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February 4, 2005/Shevat 25 5765, Vol. 57, No. 23
Colleges train Jewish professionals
CHANAN TIGAY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Shuli Passow had been working for a year and a half in the human resources department of a large investment bank in New York, but at the end of 2001 she decided it was time for a change.
She had enjoyed the job and appreciated the hands-on management and administrative experience it offered her. But Passow felt she just didn't belong in a large corporation.
"My experience there confirmed for me that I didn't want to be in that industry," said Passow, 28. But "maybe there was some way of bringing those skills into an environment that was more meaningful."
Fast forward to 2003. Based on a newspaper ad and a tip from a friend, Passow decided to enroll in the Wagner-Skirball program at New York University. It's a dual-degree course in which students work toward two master's degrees at once - one in public administration, specializing in nonprofit management, and the other in Hebrew and Judaic studies.
"I knew I wanted to do something that would give me the management and administrative skills and that would prepare me for work in the Jewish world as well," she said. "This was kind of the perfect fit."
Passow, who is now about halfway through the program, isn't alone in wanting to meld Jewish learning with serious training in administration. Several top-flight American universities now offer dual-degree programs that are training a small number of students in both fields.
The appearance of these programs reflects the evolving nature of Jewish organizational life, Jewish communal leaders say. They also come at a time when many Jewish communal professionals speak - not for attribution - of a leadership crisis in Jewish organizational life.
"The institutions of the American Jewish community have been in a process of maturing, and have become much more professional in what they want and expect of their professional leaders," said Robert Chazan, who co-directs the NYU program with Roy Sparrow.
Chazan said the program "has been greeted with a lot of community enthusiasm," and he expects an increasing number of universities to adopt the model.
Two or three decades ago, a master's in social work was the degree of choice among Jewish professionals, by an overwhelming margin. But that route is no longer sufficient, said Allan Finkelstein, president of the JCC Association of North America.
"Today, to lead an agency or run a major department or a major program anywhere, you need to have another skill set," Finkelstein said.
That's where the dual-degree programs come in.
Founded in 2001, NYU's program, which takes two and a half to three years to complete, combines graduate studies in the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, granting students degrees from both.
Similar programs exist elsewhere in the United States. Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion/Los Angeles offers five dual-degree programs in cooperation with the University of Southern California. They include an M.A./MBA course between HUC's School of Jewish Communal Service and the Marshall School of Business, and an M.A./MPA program with USC's School of Policy, Planning and Development.
Brandeis' Heller School for Social Policy and Management offers a joint-degree program in conjunction with the university's Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service.
"The challenge remains to recruit and retain the best and the brightest," said John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of UJA-Federation of New York. "I think the efforts to combine MBA, MPA, and Jewish studies - to offer students the opportunity to deepen their training in management and public affairs and Jewish studies - is a positive step and will help strengthen us in the future," he said.
Steven Windmueller, who directs the HUC JIR School of Jewish Communal Service, said dual-degree programs allow students to compete more effectively for jobs in the organizational world.
"We want them to have to capacity to function in the market place with the knowledge of not just how the Jewish community has operated, but how American society, especially not-for-profit organizations, have functioned," he said. "Hopefully graduates will understand not only the Jewish world, but the not-for-profit sector as well."
He added, "The graduates of these programs are federation executives, agency professionals, fund-raisers, program professionals, synagogue administrators. A whole array."
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