YU’s 2011 Green Report Card Shows Continued Progress

For the fourth year in a row Yeshiva University’s College Sustainability Report Card continues to show considerable improvement, according to the Sustainability Endowments Institute (SEI). In its annual publication, released on October 27 on SEI’s Web site, the Institute awarded YU A’s in the categories of student involvement, transportation and investment priorities, and a B overall. In all, YU received grade increases in three of nine categories, including green building, endowment transparency and investment priorities.

Jack Zencheck, YU's chief procurement officer

Jack Zencheck, chief procurement officer at YU, attributed the University’s recent progress to the efforts of the Office of Energy and Sustainability and the Sustainability Advisory Committee, made up of faculty, staff and students throughout the University. “They have implemented many positive programs aimed at reducing our carbon footprint.”

Zencheck noted that additional green initiatives are in the works. “This fall we began our first Eco Rep Program, educating students about sustainability and how to reach out to their fellow students. In the near future we also plan to begin piloting a green office rating system to encourage environmentally friendly behaviors in the workplace.”

Many of the projects stem from YU’s first-ever Climate Action Plan, published in May, outlining the University’s commitment to sustainability with a list of initiatives to lower green house gas emissions, setting 2050 as a long-term goal for climate neutrality. The plan’s initial goal calls for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Zencheck asked students and employees to get involved by recycling and participating in the upcoming the Recyclemania competition this January. “We also encourage everyone to take the Sustainability Pledge and show your commitment to a greener Yeshiva University.”

To learn more about sustainability at YU and to get involved visit www.yu.edu/sustainability.

The Huffington Post Features an Op-Ed by Dean Victor Schwartz and Drs. Jerald Kay and Paul Appelbaum on the Dangers of Firearms on Campus

Dr. Victor Schwartz, university dean of students

(The Huffington Post) Several states are currently dealing with well-organized efforts to loosen regulations prohibiting or limiting the ability to carry firearms on college campuses. The University of Colorado is now being sued by the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus over the institution’s right to enact a campus-wide ban on concealed weapons. In Texas, the passage of pending legislation that would allow guns at colleges and universities is disconcerting. Noting that there are already far too many illegal weapons on campus, Gov. Rick Perry has said “I want there to be legal guns on campus. I think it makes sense – and all the data supports – that if law-abiding, well-trained, ‘backgrounded’ individuals have a weapon, there will be less crime.”

As longtime college health professionals, physicians and researchers, we politely but vehemently disagree. More students carrying guns at colleges and universities will lead to significantly more deaths than would be prevented by attempts to stop what are very rare mass attacks or even homicides.

In fact, the rate of homicide on college campuses over the past 15 years is one per million students. Yet, consider that the rate of suicide among college students is already 100 times the rate of homicides. Each year, some 10% to 15% of young men and women on campus seriously think about suicide and approximately 1 % to 3% of them will make a suicide attempt. Read full article on The Huffington Post…

Dr. Victor Schwartz is University Dean of Students at Yeshiva University and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Jerald Kay is professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine. Dr. Paul Appelbaum is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Law and director of the Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Drs. Schwartz and Kay are the editors of Mental Health Care in the College Community(Wiley-Blackwell).

President Richard Joel to Speak at Nov. 18 Reception Honoring Einstein Dean Allen Spiegel

UJA-Federation of New York’s Montefiore Medical Center & Albert Einstein College of Medicine Campaign’s Annual Reception will honor Allen M. Spiegel, Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz dean at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, at its annual reception on Thursday, November 18, 2010, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Price Center. The campaign chairs are Shalom Kalnicki, M.D., and Arnold Wilson, M.D, and event chairs are Donald Ashkenase, Allan Brook, M.D., and Edward Burns, M.D.

The reception will feature guest speaker Richard M. Joel, president of Yeshiva University. A nationally renowned leader, he has spoken globally on the importance of communal leadership and rich Jewish identity to ensure a Jewish future in America, in Israel, and around the world.

Allen M. Spiegel, M.D., dean of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, is an internationally recognized researcher and endocrinologist. Prior to joining Einstein, Dr. Spiegel was director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the culmination of a distinguished 33-year-career at NIH. Dr. Spiegel has extensive experience in translational research programs, and his work on signal transduction helped to clarify the genetic basis of several endocrine diseases.

Learn more here.

Yeshiva College Chemistry Club Brings Magic of Science to Local School

Addressing an avid fifth-grade class at PS 366 Washington Heights Academy, Chanan Reitblat posed a philosophical question: “What is chemistry?”

A hand shot up in the front row. “Like when you make potions!”

“Like Harry Potter?” Reitblat laughed. “Almost!”

