Brandeis University () is a private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located in the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a non-sectarian, coeducational university, Brandeis was established on the site of the former Middlesex University. It is named after Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Brandeis is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. The university has been a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) since 1985. In 2018, it had a total enrollment of 5,820 students on a campus of .
Alumni and faculty of the university have included Nobel Prize laureates Drew Weissman, Michael Rosbash, Jeffrey C. Hall, and Roderick MacKinnon; Fields Medalist Edward Witten; Turing Award winners Leslie Lamport and Charles H. Bennett; Abel Prize winner Karen Uhlenbeck; and co-creators of the television show Friends, David Crane and Marta Kauffman.
History
Founding
Middlesex University was a medical school located in Waltham, Massachusetts, that was at the time the only medical school in Massachusetts that did not impose a quota on Jews. The founder, John Hall Smith, died in 1944. Smith's will stipulated that the school should go to any group willing to use it to establish a non-sectarian university. Within two years, Middlesex University was on the brink of financial collapse. The school had not been able to secure accreditation by the American Medical Association, which Smith partially attributed to institutional antisemitism in the American Medical Association.
Smith's son, C. Ruggles Smith, was desperate for a way to save something of Middlesex University. He learned of a New York committee headed by Israel Goldstein that was seeking a campus to establish a Jewish-sponsored secular university. Smith approached Goldstein with a proposal to give the Middlesex campus and charter to Goldstein's committee, in the hope that his committee might "possess the apparent ability to reestablish the School of Medicine on an approved basis". While Goldstein was concerned about being saddled with a failing medical school, he was excited about the opportunity to secure a "campus not far from New York, the premier Jewish community in the world, and only from Boston, one of the important Jewish population centers." Goldstein agreed to accept Smith's offer, proceeding to recruit George Alpert, a Boston lawyer with fundraising experience as national co-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal.Cushing, Harry (March 30, 1956). "George Alpert... Railroad President ". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Buffalo Jewish Review. p. 3.
Alpert had worked his way through Boston University School of Law and co-founded the firm of Alpert and Alpert. Alpert's firm had a long association with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, of which he was to become president from 1956 to 1961. He was chairman of Brandeis from 1946 to 1954, and a trustee from 1946 until his death.
By February 5, 1946, Goldstein had recruited Albert Einstein, whose involvement drew national attention to the nascent university. Einstein believed the university would attract the best young people in all fields, satisfying a real need. In March 1946, Goldstein said the foundation had raised $10 million that it would use to open the school by the following year. The foundation purchased Middlesex University's land and buildings for two million dollars. The charter of this operation was transferred to the foundation along with the campus. The founding organization was announced in August and named The Albert Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning, Inc. The new school would be a Jewish-sponsored secular university open to students and faculty of all races and religions.
The trustees offered to name the university after Einstein in the summer of 1946, but Einstein declined, and on July 16, 1946, the board decided the university would be named after Louis Brandeis. Einstein threatened to sever ties with the foundation on September 2, 1946, over disputes with Rabbi Israel Goldstein, a board member, with whom Einstein disagreed. Believing the venture could not succeed without Einstein, Goldstein quickly agreed to resign, and Einstein recanted. Einstein's near-departure was publicly denied. Goldstein said that, despite his resignation, he would continue to solicit donations for the foundation.
On November 1, 1946, the foundation announced that the new university would be named Brandeis University, after Louis D. Brandeis, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. By the end of 1946, the foundation said it had raised over five hundred thousand dollars, and two months later it said it had doubled that amount.
The Brandeis board felt it was in no position to make the investment in the medical school that would enable it to receive accreditation, and closed it in 1947. Einstein wanted Middlesex University's veterinary school's standards to be improved before expanding to the school, while others in the foundation wanted to simply close the veterinary school, which, by the winter of 1947, had an enrollment of just about 100 students. A professional study of the veterinary school recommended dismissing certain instructors and requiring end-of-year examinations for the students, but the foundation declined to enact any of the recommendations, to the dismay of Einstein and a couple of the foundation's trustees.
In early June 1947, Einstein made a final break with the foundation. The veterinary school was closed, despite students' protests and demonstrations. According to George Alpert, a lawyer responsible for much of the organizational effort, Einstein had wanted to offer the presidency of the school to left-wing scholar Harold Laski, someone that Alpert had characterized as "a man utterly alien to American principles of democracy, tarred with the Communist brush." He said, "I can compromise on any subject but one: that one is Americanism." Two of the foundation's trustees, S. Ralph Lazrus and Otto Nathan, quit the foundation at the same time as Einstein. In response, Alpert said that Lazrus and Nathan had tried to give Brandeis University a "radical, political orientation." Alpert also criticized Lazrus' lack of fundraising success and Nathan's failure to organize an educational advisory committee. Einstein said he, Lazrus, and Nathan "have always been and have always acted in complete harmony."
