Dear Heller Community,
Join me in honoring 65 years of Heller graduating enthusiastic influencers and unyielding change makers! Our faculty, researchers, alumni, and students continue to make profound contributions to global well-being. I am honored to shepherd this vibrant Heller community. Our longevity demonstrates mental strength, adaptive capacity, and collaboration across differences.
This year Interim President Levine has centered our campus mission and vision on the digital knowledge economy, reframing toward flexible modes of building and reporting students’ academic competency. As the University reorganizes and introduces sustainable ways to further these goals, it is worth pausing to reflect upon the full measure of Heller’s success and contributions. Over the past three years, we have strategized shifts in our academic, research, and administrative functions that are yielding major benefits now and in the future. These changes allow us to continue producing top-ranked academic programs (i.e., Heller ranks FY25 #9 for social policy and #13 for health policy and management in U.S. News & World Report), stellar graduates, and transformative research impact. Together, we have laid the groundwork that now helps the campus create transformative opportunities for unity, success, and sustainability.
The Heller community is a testament to the power of collaboration — by which I mean partnering and listening across disciplines, on- and off-campus — to make positive change happen. Support and inclusivity are our watchwords. And we are remarkably adaptable, having developed new courses and certificate programs and redesigned existing ones to expand the undergraduate-to-graduate pipeline.
We have many reasons to be proud of our 65-year-strong foundation. We should consider this foundation a vantage point from which to envision the promise and potential of Brandeis’s future. If justice equals kindness and fairness (and it does), our students, staff, and faculty work has never been more vital. Therefore, let us continue to do what we do best — use knowledge to transform challenges into opportunities — for the next 65 years and beyond.
Sincerely,
Maria Madison, ScD, Interim Dean