Reitblat is president of Yeshiva College’s Chemistry Club, a chapter of the American Chemical Society, which performed its third annual “magic show” at PS 366 during National Chemistry Week in October. Guided by event project manager Menachem Spira, club members spent weeks carefully preparing experiments and demonstrations that would visually wow the elementary school students but also serve as grounds to explore scientific theories.

“We wanted to excite the children and show them how it feels to understand how things work and how to make them work better,” said Dr. Raji Viswanathan, associate dean of academic affairs at Yeshiva College. “Yeshiva University is in this neighborhood, and the school is right here. Our students are energized and wanted to share their love of science with these kids.”

The Chemistry Club inaugurated PS 366’s brand-new laboratory with tricks ranging from “elephant toothpaste,” a volcanic experiment using hydrogen peroxide, to “fiery bubbles,” in which two presenters collected methane bubbles in their palms, ignited them with a lighter and exchanged high-fives before the brief flames flickered out.

Unlike magicians, however, members of the Chemistry Club paused after each stunt to explain the science behind it. “Let’s start a chant,” suggested Pesach Baral ’13YC, watching his elephant-toothpaste concoction fizz up. “Endothermic is?”

“Cold!”

“Exothermic is?”

“Hot!”

It was the first time the students had ever used the laboratory, since the public school doesn’t yet have a science teacher. “We wanted to give them a taste of it,” said assistant principal Mercedes Diaz. “We also wanted to show them hands-on science, how it continues to evolve and how it is performed by older students in universities and the outside world. Who knows? Maybe we have an Einstein sitting in this classroom waiting to discover science.”

The fifth-graders all had opportunities to participate in the show, whether they were shaking glow sticks made of fluorescent materials or creating their own slime from glue, borax and food coloring. Chemistry Club members quizzed them as the show went on, awarding YU footballs, Frisbees and notebooks for correct answers. The club also donated a large blanket with the periodic table printed across it to hang in the laboratory.

“It’s about inspiring the next generation of scientists,” Reitblat said. “We wanted to show them ‘Look, science is awesome and you can do it; you can pursue it.’ Chemistry is the science of everyday life—you have to bring it to the people.”

The Chemistry Cub hopes to continue its involvement with PS 366 by providing student volunteers to teach science labs until a full-time teacher is found. That program, called Project START (Students, Teachers and Researchers Teach) Science, will begin next semester. In conjunction with the YU Literacy Program, the club also offers math and science tutoring to local middle school students and is developing an initiative called FUTURE, which would grant YU students the opportunity to collaborate with high school teachers to enhance science courses in local public schools.

RIETS Presents Nov. 18 Reunion Shiur for Former Students of Rabbi Hershel Schachter

Yeshiva University affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) will host a reunion shiur [lecture] for the talmidim [students] of Rabbi Hershel Schachter on November 18, 2010 at 8:15 p.m. in the Jacob and Dreizel Glueck Center for Jewish Study, Room 308, 185^th Street between Audubon and Amsterdan Avenues, New York City. Rabbi Schachter will offer introductory remarks to Sefer Kodshim.

Rabbi Hershel Schachter

“We are very happy to further the vital link between rebbe and talmid that is a cornerstone of each student’s experience here at Yeshiva,” said Rabbi Yona Reiss, Max and Marion Grill Dean of RIETS.

Rabbi Schachter has had a distinguished career with RIETS joining the faculty in 1967 at the age of 26 as the youngest rosh yeshiva in the seminary’s history. Since 1971, Rabbi Schachter has been rosh kollel in the Marcos and Adina Katz Kollel and also holds the Nathan and Vivian Fink Distinguished Professorial Chair in Talmud.

In addition to his teaching duties, Rabbi Schachter lectures, writes and serves as a world renowned posek [decider of Jewish law]. A prolific author, he has written more than 100 articles, in Hebrew and English for such scholarly publications as HaPardes, Hadarom, Beth Yitzchak and Or Hamizrach. His books include Eretz HaTzvi, B’ikvei HaTzon, Nefesh HaRav, MiPninei HaRav and Ginat Egoz.

“The ability for students in Rav Schachter’s shiur to come together as a unit to hear Torah from their rosh yeshiva exemplifies the enduring bond of shimush chakhamim, dikduk chaverim and pilpul talmidim that ties us together,” added Rabbi Reiss. “It illuminates a lifetime endeavor of acquiring Torah knowledge and embodying its values within our Yeshiva community.”

Light refreshments will be served. Please register online to secure free parking or contact Genene Kaye at 212-960-0137 or gkaye@yu.edu.

