JustNews: You were first hired in 2008 as Dean of the Heller School. You came here from a professorship at Tufts, you were an academic dean. You were a chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. What inspired you to want to come to Brandeis in the first place?

Lisa Lynch: When I was approached to see if I would be interested in being dean, I did a seminar at the Heller School I knew about the strength of the Heller School in social policy, and I also knew that Heller had very strong master’s programs in sustainability and international development. My background and interests as a labor economist have been focused both on U.S. domestic policy, employment policy and education policy. But I’ve also been very engaged in policy issues at the international level, especially transnational issues like immigration and labor standards and issues of social development, economic development in developing countries. When I was approached with the possibility of going to Heller, I thought “Wow, for the first time in my life, I get to put all of the different components of my life all together”.

So Heller was everything that I wanted to do. I got to come in as a dean and nurture a school in an environment that was focused on the issues that for me have been so important, both professionally and personally. And to do that at Brandeis University, with its long history from its founding of a commitment to social justice, from its inception the focus on investing in the brightest people, was amazing. When I interviewed at Heller and then also met people more broadly across the Brandeis campus, I kept hearing “Oh, we’re very focused on social justice, social justice…” Everybody was saying it. Did somebody send out a memo across the campus? I’m getting coffee in a coffee shop and the person serving me coffee is talking about social justice. I’m talking with students and they’re talking about social justice. I was really struck by how strongly the community felt about social justice.

Now, I realize that no two people on this campus would agree on what social justice means. That’s another wonderful trait of Brandeis -- our love of debate and discussion. But the fact that you have a community that really pushes to be excellent in whatever it is that they do, but at the same time is thinking about “how is it what I’m doing can improve not only my life, but other’s lives?” is what makes this an amazing university. How could you not want to be part of such a university?

JN: Tell me about your time as dean of Heller. What do you view as some of your biggest accomplishments?

LL: I came into the Heller School in 2008, right as the financial crisis was hitting hard. That was a challenging time for anybody who was involved in administration in a university. But at Heller I came in right at a time when the school had physically doubled its size, and it was in the process of growing its graduate programs. I had the opportunity to oversee the growth of graduate programs at Heller, and at the same time oversee the growth of Heller’s engagement with the undergraduate program, in particular HSSP [Health, Science and Social Policy] as well as Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. I really wanted to make sure Heller was much more integrated into the University. That its research work, especially in the area of health, was being translated into the classroom not just at the graduate level but at the undergraduate level too. I think there’s over a thousand undergraduates a year that are taught by Heller faculty. There was a doubling of the graduate program at Heller and new degree programs added while I was there.

We expanded research at Heller and continued to support our excellence in the area of health policy research and behavioral health. We have researchers that are at the cutting edge of looking at the prescription drug abuse problem in this country. We have researchers that are on the frontier of healthcare financing reform in the context of the Affordable Care Act. I also expanded our expertise in disability policy with [new faculty appointments in] the Lurie Institute [for Disability Policy] and the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy. In the Lurie Institute, we now have the Ruderman fellows (undergraduates) who are working doing practicums and fieldwork [in the area of disability policy]. In the area of aging we now have a joint agreement with Hebrew SeniorLife that links faculty from across the University to work with colleagues at Hebrew SeniorLife on issues of healthy aging.

The other big area that I focused on while I was at Heller was addressing issues of diversity and inclusion. A major component of our strategic plan in 2011 was moving from aspiration to action regarding Heller’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. We set up a diversity steering committee that was made up of faculty, students, staff and alumni -- the first time such a structure was put in place at Heller. This group was asked to make specific recommendations about how we could improve diversity and inclusion at the Heller School. Heller in many respects has been the stage one site for some of the things we’re talking about more broadly in the University about diversity and inclusion.

In my opinion, no academic institution can claim to be excellent if it does not advance and successfully have a diverse community and a community that is truly inclusive. That was my focus at Heller, that was my focus as Provost in my seven months of being Provost, and it will continue to be my focus as interim president.

JN: Are there any other major things you want to tackle during your time?

