JustNews: What are your overall thoughts or reflections on your first year in office?

President Lawrence: I think it was a very successful, energizing year. A lot of the year was spent building relationships with faculty, with students, staff, friends of the University, alumni. A lot of that time was spent on campus building those relationships, and a lot of that time was spent traveling all over the country and, indeed, around the world. So I figure that I met literally thousands of alumni in my first year, at events all over. Something like 20 cities in the United States and several cities abroad where we did alumni events. Met long-time friends of the University, from all over. But a lot of time spent on campus, and a lot of that was being able to begin to launch a lot of initiatives here.

So, when I think back over the year, I think, structurally, of getting the administration redesigned. Even before I started, we formed the Administrative Structured Advisory Committee, ASAC, and based on that committee's recommendations, we redesigned the provost's position, and then over the course of my first year hired Steve Goldstein ['78] to become our new provost. We redesigned the students and enrollment senior vice presidency, and hired Andrew Flagel for that position. Spent a lot of time with students, at student events, student activities, meetings with students, trying to get a sense of what this 'Brandeisian' thing is and become part of the community. In many ways, that's been the most rewarding thing of all. The opportunity to feel like I've been part of this place. And of course, that includes the opportunity to teach a course last semester. So I've been able to be a new president, but also be a new faculty member.

A number of the particular projects that I thought needed attention that I was glad we were able to bring to closure. One was the solution of the Rose Art matter, and to get the museum reopened and reenergized and to be launching forward, and we are well along now in the search for a new director, and I hope that we will have that concluded relatively soon. Another was to reopen the [Joseph M. Linsey] Pool, and to be able to get the Linsey Pool and all of that structure renovated, so we could have that great opening of the pool, the January pool party on the first Saturday night you guys came back.

And finally, I would say it was a year to begin to work on some thoughts about the global footprint of Brandeis. To travel to Israel, travel to India, and in both places see connections that Brandeis can make and collaboration opportunities for our scholars and our students.

Actually, one other thing was launching the strategic planning process, which will help provide the blueprint for much of what we're going to try to accomplish over the coming years. I've been very excited about the level of engagement that that has received around the community. And again, from all sides of the community. From students, from faculty, from alumni, from friends, from staff. From all of us engaged in thinking about where are we and where do we want to go.

So it's been a busy first year. It's sort of fun putting it all together in one place as we talk and hearing this whole list. It has been a very busy year, but a very good one.

What has the transition been like for the University as a whole?

I think there's a lot of excitement and energy, I think there's a lot of anticipation. I think we also need to be careful and manage our expectations, because there are a lot of challenges that we face, there are a lot of challenges that American higher education faces. And financial issues coming out of the financial crash of 2008 aren't going to be resolved overnight, they didn't happen overnight. But I think having said that, and still dealing with some of the short term implications of that, I think there is a great deal of excitement about what we can accomplish long term.

Could you elaborate a little more about the trips you made to Israel and India?

One of the things that the strategic planning process is working on, with my strong encouragement, is giving some focus and shape to our global programs. Let's take a step back. Brandeis has an enormous global reach. We have students from well over 100 countries on campus, 116 countries I think are represented on campus. 12 percent of our undergraduates are international students. A large number of students spend at least a semester abroad at some point in their four years. And if you add to that the students who have spent a summer abroad, or the summer before coming to Brandeis abroad, it's got to be the vast majority.

So that's great. And I think that's important and that makes us who we are. I think we need to focus our efforts beyond that on a number of countries where we can have deep and sustained engagements. Israel and India strike me as two very strong candidates for that. There will be others. I think the strategic planning process can talk about that.

So my hope is to see that kind of sustained engagement on multiple levels.

How would you describe your relationship with the student body?

You're my kids. One of the things I love about being here is the opportunity to be as much part of student life as I can. You guys understand that there are a lot of demands on my time and a lot of times that I can't be here. But you also know this is where my heart is. And so the goal has been to try to be involved in as wide a range of activities as possible.

So over the course of the year, I try to be at least one match or meet of each of our sports teams, sometimes more, sometimes some of the away games. Certainly as many of the home games as I can. We had a great time with the men's soccer championship in the Eastern College Athletic Conference.

Plays, concerts, other kinds of cultural events on campus, religious events. I think everyone knows that when I'm in town on Friday night I go to one of the student-led Shabbat services, I rotate around among the services, go to the Catholic mass at least once a semester. Just different ways of being able to connect with students where students live. Nothing wrong with what you and I are doing right now, but I don't want to just talk to students in my office. That's not where students live. Students live in campus, students live in the activities they do, students live in the classroom, which is why I wanted to teach. So it's important for me to be involved in all those levels.

What about your relationships with the faculty?

First and foremost, the president of a university is the member of the faculty. I always call them my faculty colleagues. The first thing I said when I addressed the faculty, I think I hadn't even become president yet, I think I was president-elect, that among the best piece of advice I ever got was that you should never become dean or provost or president in any place where you are not first and foremost proud to be a member of the faculty, because you are.

So I have very much enjoyed my time with my faculty colleagues, on faculty committees, in a range of faculty interactions coming out of the strategic planning process, and in the formal interactions like the faculty meetings, but also the informal interactions socially. It's an extraordinarily gifted faculty in terms of a twin commitment, both to teaching and to scholarship.

At the same time, you ask most Brandeis faculty what they like best about being here, and pretty quickly in conversation they talk about the students. And I get it, from having had the chance to teach and to be with Brandeis students in the classroom, I get it. I'd add to that, that these are committed teachers, these are dedicated scholars, productive scholars, but these are also overwhelmingly people who are really involved in helping to run this place.

As one of the most prominent representatives of the University, what qualities of the school do you try to reflect to the public?

Commitment to excellence in our teaching and excellence in our scholarship. A devotion to social justice, which means giving back. Taking our work seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. And a sense of great optimism about what we can accomplish together in the future.

This is going to send terribly corny, but I do ask myself on a regular basis, "what would Louis Brandeis say." I told you it was going to sound corny. But it's true. Because Brandeis was somebody who understood that theory and practice went together, he was a brilliant scholar, a brilliant Supreme Court justice, but also an extremely effective tactical lawyer. And Brandeis was someone who understood social justice, his nickname was "The People's Lawyer," and that social justice is not spent sitting around talking about it, it's spend out there doing it. He got that. And Brandeis was somebody of moral courage. He stood up for what he believed, even if it put him at personal risk. When he became head of the American Zionist Movement in 1915, it was not an easy thing to do. So I'd like to think this is a school of which he'd be proud, and I'd like to think that he's still giving me advice, it's just that I have to listen pretty hard to hear it.

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