Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe announced at last Thursday's faculty meeting that he intended to inform affected department or program chairs by Sunday about proposals the Brandeis 2020 Committee is considering before the committee releases its final proposals after February break for substantive structural changes in academic programs or for the closure of programs. Provost Marty Krauss established the Brandeis 2020 Committee last month after Trustee Meyer Koplow '72, chair of the Trustees' Budget and Finance Committee, addressed faculty about the need for Brandeis to better balance its academics with its limited financial resources.

In an e-mail to science department heads last Sunday, Jaffe wrote that in the sciences the committee is considering proposing one of three actions. The committee is considering closing the Chemistry Ph.D. program and reducing the number of research areas within the Chemistry department; merging the Chemistry and Biochemistry departments; or creating a Division of Science within Arts and Sciences and identifying specific research areas to phase out. Jaffe wrote that the committee is considering other independent recommendations, including enforcing an increase in teaching loads to four courses per year for faculty who have ceased to publish scholarly work.

Prof. Seth Fraden (PHYS) wrote in an e-mail response to other faculty that closing the Ph.D. program "is totally unacceptable." "Closing the chem grad program will compromise our Materials Research Science and Engineering Center as materials chemistry is central to our center," he wrote.

"Closing chemistry is beyond unacceptable; it's suicidal for the university. It would provide publicity that is worse than for the Rose," Prof. David Roberts (PHYS) wrote in an e-mail response to faculty members. "The administration must be made to understand this; it threatens the entire science enterprise at Brandeis."

Prof. Bulbul Chakraborty (PHYS) wrote that faculty should "rally" around the third proposal, although she added that "something needs to be done to shape up the Chemistry Ph.D. program."

Last year's Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee's report had stated that "the [Chemistry] Ph.D. program has difficulty competing for top applicants and operates with a high attrition rate. It is the most costly graduate program in the University, approximately $650,000 this year." But the report noted that this weakness is balanced "by recognition that its students carry significant teaching responsibilities in the undergraduate lecture and laboratory courses" and as graduate research assistants.

Jaffe said he instructed the four school councils, who consist of the department chairs of each of the University's four schools, to meet next week. He said members of the Brandeis 2020 Committee would also attend those meetings, where faculty will be able to bring up any facts, issues or concerns they would like the committee to consider.

Jaffe added that "it's not an ideal process, . but given the time constraints we're operating under, it seemed the most practical way to try to make sure that there are not important considerations that we should have factored in that we might not hear."

Following that release of the report after break, a deliberative process will proceed during which the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, school councils and the faculty as a whole will review the proposals before Provost Marty Krauss announces her final decision in March as per the Faculty Handbook.

Jaffe said the committee recognizes "that we're going to lose something that we attribute to our mission and is trying to think about minimizing the impact of those losses."

During the meeting, faculty brought up concerns about how the announcement of the cuts could affect the admissions cycle.

"We will be able to announce to the world [cuts] that we are contemplating exactly at the time when students are considering whether to come to Brandeis University. . It will not be linked with simultaneous or even prior announcements . of actual plans for academic innovation, exciting new ideas as they contemplate this announcement," Prof. Jerry Cohen (AMST) said at the meeting. He said that many other universities were waiting until after graduation to make such announcements and stated that "it is possible to delay that mid-March deadline."

However, in response to a question from Prof. Elizabeth Ferry (ANTH), Jaffe said that the board had "said no" to the proposal of having the process end by June.

In an interview, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Apfel said that the Board of Trustees is concerned that "before we go into [unrestricted reserves] we want to make sure the administration has a plan in place . that is reasonable." He added in an e-mail that "what you want to know before using savings is: is there a plan to bring monthly expenses into line with monthly revenues?" He wrote that Brandeis currently has $70 million in unrestricted reserves.

"I truly believe that while there will be aspects of our proposals that people won't like that it will be possible to cast the overall whole set things we are proposing as a set of changes that are going to make Brandeis a stronger and better institution in the long run," Jaffe added later in the meeting.

In response to a faculty question, Jaffe said that in the event of a program's closure, tenure-track faculty would be reassigned to another unit.

Jaffe emphasized that the committee had considered the impact on contract faculty positions as far away as 2020.

"When we have thought about resource savings, we have thought about eliminating positions that are currently occupied by a living, breathing faculty member," Jaffe said at the meeting.

Jaffe later explained in an interview with the Justice that such a plan would take into account that faculty member remaining in that position initially and "that we might not save any money for a long time."

In that event, no new resources would be allocated toward a program and departures would not be replaced, Jaffe said.



-Alana Abramson contributed reporting.