LL: I’m going to be interim president for a year, and have lots of ideas for what the University could be doing. I plan on continuing to build on some of the activities and groups that have been formed on campus this year with respect to issues of diversity and inclusion. This is critically important to me. The second area that we’re going to focus on across the campus has to do with sustainability. The 350.org movement has certainly changed how universities in particular, but more broadly how we as a society are addressing issues of climate change. Brandeis has a relatively small endowment. We don’t have Harvard [University's] endowment. We also don’t, to my knowledge, directly invest in fossil fuel companies.

I want to focus on direct actions that we can undertake today on this campus to reduce our impact on climate change. We have a new sustainability manager who’s starting after the July fourth holiday. She already knows that one of the first things I want her to do is a campus-wide audit to understand our current consumption of fossil fuels. We’re then going to set aggressive targets for the University for reducing our consumption of fossil fuels. I also want to organize forums over the next year discussing divestment campaigns, but also more broadly looking at the issue of climate change.

We have people on this campus who are doing research work on how tax policy can impact consumption of fossil fuels. We have people at the Heller School who are looking at how climate change has disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable. We need to highlight that so that we’re informing the debate and discussion with our research and our knowledge. We’re an educational institution, that’s what we need to do. And we cannot be let off the hook ourselves with respect to our own consumption and actions. This is a university which has a long-standing legacy of activism. Well, I’d like to see us act right now on this campus.

JN: A few follow-up questions regarding that. First of all, you mentioned direct investment into fossil fuel companies. There has been a movement on campus to formally divest. Would you support that if they were to come to you?

LL: The Board of Trustees directs the investment committee with respect to its investment portfolio. I hope that over the course of the fall semester we will organize some sort of forums discussing divestment. In the past year there were some interesting events at MIT discussing these issues so we can bring some of these speakers to campus. Not to mention we have our own experts on campus to talk about the merits of divestment. We need to really look at the pros and cons of divestment, to help inform our Board of Trustees if they want to consider action on that front.

I was very involved in the divestment movement from companies doing business in South Africa in the 1970’s as a student and in the 1980’s as a faculty member. It feels to me, though, that this is a very different setting. Both movements were and are trying to change the political discourse, but a big difference today is that I can directly impact my contribution to greenhouse gases through my individual actions. Things like how I’m using my car, what temperature my office is, when I have my lights on, when I put my shades up. When I was involved as a student and as a faculty member in the campaigns to get companies to divest from South Africa, I could do that [participate in the divestment movement] but there was not something I could do right at that moment that would have had an immediate impact. We’ve all been in buildings in the summer that are freezing cold and in the winter that are roasting hot. Well, we’d better have people wearing sweaters in the winter and wearing short sleeves in the summer in our buildings. There are things that we can directly do, and if we don’t do that, shame on us.

JN: You mentioned bringing in a new sustainability manager. Could you talk a little bit about her?

LL: There’s going to be a public announcement about her, but we’ve not had a full-time Brandeis sustainability manager, certainly not in the time that I’ve been here…

We need to have somebody who is going to have their nose in every building project that is going on. We’re doing a lot of investment on [deferred] maintenance right now. Replacing windows is a great way of reducing our footprint. But that’s just one of many projects. How do you prioritize which projects get done first? I’d like to shift the prioritization to put a heavier weight—not the only weight, but a heavier weight—on the impact of that deferred maintenance on reducing the carbon footprint of Brandeis.

That’s never going to happen, though, if you don't have some measurements. I want people to see visuals on this campus of that data, to say “here’s our consumption, here’s where we’re going, here’s what we’re doing.” So that people are thinking, “Oh gee, I should turn off those lights, I should pull down those shades on a sunny day.” And with the new sustainability manager, we’re going to have another person who’s going to help on the technical side to think about what we’re doing with our buildings.

JN: You mentioned briefly wanting to work closely with student groups and with activism regarding diversity issues. Are there any specific groups that you’d like to mention which you hope to work with?

LL: In November is that we’re working with the Home for Little Wanderers on a joint event. Have you heard about this organization?

JN: I haven’t, sorry.