Men’s Cross Country Team Wins HVMAC Championship, Stan Watson Named Coach of the Year

The Yeshiva University Men’s Cross Country team captured the 2010 Hudson Valley Men’s Athletic Conference (HVMAC) Championship on Sunday, October, 24 at Purchase College. The Macs scored 35 points in the 8K race, 23 points ahead of the runner-up Cooper Union. Four of the five scorers for Yeshiva finished in the top 10, with the 5th scorer placing 13th.

At the top once again for the Macs was David Sweet, who finished the race in second place overall with a time of 28:46. Benjamin Joslin placed 4th overall in 29:33 and Samuel Cohenfinished 6th in 29:54. Adam Weiss rounded out the top 10 finishers with a 10th place, 31:27 effort. Oliver Sax placed 13th in 31:33 to give the Macs their 35 points.

Also finishing for the Macs was Yehuda Safier in 14th (31:40), Jonathan Mond in 19th (32:06),Natan Koloski in 21st (32:47), Marlon Danilewitz in 30th (35:36), and Zachary Jerusalem in 34th (36:58).

Also announced after the Championship was that head coach Stan Watson was named the Coach of the Year. He headed a team that won their first conference championship and had two runners of the week and a rookie of the week this year.

Visit the YU Athletics site for more information.

Mini Golf Tournament Raises Money for Kids of Courage

Clad in neon green t-shirts and lugging along plastic miniature golf club sets, 72 Yeshiva University students took to Tenzer Garden on the Wilf Campus for the first-ever YU Mini-Open. The October 21 event, sponsored by University Housing & Residence Life, Athletics and the Yeshiva Student Union (YSU), raised money for Kids of Courage, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children and young adults with serious medical diagnoses.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf1p5j43MT4

“We were thinking of creative ways to utilize the campus,” said Sean Hirschhorn, assistant director of university housing, who came up with the idea, along with Jonathan Mantell, director of university housing. “We both love golf and thought this would be something the students would really enjoy. It’s a little fun, a little absurd and all for a good cause.”

Students battled blustery winds and a makeshift 18-hole obstacle-filled course in groups of four as they vied for the grand prize—an iPad and a highly coveted green jacket.

“I saw holes move which doesn’t usually happen in golf,” said Hillel Cooperman, a business major at Sy Syms School of Business. He was disappointed with his 25-over par effort but happy to participate. “It’s not about winning—this was a great event for a great cause.”

Jake Friedman, a Yeshiva College philosophy major, noted that “Tenzer Garden is the most difficult course on the circuit.”

[flickrslideshow acct_name="yeshivauniversity" id="72157625217740158"]

After all the scorecards were tallied, President Richard M. Joel presented Elie Baratz, who shot a three-over par 48, with the green jacket and iPad.

President Joel pointed out that the Hebrew word moach [brain] has the numerical value of 48 and that “you have to use your head to be able to win this.”

“It feels awesome winning this,” said Baratz, an accounting major at Syms. “To be honest, I had somewhat of an advantage because I actually have these same clubs in my dorm room. I guess all that practice paid off.”

“Killing Kasztner” Program Sparks Passionate Debate, Raises Questions

Panelists (L-R): Joseph Berger, Gaylen Ross, Richard Weisberg and Mordecai Paldiel

In the darkened auditorium, a quote from Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo flashed across the screen: “Unhappy is the land that has no heroes.”

“No,” read the next line. “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

More than 200 students from Yeshiva University’s undergraduate colleges, its Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School and the New School, gathered in Weissberg Commons on October 20th for an exclusive screening and panel discussion of the documentary Killing Kasztner. Orchestrated by the Student Holocaust Education Movement (SHEM), a student-run organization, in conjunction with Cardozo, the evening featured four speakers with differing perspectives on events depicted in the film: Dr. Joseph Berger, a Holocaust survivor saved through Israel Kasztner’s efforts; Holocaust expert, Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, assistant professor of Jewish history at YU and a former director of Yad Vashem’s Department of the Righteous; Richard Weisberg, Walter Floersheimer Professor of Constitutional Law at Cardozo; and Gaylen Ross, the film’s director.

The case of Kasztner has been a contentious and unsettling footnote in post-Holocaust history for decades. Kasztner, a Jewish Hungarian lawyer, successfully negotiated with senior SS officer Adolf Eichmann for the release of a train carrying 1,684 Jews in exchange for money, gold and diamonds in late 1944. Though he considered himself a hero and went on to become a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Trade and Industry, in 1952, Kasztner was accused of Nazi collaboration. He was assassinated in March 1957. His legacy remains uncertain; in Holocaust narratives across the globe the people he saved, and those he did not, struggle with the morally ambiguous implications of his actions.

