UNITE Partners with Brandeis University to Operationalize Bold New “Brandeis Plan” for Career Readiness

UNITE to build the corporate engagement framework supporting Brandeis’s $25 million initiative to reinvent the liberal arts for the digital economy.

WALTHAM, MA & COLUMBUS, OH — UNITE, a leading consultancy specializing in holistic university-corporate relations, is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Brandeis University. This collaboration marks UNITE’s first partnership in the New England region and comes at a pivotal moment as Brandeis launches a sweeping, $25 million redesign of its academic and career-preparation model.

As the smallest liberal-arts-focused R1/ AAU university in the United States, Brandeis is currently garnering national attention—including recent coverage in Forbes—for its "Brandeis Plan to Reinvent the Liberal Arts." This initiative introduces a core curriculum built around the skills employers value most, a mandatory internship or apprenticeship for every student, and a pioneering program of embedded micro credentials, documented in "second transcript" for all students that verifies career competencies alongside traditional grades.

UNITE will work closely with Brandeis leadership to build the corporate engagement framework that serves as the engine for this vision. By operationalizing the "how" of cross-campus corporate work, UNITE will help Brandeis align its campus leaders and stakeholders with industry needs, ensuring that the university has the strategic structure required to measure, manage, and scale high-impact industry partnerships.

"Brandeis is currently setting the blueprint for the future of higher education by proving that elite research and a liberal arts foundation can be seamlessly integrated with career readiness," said Chris Svec, Co-Founder of UNITE. "We are thrilled to help them build the operational framework that bridges their world-class academic environment with the private sector. This partnership is a significant milestone for UNITE as we expand into New England to support institutions that are boldly redefining their value proposition."

The UNITE framework will focus on breaking down institutional silos to create access and ease for industry. This will allow Brandeis to better track partnership health and ensure that corporate collaborators are deeply integrated into both the student experience--from providing micro credentials to offering the real-world projects that now define the Brandeis curriculum—and the research mission.

“As Brandeis reorganizes itself around putting practice, application, and skill-building at the center of its renowned liberal arts curriculum (‘reconnecting the library to the street,’ as President Arthur Levine puts it), developing partnerships with business and industry is more important than ever,” said Michael Dettelbach, Assistant Vice President, Corporate and Foundation Relations. “We’re delighted and excited to have UNITE helping us operationalize that institutional priority. As their first venture into the Greater Boston ecosystem, with its unique higher education and industry landscape, Chris and Christy may be learning as much as we will.”

The resulting framework will focus on key pillars including research collaborations, talent pipeline development, and philanthropic support, ensuring a holistic approach that serves the university’s mission and student outcomes.

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About Brandeis University: Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, Brandeis University is a private research university with a focus on the liberal arts. Founded in 1948, it is the smallest non-polytechnical R1 research university in the nation. Its "Brandeis Plan" is a $25 million initiative designed to reinvent liberal arts education for the 21st-century knowledge economy.

About UNITE: UNITE helps universities maximize the value of their industry partnerships and is the expert on university corporate engagement with its co-founders having practiced at one of the nation’s largest universities (The Ohio State University) and now with a robust and diverse portfolio of higher education institutions. Through strategic frameworks, operational audits, and stakeholder alignment, UNITE transforms how institutions and corporations work together to drive funding, innovation, and growth. For more information, visit www.UNITECorporateEngagement.com.

Media Contact: Chris@unitecorporateengagement.com