|
www.temple.edu TEMPLE
General vibe: When I'm thinking of words to describe Temple, "funky," "down-to-earth," "no BS" "artistic" and "not motivated" are some that come to mind. Temple has a long history as a commuter school, but in the last few years, many new res halls have opened and campus life is definitely increasing. However, the culture of the school changes more slowly than its demographics, so in many ways, the residue of the commuter mentality is still felt. Students have varying opinions of the administration, feeling everything from "they are very accomodating, especially working with my learning disabilities" to "the amount of red tape I have to go through to get anything done is ridiculous."
The #1 reason students don't come to events at Temple is that they are working. Most of our students are focusing on paying their way, or contributing a good deal, through school. The general sense of apathy towards anything extra-curricular definitely seeps into Jewish life. We do have many hard-working, passionate students who are able to commit to building Jewish community, but it can be a struggle to find them. I always say that even our student leaders are engagement students. Not many Temple Jewish students have a strong sense of WHY they should have a strong Jewish identity, but are willing to open their minds and try new things as long as they don't perceive them as overly religious. It is a very close community, but again, as we have growing pains, we have many fledgling sub-interest groups (ie, Monday Night Wrestling or the A Capella group) that have actually fragmented the community since they are still quite small. We end up with 10 people here, 10 people there, that don't necessarily know each other. However, people don't seem afraid to do wacky things when I'm tabling, and it's clear that they at least identify with Jews at some level.
Multi-Campus Hillel, according to our database, seems to know many of the Jewish students at this school. But I am convinced that there are many students that just need to be pulled out from the woodwork. In the 1950's, Temple University had a huge Jewish population. It is much smaller now but there seems to be a small rise in numbers recently. I believe that this is because Temple is really reaching out to get students from the suburbs to come to the university. Temple is very much considered a city school and they are beginning to create things to ensure that it becomes more campus based.
Target groups
Arts students- The arts students ended up as less of a cohesive group than I anticipated.
Greek students- Iron Chef, AEPi mezuzahs
Res hall students- Take and Bake, IDF soldiers in Cafeteria
Spring break/ community service students
Campus relations
Laura Levitt
Joan and Arnold Boyd
|
|
Philadelphia U
General vibe: PU is located off of Lincoln Drive and situated in the suburbs of Philadelphia. It is a very small campus with about 2,000 students at most. It is a liberal arts college that focuses on mostly architecture, graphic design, fashion merchandising and a few other majors. It used to be called College of Textiles and Clothing. The students who attend this college are very focused on their studies, often spending long hours in studio perfecting their assignments. When they do have free time, they often spend it hanging out and some may take advantage of the city. But for the most part, it is a very quiet school, with only one sorority and one fraternity. During the weekends, they often travel to Temple or surrounding colleges (a sore spot with some students) to go to parties or they go home. From the students' point of view, there isn't much of a social outlet. From my point of view, I agree that there isn't that much going on, but students are often apathetic and don't take advantage of what is going on.
There are actually two campuses at PU. You will hear one of them called the "Ravenhill" campus. This is the campus where the main dining hall is located and where the dorms are located (except for one dorm, it's on the other side). I just refer to the other campus as the campus where the "Common Thread" is located. The Common Thread is the second dining hall that most students go to for lunch. This is the campus where all the academic buildings, the library and the student activity center are located. I find it most successful to table for lunch at Common Thread and for dinner at the Main Dining hall on the Ravenhill campus.
Target groups: There are so few students I came in contact with at PU, I would say my only target group was general engagement! At one point we tried to do an event in Manayunk, dinner and pool, but no-one showed up. I guess you could say that we missed the target:)
Campus relations:
Barbara Moran: Barbara runs the Office of Spiritual Development at PU. She is very helpful in getting the names of all the self-identified Jewish students on campus. Barbara's main focus seems to be in guaranteeing safe space for any faith groups to worship or have activities. She is an offshoot of the Student Development Office, run by Bridget. Barbara works about 15 hours a week. Next year, I am not sure what her hours will be. Her contact information is 215-951-2856 and her email is moranb@philau.edu.
Tim Butler: He is the Student Activities Director. He is very receptive and helpful but not necessarily proactive in reaching out to the Jewish students or contacting us regarding potential co-sponsorship of programs. If you go to him, he is very accommodating. His number is 215-951-2744.
Keith Nelson: He is the person who schedules all of the tabling at the Common Thread or the Ravenhill Dining hall. Almost all of the time, Barbara will be your third party in signing up for tables, so you shouldn't need to interact with him. Keith is located in the lobby of the Student Activity building. His number is 215-951-2701.
