The faculty convened for a meeting on Thursday afternoon to discuss and address ongoing issues and concerns, as well as to announce the winners of several teaching and academic achievement awards.

The meeting began with a tribute to Prof. Emeritus Joachim Gaehde (FA), who passed away on Nov. 24, 2013. Prof. Nancy Scott (FA) said a few words in his memory.

University President Frederick Lawrence then spoke about the early retirement plan that was offered to staff over the age of 60 this January. "The early retirement plan has generated discussion on campus, some of it critical, but most of it positive," said Lawrence, though he did admit that the plan could have been communicated to the Brandeis community more effectively. "I will take responsibility for a rollout that was less than optimal."

Most of the vacated positions will be brought to a committee that will decide which positions will be restructured, which will be eliminated and which will remain as is. Lawrence commented that "[w]e will be in a position to accomplish twin goals: early retirement and restructuring."

Lawrence then reported on the progress of the Catalyst Fund that was launched in January as a part of the University's capital campaign. The University has raised one-third of its $100 million goal so far, and hopes to reach the goal by December 2016.

Provost Steve Goldstein '78 spoke about the 2014 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts, which will run from April 24 to April 27.

He then moved on to speak about the University budget. Goldstein said that due to the fact that Brandeis is exceeding its financial goals, the University wants to "put our funds into the things we judge to be the priorities of the institution." The University is planning to increase funding for the arts and sciences for research, to move some adjunct professors to full-time faculty status and to increase the library budget.

Goldstein continued with a report that the capital budget increased four-fold as a result of strategic planning exercises. He said that the funds from saved expenses will go toward renovating several buildings on campus. To date, the University has close to one million dollars to renovate Mandel Quad, plans to finish the Schwartz Auditorium renovations on schedule and will put more money into renovating the Brown Social Science Center. The new building for the Lemberg Children's Center is projected to be finished on time, and the University is also planning to put more money into dormitories, specifically Ziv Quad.

He then said that the 2U online class program would be ending, effective after its summer 2014 session. 2U unexpectedly ended the online semester program on Wednesday night because there was not high enough enrollment in the program to make it profitable. "For Brandeis, it provided what we were hoping it would do, which is one of the many ways we get some experience with what works and what doesn't work with online education," Goldstein said.

Goldstein concluded by saying that the University Budget sub-committee of the University Advisory Council is investigating the issue of fair wages. The committee will continue to do so over the summer so that they have a better sense of the issues at hand before reporting back in the fall.

Then, Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan Birren announced the winners of several teaching and achievement awards.
There were two teaching awards given out to Heller School for Social Policy and Management faculty. The Heller Teaching Award was given to Prof. Mari Fitzduff (Heller) and the Heller Mentoring Award was given to Prof. Theodore Johnson (Heller).

Four Arts and Sciences teaching awards were also presented. The Michael L. Walzer '56 Award for Teaching was given to Prof. Xing Hang (HIST), the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching was awarded to Prof. Laura Goldin (AMST), the Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer '69 Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring was won by Prof. Marion Smiley (PHIL) and Prof. Jonathan Sarna '75 (NEJS) won the Dean's Mentoring Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Birren also announced the five students chosen to receive the Brandeis Achievement Award, an award for rising juniors. These awards were first given out in 2004 to students who have had over a 3.5 grade point average every semester at Brandeis and provided several recommendations. They were awarded $5,000 per semester for the rest of their time at Brandeis. The winners this year all had over a 3.8 cumulative GPA The winners were Samantha Chin '16, who is working toward a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies; Ian Christie '16, who is working toward a B.S. in Computer Science and Neuroscience; Caro Langenbucher '16, who plans to double major in English and Women's and Gender Studies; Eric Lin '16, who is majoring in Psychology and Art History and Shane Weitzman '16, who is majoring in Anthropology and South Asian Studies.

-Rachel Burkhoff and Avi Gold contributed reporting.