Opening
On April 26, 1948, Brandeis University announced that Abram L. Sachar, chairman of the National Hillel Commission, had been chosen as Brandeis' first president. Sachar promised that Brandeis University would follow Louis Brandeis' principles of academic integrity and service. He also promised that students and faculty would never be chosen based on quotas of "genetic or ethnic or economic distribution" because choices based on quotas "are based on the assumption that there are standard population strains, on the belief that the ideal American must look and act like an eighteenth-century Puritan, that the melting pot of America must mold all who live here into such a pattern." Students who applied to the school were not asked their race, religion, or ancestry.
Brandeis decided its undergraduate instruction would not be organized with traditional departments or divisions, and instead it would have four schools, namely the School of General Studies, the School of Social Studies, the School of Humanities, and the School of Science. On October 14, 1948, Brandeis University received its first freshman class of 107 students. They were taught by thirteen instructors in eight buildings on a campus. Students came from 28 states and six foreign countries. The library was formerly a barn, students slept in the former medical school building and two army barracks, and the cafeteria was where the medical school had stored cadavers. Historians Elinor and Robert Slater later called the opening of Brandeis one of the great moments in Jewish history.
Early years Eleanor Roosevelt joined the board of trustees in 1949. Joseph M. Proskauer joined the board in 1950. Construction of on-campus dormitories began in March 1950 with the goal of ninety percent of students living on campus.
Construction on an athletic field began in May 1950. Brandeis' football team played its first game on September 30, 1950, a road win against Maine Maritime Academy. Its first varsity game was on September 29, 1951, with a home loss against the University of New Hampshire. Its first varsity win was a score of 24–13, an away game at Hofstra University on October 6, 1951.Zellner, Bob (October 6, 1951). "Much-Penalized Brandeis Downs Hofstra by 24-13 ". Newsday (Long Island, New York). p. 18.
Brandeis Stadium opened in time for a home win against American International College on October 13, 1951. During its first season, the football team won four and lost four games during the regular season and then lost to the University of Tampa in a post-season game.Roberts, Ernie (December 30, 1951). "De-Emphasis Trend Hits College Football ". The Boston Globe. p. 20. Construction of a 2,000-seat amphitheater began in February 1952.
The state legislature of Massachusetts authorized Brandeis to award master's degrees, doctorate degrees, and honorary degrees in 1951. Brandeis' first graduating class of 101 students received degrees on June 16, 1952. Leonard Bernstein, director of Brandeis' Center of Creative Arts, planned a four-day ceremony to commemorate the occasion. Held in the newly opened amphitheater, the ceremony included the world premier of Bernstein's opera Trouble in Tahiti. Eleanor Roosevelt and Massachusetts governor Paul A. Dever spoke at the commencement ceremony.
In 1953, Einstein declined the offer of an honorary degree from Brandeis, writing to Brandeis President Abram L. Sachar that "what happened in the stage of preparation of Brandeis University was not at all caused by a misunderstanding and cannot be made good any more." Instead, at the graduation ceremony for Brandeis' second graduating class of 108 students, individuals given Brandeis' first honorary degrees included Illinois senator Paul H. Douglas, Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, and Alpert.
1953 also saw the creation of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, one of the first academic programs in Jewish Studies at an American university. Among the founders were distinguished emigre scholars Alexander Altmann, Nathan Glatzer, and Simon Rawidowicz. Brandeis' graduate program, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, opened in fall 1954."Arthur Berger to Teach at Brandeis University ". The Philadelphia Inquirer. July 26, 1953. In the same year, Brandeis became fully accredited, joining the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. As of 1954, Brandeis had 22 buildings and a campus.
In 1954, Brandeis began construction on an interfaith center consisting of separate Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish chapels. Designed by the architectural firm of Harrison & Abramovitz, the three chapels surrounded a natural pond. Brandeis announced that no official chaplains would be named, and attendance at chapel services would not be required.
The Roman Catholic chapel was named Bethlehem, meaning house of bread, and it was dedicated on September 9, 1955. Dedicated on September 11, 1955, the Jewish chapel was named in memory of Mendel and Leah Berlin, parents of Boston surgeon David D. Berlin. Named in memory of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, the Protestant chapel was dedicated on October 30, 1955.