Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, has announced a $10 million gift from alumna Bobbi Samuels (’63) and her family in support of a center for civic and community engagement.

The gift will endow the Vic and Bobbi Samuels ’63 Center for Community Partnerships and Civic Transformation in honor of her late husband and fellow alumnus, Vic Samuels, who passed away in 2020. The center will bring together students, faculty, staff, practitioners, and researchers in an interdisciplinary environment to address community needs. Initial center projects include the Community Engaged Scholars Program, a student initiative expected to launch in fall 2022 that integrates extracurricular experience and academics. The center also will serve as an incubator for current faculty projects, including prison outreach and education, supporting people with disabilities, legal aid clinics, climate justice, domestic violence, and mobilizing women’s groups in rural areas overseas; provide research assistance and teaching opportunities for graduate students; and award stipends so students have equitable access to community service and engagement activities.

“We are grateful to the Samuels family, and we will use their generosity as a tool to shape our communities — and our world — for the better and illuminate Vic’s legacy for generations to come,” said Brandeis university president Ron Liebowitz.

“The Samuels Center will serve as a vibrant incubator for many faculty, across fields and schools, who are already engaged in a diverse array of community research and teaching projects in the U.S. and abroad,” said Dorothy Hodgson, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. “This formal organizational support for community-engaged teaching and research will solidify faculty’s current connections to community organizations and civic projects, which are frequently improvised, individual, and temporary.”

(Photo credit: Kenneth C. Zirkel, Creative Commons)