The Brandeis 2020 Committee announced proposals today to phase out or reorganize a wide range of graduate and undergraduate academic programs in order to achieve annual savings of about $3.8 million. The move will go toward fulfilling the Board of Trustees' mandate communicated at a special faculty meeting Jan. 20 by Meyer Koplow '72, chair of the Board's Budget and Finance committee, to reduce the academic commitments of the Arts and Sciences to ensure the long-term financial health of the University.Some key elements of the proposals include reorganizing the major in Hebrew Language and Literature and the minor in Yiddish and East European Jewish Culture as a track within the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department; reorganizing the science departments into a new Division of Science to reduce overlapping research areas; transforming the American Studies department into an interdepartmental program; phasing out the master's program in Cultural Production; and phasing out the Master of Fine Arts in Theater Design, as well as reducing the budget of the Brandeis Theater Company and theater production activity significantly over the next two years.

According to the deliberative process outlined in the Faculty Handbook, University community members will have a chance to give feedback on the proposals to Provost Marty Krauss, who will make the ultimate decision about which proposals to present to the Board of Trustees. There will be two open forums with the provost and committee members for undergraduate and graduate students, to be held this coming Thursday at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. in Olin-Sang Auditorium and Golding Auditorium.

The administration will present the final proposals to the Board of Trustees in March, together with proposals about centers and institutes, administrative costs and structures or suggestions from Bold Ideas Group.

The Brandeis 2020 Committee was made up of members of last year's Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee and the Dean's Curriculum Committee, the chair of the Faculty Budget committee, the faculty representatives to the Board of Trustees, three other faculty members to ensure maximum faculty representation, according to the report and one undergraduate and one graduate student representative.

Asked whether there was a minimum of the proposals that the committee expected to be implemented, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said in an interview with campus media that the committee considered the proposals to be a "package" and an "integrated plan." "One of the things this report does is ... to take the ideas that CARS started with and try to lock them down better so that we can reassure the Board that these things are really going to happen."

"I don't think there is any question that the reductions are affecting graduate students significantly more than undergraduate programs," Jaffe said. "The undergraduate programs that are directly affected are limited, ... whereas with respect to some of the graduate programs we will basically be getting out of graduate training in those areas." "The bulk of the savings is actually either fewer Ph.D. students' support [in the future] and faculty attrition that would eventually happen voluntarily," said Jaffe. He added that the committee estimated that there would be six or seven full-time jobs and another six or seven part-time faculty and staff that could be eliminated in the short term, beginning in summer 2011.

Regarding the recommendations for the theater program, "we have not given a specific target for the savings, frankly because we want to work in concert with the people in theater to figure out what changes could be made while maintaining a strong theater program," Jaffe explained. Committee member Prof. Sarah Lamb (ANTH) added that another aim was to increase undergraduate opportunities in theater.

Prof. Leslie Griffith (BIOL) said the reorganization of the sciences would also allow for a long-term reduction full-time faculty equivalent faculty positions. She said cuts in administrative staff were unlikely but that there could be a reallocation to understaffed areas. The proposal states that the sciences "should carry out the CARS-mandated net reduction in faculty of 10 [faculty full-time equivalents]" by the elimination of specific subject areas from the research portfolios of each department.

The proposals also call for suspending the Ph.D. programs in Anthropology indefinitely; merging the Ph.D. in Biochemistry with the Ph.D. programs in Biophysics and Structural Biology to form one Ph.D. program in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; reduce the University-funded Computer Science Ph.D. slots from 10 to five; and reducing the University-funded Chemistry Ph.D. slots from 25 to 20. Additionally, says the report, all stand-alone programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will have to explain "how they will achieve benchmarks set by the Dean of GSAS for enrollment, expenses, revenue, and metrics of student success and satisfaction. Programs that do not achieve their benchmarks by 2012-13 will be phased out at that time."

On the undergraduate level, the proposals encourage the Physics department to consider reorganizing the major in Biological Physics as a track within the Physics major; the termination of the major in Italian Studies while still offering instruction in Italian language and an Italian Studies minor; and termination of the Internet Studies minor, beginning with the class of 2015.

"The sense of the faculty in the program and the graduate students ... [is that they] all feel this is a very unfortunate and poorly considered decision," Prof. Mark Auslander (ANTH), director of the Cultural Studies program, said. He went on to say "that it's our hope in fact that during the deliberation process the Provost will have a chance to think carefully about all this ... and will recognize that there is a little more freedom to save certain important parts of the University."

Students and faculty in the M.F.A. in Theater Design program have been circulating e-mails to colleagues at other institutions and to alumni protesting the decision. "The general consensus here in the Design department was shock and anger," Benjamin Williams, a second-year Theater Design student, said. "This is a mandate from the Board to form this committee without coming through and looking at our program to see where we can save money and make changes to see if we can still maintain this program."

--Hannah Kirsch contributed reporting.