbreaking work and highlighted the affinities between Weizmann’s program and Brandeis’ strengths in neuroscience. And Professor Lia Addadi, dean of the Feinberg Graduate School, expressed her strong interest in attracting some of our top students to visit at Weizmann.

In the afternoon, we visited another sort of scientific institution, Teva Pharmaceuticals, in Petach Tikva. We visited Teva at the invitation of Dr. Yehudah Livneh, Ph.D. ’81, whom I had met for the first time earlier this year. Teva is both a manufacturer and distributor of generic drugs and a developer of innovative pharmaceutical products. Yehudah is vice president for corporate Intellectual Property and legislative affairs, and he assembled a group from across the company to talk with us about possible intersections of research interest and ways that Brandeis students might be involved in Teva’s work. It was a fruitful exploration of the kind of relationship that we are seeking in Israel and around the world as we work to build synergies between the various parts of the global Brandeis community.

Fred Lawrence with Shira Ruderman and Jay Ruderman ‘88

Eight nights ago we launched this trip with an alumni event in Jerusalem; tonight, as the trip comes to a close, we were privileged to meet with another group of Brandeis alumni and friends at the beautiful home of Jay Ruderman ’88 and his wife Shira in Rehovot. The event was an occasion for me to reflect on the many exciting prospects and connections that this visit has created, in the company of people who care deeply both about Israel and about Brandeis. We were fortunate to have among Jay and Shira’s guests three members of Knesset — Avi Dichter, Eitan Cabel and Tzipi Hotoveley — who recently visited Brandeis as Ruderman Fellows. I was also pleased to meet Gilad Erdan, the Israeli minister of the environment, who served as an adviser to the Ruderman Fellows program.

Tomorrow, on our final day, I will be participating in two events as part of the Israeli Presidential Conference under the auspices of Shimon Peres. Alongside leaders of other universities and institutions with global reach, I will be speaking on a panel addressing the future of higher education in an era of rapid change.