When Brandeis University’s board of trustees selected Arthur E. Levine as interim president last November, they charged him with developing a plan for the future of the school that was founded by the American Jewish community 77 years ago.

Last week, Levine, who was officially named president in July, delivered by announcing what he called “a transformative vision for American higher education” that will involve “reinventing the liberal arts curriculum” and emphasizing career development.

The university’s board of trustees has allocated $25 million to support the initiative, which Levine said will “transform Brandeis” and enable the university’s students “to thrive in the global digital economy.”

“We really believe this plan will prepare our students for the 21st century,” Levine said.

Key elements of the plan include:

• Implementing a new core curriculum that will provide students with the skills, knowledge, and values to thrive in a global digital, knowledge economy.

• Providing all students four years of career counseling and access to internships or apprenticeships. Each student will be assigned an academic advisor and a career counselor or an accomplished professional in the student’s intended career field.

• Integrating the liberal arts and professional education in Brandeis’s professional schools. The reorganization will combine theory and practice.

• Providing all graduates with two transcripts, including a career competency transcript that will certify specific competencies the students have gained so that future employers will “know what our students are capable of doing,” Levine said. “Liberal arts colleges have always been about jobs.”

Brandeis will work with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) on a pro-bono basis to help prepare the transcripts. The other transcript will be the traditional one that shows grade point average and lists courses.

Levine praised the Brandeis faculty for being the “instigator of change.” During the past year, there were more than 100 meetings with faculty to develop the new initiative. Faculty serve on 18 advisory committees drawn from more than 200 volunteers. Eighty-seven percent of the faculty overwhelmingly supported the plan.

“Faculty have been treated as genuine partners” in shaping the new initiative, according to Faculty Senate President Jeffrey Lenowitz. “It opens new opportunities for collaboration in research and teaching, and it strengthens needed career preparation while still preserving other things that we hold dear, like the core ideals of a liberal arts education and the persuit of knowledge through high-level research.”

The plan builds on some of Levine’s academic research. He has written 13 books, including co-authoring “The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present and Uncertain Future” in 2021. Levine, a 1970 graduate of Brandeis and the recipient of 26 honorary degrees, predicted in the book that there will be a demand from students for competency-based credentials rather than just traditional degrees.

The driving force for the Brandeis plan will be a new research center for applied liberal arts that will serve as the “engine driving the plan and fuel future innovation,” he said. The center will be funded by the $25 million from the board of trustees.

Over the next year, the faculty in the center will develop new designs for courses, programs, experiential learning, teaching methods, and virtual reality, according to a statement release by the university.

The Brandeis plan will officially be launched during the next academic year. Levine did not mention the potential impact on admissions. He said this year’s class is larger than last year’s but wouldn’t have exact numbers until next month.

He pointed out private, liberal arts universities need to respond to an “uncertain moment in U.S. higher education. Shrinking high school graduating classes, combined with the availability of lower-cost public higher education options, have created increased competition among private liberal arts institutions and fueled skepticism about the value of college, given its cost.” Θ