LL: They’re the largest private child welfare organization in the state of Massachusetts. They have facilities across the state that take care of children and youth from birth to 22 who are homeless and in care and provide a whole range of social services. The president of the Home for Little Wanderers, Joan Wallace-Benjamin, got her Ph.D at the Heller School. After the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, she wrote an end-of-year letter to friends and family talking about how all of the events of that fall impacted her as an African American woman who has two sons. She talked about how she has had to tell her sons that they need to be aware of their circumstances, and how people are reacting to them, and how oppressive that is. Yet, at the same time, she has to do it as a mother. It was a very moving letter and I said to her, “Joan, in a sense, you’re also a mother of all these youth in the Home for Little Wanderers. Is there something that we can do at Brandeis, especially for young men of color that are in care?” This is an incredibly vulnerable group. As a result we’re planning a summit on campus of probably a hundred young men, ages 12 to 18, of color in November. Our faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate students are now working with staff from the Home for Little Wanderers on programming, to make this a day of empowerment for these young men here on campus.

I am also working with a group of students from Heller who want to take some of the work that they’ve been doing at Heller addressing microaggressions and think of ways to expand that on the campus as a whole. In the climate survey last year, there were a few questions that were also trying to get a sense of Brandeis’ climate regarding race. I’m going to use that climate survey to help inform our actions but we’re also going to revise that survey next year to put in additional questions to track the impact of some of the programs that we’re putting in place regarding issues of microaggressions on this campus.

As a labor economist, the topic of microaggressions is something that I have studied and taught and worked with companies on. We’ve got a lot of partners and allies on this campus on this issue. We have a lot of room to improve on, and we can’t just pretend that everything’s wonderful on campus. But again, we’ve got a great community with which to work on this.

JN: Switching topics entirely, you’re going to be the first president in the University’s history who is not a practicing Jew. What do you think of that?

LL: Actually I don’t really think a lot about it. I think of myself as somebody who has been here at Brandeis for a long period of time, and I’m a parent of a Brandeis student. I just kind of bleed Brandeis and I feel I have Brandeis now completely absorbed into my DNA. So that’s what I take into the presidency.

JN: Do you think that it reflects any sort of changes in the character of the University as a whole?

LL: I’ll tell you an interesting thing about the history of Brandeis. Every interim president has been a Heller School dean. When Abe Sachar stepped down, Charles Schottland—who was the founding dean of Heller—was the interim president. And when Evelyn Handler stepped down before Sam Thier became president, Stuart Altman was the interim president. So I view myself as continuing the long-standing tradition at Brandeis of “Go to the Heller dean when you need an interim president on this campus!”

JN: One of the most important roles of the president is as a major fundraiser for the University. Do you feel confident in your ability to succeed in that role?

LL: First, I’m not going to be president, I’m going to be interim president. When you go through a transition period you have to adjust some of your thinking about fundraising during that period of time. There are going to be donors who will be really excited about some aspect of Brandeis that they’d like to support financially, but will want to know who’s going to be the president that will steward that investment. As interim president, I can work with our development staff to shepherd and keep moving forward various initiatives that are already underway. You develop relationships over time. You nurture those relationships, and you have a dialogue that bridges the gap between the university’s priorities and philanthropists’ interests. I’m very comfortable with doing all of that since I was a fundraiser as a dean of Heller. But we have to have realistic expectations and an understanding of what the nature of the fundraising process is going to be over the next six to 12 months during this transition period of time. I love sharing what happens here at Brandeis with people who are interested in investing here at the University. I’ve always done that and I will continue to do that as interim president.

JN: Another important role of the president is to serve as a sort of public face for the University. How do you feel about your ability to perform there?

LL: I’ve been doing that as dean. I also was a frequent commentator on the PBS News Hour, so being in the public space is something that I’ve been doing for a long time. I have to say I had the opportunity of meeting some alumni down in New York last week. It was terrific, it was great. I really enjoy meeting other individuals and understanding their story. For a data nerd, I don’t mind going out in public.

JN: What, if any, is going to be your input on the search process for the next president?

LL: As you know we have a search committee that’s been formed. They’re working with an outside firm. I anticipate that I’ll have an opportunity to meet with the finalist candidates, but I am not part of that committee nor should I be part of that committee. When I finish my term as interim president I step back into my role as provost on campus. Usually you don't get to pick your own boss, as fun as that might be. I anticipate that the candidates will (as happened the last time) have an opportunity to meet all of the senior leadership on campus and the committee will be soliciting our opinions about that.

