Brandeis Plans Continued Expansion

Often in the past, the University has helped a new college in the New England area get its start. It did so for the first time in 1701 in New Haven and the result was Yale. It did so two years ago in Waltham and the result was Brandeis University, now a coed institution of 460 and growing fast.

The fledgling college has patterned a General Education program after the University's, has similar composition and language requirements, got its first set of football pants from the H.A.A., and has even taken Harvard faculty men onto its staff.

Brandeis is also profiting by Harvard's experience with physical development. The new university will never look as if it had been laid out by Louis Brandeis' cow. Careful plans for a ten-year expansion program have been completed and the university, already owner of 160 acres of land, intends to buy more.

"We're not going to make the mistake of land constriction," Abram L. Sachar, president of Brandeis says. "We want an organic campus for our university which will include nine graduate schools and 2000 students by 1960." These are ambitious plans for a two-year-old institution, which started with a few run-down buildings and the purpose of making a corporate contribution to American higher learning on the part of the country's Jewish community.

While denominational universities are nothing new in this country, one backed by Jewish interests is. Although there have been other attempts to found such an institution, Brandeis is the first to succeed.

Two groups, headed by George Alpert of Boston and Rabbi Israel Goldstein of New York, jointed in 1945 to seek funds for a college; they acquired the present location in 1947. Previously, the property had belonged to the Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery. When the institution failed, its owners gave the property to the Alpert-Goldstein group on the condition that whatever university be established, it must operate without discrimination as to race, creed or color.

After the Board of Trustees voted Alpert their president, they decided to name the school after Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis.

High expenditures were immediately necessary to put the University into operation. Remodeling the castle alone took the major part of $1,000,000.

Money and Controversy

Finances were indirectly responsible for the embryo college's first major controversy. In 1946, the two founding groups had asked Albert Einstein to let his name be used in the fund raising drive. The Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning became the first main money-seeking branch. When Goldstein became involved in a dispute with the scientist, the Rabbi resigned. This was in 1946.

When in the next year the trustees set out to elect a president of the University, Einstein supported Harold Laski, professor at the London School of Economics. But the board desired an American educator and Einstein, displeased, dropped his name from the list of the school's supporters. In 1948 the Board elected Sachar as president of Brandeis. Then retired, Sachar had been an important educator--a recipient of Cambridge University's first Ph.D. degree--and for 14 years the head of Hillel Foundations.

When 107 first-year students arrived in the fall of 1948, they found that, so far as educational policy went, Brandeis was little different from other U. S. colleges. Sachar explains that the University intends to follow traditional lines, at least for the present.

G.E. and English A

Someone familiar with Harvard's present program would notice Brandeis' General Education system in particular. The catalogue reads: "All matriculated students must complete the prescribed work in the General Education curriculum, comprising the two year sequences in the Social Sciences, the Humanities and the Sciences." And a College man would also notice: "All matriculated students must be able to express their ideas effectively in English . . . (This) Committee will administer an English proficiency examination . . . Students not exempt will be required to take English Composition A . . ."

All students must also complete required work in physical education, And, unless a Brandeis student meets his language requirement in the first two years, he automatically goes on probation. He (or she) must choose a field of concentration.

"We can learn a great deal from colleges in this area," Sachar says. "We have always been able to get counsel and the benefit of their experience."

One of the most successful of the new University's policies has been its attempt to maintain an approximate eight-to-one ratio of students to faculty. Right now there are 472 students and 54 teachers. With planned expansion of the student body, the teaching community will also grow. Twenty new men joined this fall.

The administration hopes to get at least one outstanding man in each field. This latter policy has already brought Max Lerner to the Social Sciences, Albert Leon Guerard and Ludwig Lewisohn to Comparative Literature, and Irving Fine to Music. Brandeis got chemist Saul G. Cohen from Harvard in line with its program to get a base of good young instructors for all of its departments.

Although the university has been operating only three years, and has thus never had a senior class, there are already a great many campus organizations. A Student Union, with officers elected from each class, acts as a student government, planning social program and aiding other groups. There is The Justice, the university newspaper, and The Turret, a literary magazine. The Newman Club, a Catholic group, is very active and will be host to all other Newman Clubs in New England this fall.

The fact that Brandeis is a coeducational institution certainly does not hurt students' social life. Most of the on campus dances and parties--or just afternoon post-class bull sessions--take place in the dormitory common rooms, a system closely approaching Harvard's.

About one-fourth of Brandeis' expansion program is already started. Construction is in progress on new dormitories and an athletic plant; by next year the college expects to increase its incoming class to 300 students.

The future plans also call for a new library (the present one has 40,000 books), several college buildings, and the establishment of a faculty of medical sciences, law, and public, business, and social service administration. The total cost of the project is estimated at $22,665,000.

Brandeis' fund-raising system, which will help meet this bill, has three divisions. The main costs, building expenses, will be paid for by donors on the list of the United Jewish. Appeal, the Agency for Jewish Charities in this country. Members of the University Associates group, who pay $100 per year, add an additional $700,000 each year to meet maintenance expenses. The National Women's Committee collects $5 per member and donates its funds toward support of the library. A modest endowment fund is being set up and Sachar expects it really to grow as soon as the school has an organized alumni.

Scenic Graduate Center

When the building program is completed, Brandeis, which started out with a castle-like structure as its main building, will look almost like the Harvard Graduate Center sprawled over tree-covered hills. The architects behind the "functional" planning are Saarinen, Saarinen and Associates.

One of Brandeis' best divisions will probably be its School of Music, according to Sachar. This school, so far only in the paper stage, will be developed under the guidance of Serge Koussevitsky, ex-director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein. A fund-raising group that calls itself the "Friends of the School of Music" already has formed to give the music division its start.

The 800 undergraduates who will be attending Brandeis when the College operates at full strength in 1952 will represent all parts of the nation and several foreign countries, though about one-half of the student body will come from New England and New York.

Diversification: No Filter

We don't ask for a youngster's picture, or for his religion, or for his mother's name," Sachar said, "but we're confident that we can get diversification without any artificial filters. It will become increasingly easier as the pool of students we have to draw on grows."

To get special talent, both athletic and scholarly, to come to Brandeis, the Admissions Office carries on a policy of "dignified recruitment" which is bolstered by 60 or 70 scholarships.

"We are determined to do well in each thing we start," Sachar said. "This school is in the American tradition . . . and therefore we hope to get students competent in the field of sports. We intend to have neither a Notre Dame nor a Chicago. We don't think that a student's athletic ability should be held against him."