Kathy Sanns: She is the RA director and a very nice woman. At the beginning of each semester, I came during the RA training and talked about Hillel and Jewish life on campus. In previous years this helped set up some presentations and co-sponsorships with the RA's but this year, nobody seemed to be interested in going beyond the minimum required of them. In any case, it's a good tradition to keep up. Kathy's number is 215-951-2741.
Vicki Williams and Grace ?: Vicki has been very helpful in organizing the meals for Passover. At first, I was going through her to request the tabling, before I knew about Keith. She is a good person to know. Her number is 215-951-2924. Also, there is a person at the Common Thread who manages that cafeteria. I can't remember her name but I think it is either Pat or Kathy. She is shorter with blond hair.
www.philau.edu UNIVERSITY OF THE SCIENCES
General Vibe: USP is actually a nicer school than meets the eye. Tucked away west of Penn, they have a pretty campus and a good education. Most USP students come for the 6-year program and end up with a pharm-D or other master's degree. The most popular programs are pharmacy, physical therapy, and other science-related fields. USP students work very hard, harder than almost any other school in the Multi-Campus system, and it's worth it for them because they will all receive quite competitive salaries after they finish school. At the same time, extra-curriculars really suffer at this school because they are (or pretend they are) always studying. There is a heavy percentage of commuter students, and the upperclassmen live nearby but not on campus. Almost all of the Jewish girls I know are in a sorority, and it seems like most of the female population rushes a house.
Target Groups: Again, at our smaller campuses, the target groups and the general Jewish student population are one and the same. However, I can say that at USP we focused most heavily on holiday programming, and that Jewish holidays are the main occasion during which these students felt like they wanted to connect with each other.
Campus relations:
Phyllis Blumberg is the faculty advisor. Keep her on your mailing list and check in once in a while. Her email address is p.blumbe@usip.edu.
Patty O'Hagan: Patty is the student life director. She provides access to room reservations and is in charge of our allocations from the university. I only met her once, and she can be a tough sell, but I recommend trying to form a positive relationship with her from the start of the year. The students are the main avenue through which Hillel has contact with her.
www.usip.edu WEST CHESTER UNIVERSITY
Whenever I refer to WCU, I call it "Pleasantville." West Chester is a medium sized liberal arts school in a cute little town. The strongest and most popular majors are education, music, and health sciences. Student life is dominated by the Greek system and religious groups. The Hillel has continually struggled for leadership and members for the last number of years, even with a JCSC working there. The Jewish students generally have little amounts of Jewish knowledge and backgrounds with a few exceptions. West Chester has a Holocaust Studies program headed by Dr. Jonathan Freedman and one Biblical Hebrew class taught by Professor Rosso (not Jewish).
Most students live within an hour of campus and still have strong ties to their home communities. They often go home on weekends, but because freshman are not allowed to have cars on campus, this reinforces their desire to get out of WCU once they have access to transportation.
In the borough of West Chester, there are two synagogues: Kesher Israel, a quickly growing conservative shul, whose rabbi is very friendly with Hillel (David Glanzberg-Kranin), and a reform congregation, Beth Chaim, with which I am not so familiar. Additionally, an independant (read- Orthodox) Jewish center is starting this spring called Ner Tamid. The contact person is Leonard Fein.
Contact People:
Jeff Gerstein: Jeff runs the Student Activites Council at WCU, which is responsible for large programs like movies, comedy nights, and concerts. He is Jewish and has a few Jewish students who are active in his group, like Karen Snyderman and Rachel Ring. His office is Sykes 236.
Steve McKiernan: Steve and Jeff work side by side. Steve runs the LUVIM Speakers Series and can cosponsor programs with Hillel. This year, LUVIM helped fund the Anne Frank Theater Project, as well as a Holocaust speaker with a dinner beforehand for Hillel students.
Heather Gillan/ Charlie Warner: Heather and Charlie are the assistant direcotr and director, respectively, of Greek Life. Charlie is very involved as well with the Christian student groups on campus, including Greeks Investigating God (which seems like it potentially could have a Jewish component). Heather helps run the Religious Life Council with Diane Devestern, which is more of an interfaith staff dialogue than an active group. Traditionally the Office of Greek Life has been resistant to Hillel especially when we approach them about starting a Jewish-Greek Network.
Mary Shaw- Mary is the Reservations Queen and is stationed in the office behind the Front Desk in Sykes. She does room reservations for all spaces except in res halls and Lawrence (the cafeteria building). Be nice to her and smile when you ask her for things!
Susan Gans, Vanessa Johnson, Ed Pollack- Meet the Department of Psychology, aka all the cool Jewish professors! These three people have all been Hillel faculty advisors as well as JHP advisors at different times. Susan is going on family leave for at least a semester, and Vanessa would be the next person to go to for help on any issue. Unfortunately all three of them are slightly burnt out on being advisors, but to be a student group it is mandatory to have an advisor, and we are looking for a new faculty member to step up.
|