JN: You said that you wanted to use some of the funds from the sale of Brandeis House to address some of the issues with faculty retention and salary gaps. How has that project been progressing?

LL: Over the last couple weeks we’ve been finalizing salaries for next year to address some of the salary gaps that we have, especially for our associate and full professors on campus. We did our first work-life survey on campus in almost 15 years in the fall. Faculty on the whole are actually pretty happy here on campus. They love their students, they love teaching, and they love their research. But as you get to more senior ranks, you realize that compensation is an issue.

As provost I set aside close to $500,000 in new funding to support teaching innovation awards and grants and research innovation awards. Teaching innovation awards get faculty to think about how to use new technology to improve the classroom experience, to think across departments, to think about an issue that having different disciplinary perspectives come together and design a class on might be interesting for students. That’s very exciting. Faculty are going to share what they have been doing on those teaching innovation awards over the course of next year and we’ll give out another round of support as well.

You know, nobody comes to Brandeis to make a lot of money. Instead they want to know, “What is the campus like? What is the intellectual climate like? Who is it that you have as colleagues? What is the nature of your interaction with students?” So as important as supporting salaries is, we also need the investments that help our faculty become better in the classroom. Our faculty, even our top-star researchers, love teaching.

And second of all, it’s important that we support research. The hardest funding for research is always finding support for the very first stage of research -- that stage of “just a mess of an idea”. It’s so green it doesn’t even know it’s the color green. Some of that really early [stage] research might not end up materializing into new work. But I wanted to support faculty to be adventurous, to be creative and to not be afraid to fail on their research. So I set aside some funds for that as well. It’s all of those things together that create the atmosphere that makes people want to stay and enjoy being faculty here.

JN: On another faculty-related issue, there have been talks about adjunct faculty potentially joining a union. How would you respond to that if adjunct faculty were to unionize during your time as interim president?

As a person who’s done a lot of my own work looking at the positive impact of unions on employment outcomes, certainly I understand the potential impact of unionization for faculty. I’ve been watching across Boston and the country writ large adjunct unionization campaigns. I’m not waiting for a union to come around to focus on issues of compensation and benefits for our adjunct faculty. As a historical matter, Brandeis in the Boston area (and I suspect even more broadly across the country) has really been cutting-edge with respect to the way that faculty who are not tenured or tenure-track have voice and engagement on this campus. When I was a faculty member and academic dean at Tufts, we actually used a report from Brandeis that was written, I think, in 2005. It talked about giving more voice and participation for contract faculty members here at the University. At Brandeis, we have a faculty senate where we’ve had multiple faculty senate chairs who’ve been contract faculty members. We give sabbatical for our full-time contract faculty members. We give benefits to faculty who teach two courses. Recent contracts, I think, at Tufts say you have to teach three courses.

I’m very focused on investing in the people who really are the heart and soul of the University. We will see what happens with respect to the unionization campaign on campus. I completely support the right of our employees to make that decision about whether or not they want a union to be representing them. I do want to make sure that whatever happens, that we have an extraordinarily high turnout if we do end up having an election. And I want to make sure that people feel if it comes to the point where they’re voting for a union to represent them on campus, that they are fully informed of what that unionization will or won't do with respect to the issues that are of most importance to them on campus.

JN: Another contentious issue has been the University’s services and procedures regarding sexual assault. We’ve seen the creation of a sexual assault services and prevention specialist and the opening of a rape crisis center. Meanwhile, an alumnus recently opened a lawsuit against the university for alleged mishandling of his case. Do you plan to continue the conversation about how the university handles sexual assault cases, and if so, how will you do so?

LL: Every university president right now has to be engaged with the policies and procedures that they have in place to support victims of sexual assault and to investigate and adjudicate allegations of sexual assault on campus. There are the formal processes that we have in hand, but the reality is that we also have people who have been assaulted on this campus who made the decision that they are not going through the formal process. We’re going to support all our survivors, not only individuals who decide to pursue a formal process.

