In a Feb. 5 email to Brandeis community members, Provost Carol Fierke announced the 14 person university-wide teach-in planning committee. The Committee includes graduate and undergraduate students, researchers, faculty and members in diversity equity and inclusion positions from on and off campus offices. According to the email, the 14 members were selected from a pool of around 90 nominees. 

The committee will be “providing recommendations for events, topics, and potential presenters/facilitators,” Fierke wrote. “We are grateful for their efforts to develop more pathways to complex and healthy campus dialogues that will strengthen our sense of community.”

The announcement came just under a month after an initial Jan. 10 email from Fierke, welcoming nominations. Fierke’s January email was a follow up to the day-long Teach-In that Brandeis hosted on Dec. 5, 2023, in response to the campus climate becoming increasingly heated after the start of the Oct. 7 Israel-Hamas conflict. 

“[We] regarded that day as a first — and necessary — step in what would need to be an extended, iterative process designed to generate informed, thoughtful conversation, opportunities for learning about deeper contexts for recent world events and authentic understanding of the deeply held perspectives, grounded in lived experiences, that have both joined and divided so many of us,” Fierke wrote. 

The University anticipates that the efforts of the planning committee will contribute to “(re)build a community grounded in mutual respect, understanding, and learning.”

Members selected to serve on the committee: 

Ashraf Awawda — Regional and Programming Specialist, Our Generation Speaks

Jennifer Cleary — Senior Lecturer, Theater Arts

Sanchita Dasgupta — PhD Student, Sociology

Yuval Evri — Assistant Professor, NEJS and Schusterman Center

Nabeel Khan — Grad Research Assistant, EID Office, Heller

Sarah Lamb — Professor and Chair, Anthropology

Elena Lewis — EID Director, MBA PM, Heller

Chip McNeal — Director, ODEI

Yehudah Mirsky — Professor, NEJS and Schusterman Center

Naghmeh Sohrabi — Professor, History and Crown Center

Sophie Trachtenberg — Presidential Fellow

Aaryuj Trehan — Class of ’24, Economics and Biology Major

Meshulam Ungar — Class of ’24, History Major

Hagit Weihs — Associate Professor, IBS