The University is consolidating three high school summer programs at Brandeis-the Genesis Program, the Berkshire Institute for Music and the Arts and Impact Boston-into a new Office of High School Programs in part of an effort to expand its options for high school students, Provost Marty Krauss said. As part of that reorganization, the Institute for Informal Jewish Education, which conveys teaching methods used in the high school summer programs to Jewish educators, will be renamed Innovation in Jewish Education, according to an e-mail to faculty and staff from Krauss last Wednesday. IJE will continue as an outreach program of the Office of High School Programs and no longer as an institute, Krauss wrote in an e-mail to faculty last Wednesday.

"As efforts were being thought about that would expand the number of programs that might be directed towards high school students, we thought it might be useful to have one office to coordinate and oversee and facilitate that," Krauss said.

"What we feel as a team is it's time for Brandeis as a university to try to take best advantage of the summer opportunities for high school students both because they're really good for the students, but they also bring really excellent potential future Brandeis undergraduates to campus," Prof. Joseph Reimer (HRNS), director of the IJE, said.

According to their respective Web sites, Genesis, founded in 1997, is a four-week program for high school students to "to pursue intellectual and Jewish exploration." BIMA, which moved to Brandeis in 2007, is a four-week program for high school students to develop their "artistic talent and [their] Jewish identity," while Impact Boston, a cooperation with the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization that started this year, is a two-week program focused on "social action, community service, and advocacy."

"The changes are being made at our suggestion, and we're delighted that the Provost and the President were responsive. . One of the exciting things that has happened that I know most undergraduates are not aware of is how those programs have grown, both grown in size and grown more sophisticated and more international," Reimer said. He added that the center has students from Israel, Russia and western Europe.

Reimer explained that IJE's projects are funded by individual grants and that IJE would continue to seek funding from outside foundations.

Krauss appointed Bradley Solmsen, director of Genesis and BIMA, as the new office's director. "I think it's going to be very helpful for people to know who to call if they have something that they'd like to do that would involve high school kids in the summer," Krauss said.

With regard to the IJE, Krauss explained that the University has guidelines for what an institute looks like and what funding level they need to have to be called an institute. "[IJE] did not meet some of those criteria," a fact Reimar was aware of, said Krauss.

Krauss said that the change was not related to the recommendations made with regard to centers and institutes by the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee but was an issue she had discussed with Reimer for some time.

As an example of its work, Reimer said the IJE used case material for the summer programs in training Jewish camp directors. "When the Foundation for Jewish Camps got interested in starting new summer programs, specialized summer camps, they called upon BIMA as a real important example for the other camps to learn from."

Krauss said Solmsen had started discussing some additional ideas for expanding high school programs with Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy.

She added that the University used to have a program for high school students on the weekends focused on science research "and a lot of faculty miss that and think it would be a great thing to restart."

"We're obviously looking for lots of ways in which we can increase revenue, whether this is a big strategy or a little strategy or median strategy remains to be seen," Krauss said. She said the summer programs cover their costs "and over time they may be generating more revenue for the University, but I don't think that's a primary goal initially." After sending out the announcement, she said she received e-mail responses from faculty who expressed interest in programming for high school students.

Solmsen called it an "important signal to the entire University community that Brandeis cares about learning on the whole set of different levels. Obviously the priority is undergraduate and graduate, but Brandeis also cares about adult learning, retirement learning through the [Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Brandeis] program, and in my case, high school students." He and Reimer emphasized that the Office of High School Programs would also cooperate with Brandeis summer school programs for high school students.

"Until now, we've limited ourselves to Jewish programs, but I think the potential is there to also include programs for other types of high school students, which would be exciting," Reimer said. "Since the high school programs are a really good example of how Brandeis can maximize its educational advantages during the summer, we thought . perhaps we can be helpful to the University in thinking about how to expand the number of programs that the University runs for high school students during the summer," he said.