In the role that I had as provost chairing the integrated budget and planning committee that oversees the budget processes, I supported funds for additional counsels to be hired as well as an additional Title IX officer, Title IX investigator, and support for the rape crisis center.” By the way, there was great student leadership on that front [the rape crisis center]. I’ll continue to be very committed to doing everything that I can on the campus to support our community.

One of the things that I will be looking at as interim president is whether or not we need to change the reporting structure of individuals. There’s a recommendation from the Provost’s steering committee on diversity to establish either a vice provost or a vice president of diversity and inclusion, and I’ve been looking at how other universities have structured this. You might pull all of the Title IX activities [together] and have those individuals reporting directly to, say, a vice president for diversity and inclusion who might then be reporting directly to the president.

I think we’ve been making a lot of progress with respect to our policies and procedures, and we’ll continue to be reexamining ways that we can make further improvements. And then I think there’s some things that we can do to situate this more broadly into a conversation of “what is the climate on campus? How do we take care of one another? How do we support one another on multiple dimensions?”

JN: Regarding the VP for diversity position. So the last time that we had heard about that, it wasn’t even clear if it was going to be a vice provost or a vice president. Has that been ironed out what that position is going to be?

LL: Because I’m a data person, I’ve been looking at other universities and how they’ve structured positions similar to this. My prior--my strong prior, but I’ve not made a final recommendation on this--is that the best thing to do is to have a vice president who’s reporting directly to the president. This is an issue that is not just in the provost’s purview. This is across the university. That’s where I think we’ll end up. Having such a person reporting directly to the president, and appropriate levels of resources to support that person and the entire office was a draft recommendation that was made two years ago but never finalized.

JN: Changing tacks a little bit, student groups have been demanding that the University renew its partnership with Al-Quds University ever since it was suspended a year and a half ago. When we talked with President Lawrence at the end of last year, he said that he felt that that was an issue for the next president to decide. Do you plan on addressing that question during your interim presidency?

LL: That, I think, is a very important issue for the next president to weigh in on one way or another. It really is an opportunity for them to decide what their position is and then to own that and move it forward. That’s not something that I’m going to make a decision on that then the next president might want to reverse. I don’t want to put them in that position. The next president gets to make that call. It’s a very important decision, and one that shouldn’t be made for nine months and then reversed. It’s too important.

JN: Academic freedom of speech has been a contentious issue at Brandeis over the past two years. Many saw suspending the Al-Quds partnership and disinviting Ayaan Hirsi Ali as harmful to free speech. President Lawrence’s response to the “Concerned” listserv leaks drew some blowback from faculty. What do you think of the status of free speech at Brandeis?

LL: I think Brandeis is like many other schools in higher education. We’re always going to be engaged in debate and discussion over the issue of free speech. I have to say that—and it goes back to my focus next year on expanding diversity and inclusion—I worry a lot about the climate of the campus, and whether people feel safe enough to talk in classrooms. I worry about how difficult topics are addressed, and the faculty’s preparation with respect to handling difficult conversations in the classroom. There can be bigger headline moments on a campus, but the day-to-day discourse that we have, that really is the foundation on which a particular headline issue comes at you. How the community responds is going to be a function of how the community more broadly feels and engages on a day-to-day basis in open, direct, respectful conversation about sensitive issues. So my focus is on the foundation, and what we’re doing at the university to support that. The Center for Teaching and Learning held a series of seminars with faculty during the spring semester about how you manage and advance discussions on sensitive and difficult topics in the classroom. I sat in on the last session, and it was clear to me that there’s an enormous interest among our faculty—not all, but a large number of a faculty—in this topic, and a high level of anxiety about their capacity to manage those conversations.

I was struck in some student panels that I participated in during the spring term where students said to me in my role as provost, “You know, we are tired of being the ones that are always asked ‘so how are you going to advance discussions and debate on campus?’” Students said to me, rightfully so, “What are you as provost and the faculty doing about this?” So we will continue to work through the Center on Teaching and Learning on this. This was also a priority for teaching innovation award funding for those faculty who were going to address this issue in courses they are teaching. That’s how you end up making a community feel that it’s safe to have difficult conversations. You don’t write down some edict and just sort of launch that onto the community. You build that foundation. And it’s practice --practice, practice, practice.

JN: There was a report from the Office of Institutional Research in the 2013-2014 school year that the most popular majors were economics, psychology, biology, HSSP, and business. That isn’t expected to change drastically in the 2014-2015 report. The university appears to be shifting away from some of its more traditional roots in the liberal arts and towards a more science and social science approach. These are some of our most popular majors now. What do you think of that?

LL: If you went to other campuses you’d see those same categories for majors. But an important difference in the Brandeis campus from other campuses is how many students are double majors and triple majors, or one minor or two minors. So what’s interesting at Brandeis is that students may have something [reported] as their major, but they think more broadly. You have the neuroscience major who’s also very focused on theater arts. Or you have the person who’s studying a language and science. Or you have a business major who’s doing a major or minor in chemistry. So what is very impressive, to me on the Brandeis campus, is the much higher percentage of students that are double and triple majors than other universities that I’ve ever worked at in my career. That’s just not the case [at other universities]. Maybe you had a minor, rarely you would have a double major. This Brandeis phenomenon of the triple major—(you know, I really worry about if these young people are having an opportunity to do other things on campus) shows me that the liberal arts education is very much alive and well-invested in at Brandeis.

Now having said that, we’ve not done a comprehensive review of distribution requirements in—I think more than 20 years, maybe even longer. Again, we’re not alone on that, but that is something. I think a transition year may not be the best year to launch this [review], although maybe it will be. But it would be a good thing for Brandeis to revisit I think. Certainly as provost I had some terrific discussions with the humanities division about opportunities for creating living communities in the humanities area, like we have already in other areas. The totality of the educational experience at Brandeis is not captured by what somebody’s major is, because people major in so many things. There’s so much that we do also outside of the classroom that is an important part of the educational experience. Things that really broaden how people’s minds are shaped and formed, from being involved in student musical groups to theatrical groups to athletics to debate. It’s all part of the totality of the experience. Everybody coming out of Brandeis has this broader preparation for the world, as well as the deep expertise in one or two areas.

JN: You mentioned a little bit earlier the forum that you want to have with the Home for Little Wanderers. Are there any other major events or speakers that you want to mention?

LL: Oh, we’ve got all kinds of great stuff happening! We have—but I can’t share that quite yet—we have two people that we’re in the course of negotiating dates to come on campus for the Richman and the Gittler Fellowship, which will be wonderful. It looks like those two [events] will happen in the Spring. [These fellowships involve] an extraordinary person who not only gives a public lecture, but is in residency on campus and meets with students and faculty in their respective areas. So that’s going to be fun.

Another big [event] is in January—January 28th. As part of Brandeis’ celebration of the centennial of Justice Brandeis becoming a Supreme Court justice, we will have a panel that will begin with remarks from Justice Ginsburg. She’s a rock star, she’s awesome. That will be a very exciting event that we will have on campus. (May it not snow anytime during that week in January!) She will be coming to campus, plus a very distinguished panel to talk about the Supreme Court and Justice Brandeis. Then there will be a series of panels talking about the Supreme Court and Justice Brandeis’ legacy over the course of the spring semester. But you know, it’s Brandeis so we always have interesting people come on campus. Some with not a lot of notice, that we realize will be in town and we take advantage of that. But I think for Brandeis University, this is going to be a special year to be able to celebrate our namesake. There’s something about a hundredth anniversary that’s extra special. I’m really looking forward to that.

JN: What do you want to be your legacy as president?

LL: I think it’s a little much to think about a legacy for somebody who’s going to be in a position for potentially six months to twelve months. As a person who’s been involved in academic leadership here since 2008 I just want to continue to expand the excellence of this university. But one of the things that just drives me crazy, is that we are this best-kept secret. We have to celebrate our successes; we have to celebrate our accomplishments. We need to shout them from the rooftops, or from the turret on the Castle. We don’t do enough of that. We have to be bolder. Rather than focusing on past problems and controversies, we have to celebrate our successes. That’s something I’ve been focused on since I came here in 2008, will continue to do over the next year, and then after when I return as Provost. 

—Max Moran