“Our panel was chosen to represent voices from a variety of backgrounds, all introduced to the Kasztner case through emotional and scholarly exploration,” said Simon Goldberg, president of SHEM. “We hope that reflecting on this mysterious figure will not only illuminate the circumstances that tied the hands of Israel Kasztner over 70 years ago but which tie the hands of all human beings trying to make sense of ethical dilemmas today.”

The film sparked a lively debate between the panelists over the role Kasztner played in the salvation of thousands of European Jews, as well as what responsibility, if any, should be assigned to him for the thousands he allegedly betrayed by providing assistance to Nazis. Weisberg noted that the central question posed by the documentary is one the Israeli government faces on a regular basis: “Can heroes negotiate with the enemy? Is it ever appropriate to engage in dialogue with limitless evil?”

For students, the night was an eye-opener. Members of the audience lingered long after the formal part of the evening had ended, engaged in earnest discussion with the panelists. Now that Yad Vashem had acknowledged Kasztner’s efforts, was his name cleared? Should his killers, who had been released from prison after only seven years, be retried? How did Ross’s film compare to Ben Hecht’s more than thirty-year-old chronicle of the event, Perfidy?

Simon Goldberg, president of SHEM

“Our aim is to provide young people with a variety of platforms through which to explore and grapple with the lessons of the Holocaust,” added Goldberg, who is majoring in history and political science at Yeshiva College. “We believe that dialogue facilitates moral growth and that we can equip students with the tools to become Holocaust educators in a world where memory is increasingly challenged.”

“I think Michael Berenbaum described it best,” said Ross. “‘This was a time of choices when there were no choices to be made.’”

Sep 13, 2010 — Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), an affiliate of Yeshiva University, will honor dedicated leaders and educators of the Jewish community at its Annual Dinner of Tribute on Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at The Grand Hyatt in New York City. Honorees include Guests of Honor Joel and Judy Schreiber and Dr. Joel Wolowelsky, who will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Jewish Education. The dinner will also pay tribute to Alvin Blumenfeld z”l through the establishment of a scholarship fund in his name.

Joel Schreiber has served as a member of the RIETS board of trustees since 1996. He is a graduate of Yeshiva College, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and RIETS. His wife, Judy, is a graduate of YU’s Brooklyn Girls High School and received a master’s degree from YU’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work. The Schreiber family’s generosity has supported many YU initiatives including the Aaron and Blanche Schreiber Torah Tours Program that provides critical Jewish education and outreach around the world.

Dr. Wolowelsky is dean of the faculty at the Yeshiva of Flatbush in Brooklyn, NY, where he teaches math and Jewish philosophy. He is associate editor of Tradition, the journal of Orthodox Jewish thought published by the Rabbinical Council of America and the series MeOtzar HoRav: Selected Writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Mr. Blumenfeld, a distinguished and widely admired trustee of RIETS and a former board member of the Yeshiva University High Schools, was a graduate of YU High School for Boys and Yeshiva College. Together with his wife, Lois, they established the Lois Blumenfeld Personal Endowed Scholarship Fund at YU’s Stern College for Women and the Lois and Avi Blumenfeld Kollel Fellowship in Israel and supported many other YU initiatives.

Founded in 1896, RIETS is the leading center for education and ordination of Orthodox Rabbis in North America. To learn more about the RIETS Annual Dinner of Tribute, make a reservation or to participate in the Scroll of Honor visit www.riets.edu/dinner, call 212-960-0852 or email rietsdinner@yu.edu.

Career Development Center Program Offers Parents Tools to Help Students Succeed

Upperclassmen who mentor incoming students are supported by a variety of programs on Yeshiva University’s undergraduate campuses, but parents helping other parents? That is something new. On October 17, YU’s Career Development Center hosted, “Parents to Parents: Employment Trends, Job Readiness and Lessons from the Business World,” in which two current YU parents, Dr. Steve Safier and Dr. Elly Lasson, discussed how parents can effectively assist their undergraduate children to enter the working world.

(From left) YU Parents and presenters, Steve Safier and Elliot Lasson

Lasson is the executive director of Joblink, a nonprofit job placement organization serving the Baltimore, Maryland community and is also an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore. His son Yaakov is in Yeshiva College; his daughter Yaelle is currently enrolled in the S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program. Beginning with a “state of the union” on the current job market, Lasson detailed the skills and knowledge that current graduates need to enter today’s challenging environment. Highlighting strategies as simple as preparing short summaries of one’s expertise and experiences and emphasizing one’s preparedness to make adjustments for and to a career, Lasson explained to parents how they can best encourage and assist their children to find and sustain careers. He also opened the floor to a conversation with the parents on appropriate behaviors, dress and interpersonal communications for interviews and the workplace.

Safier spoke more directly to the behavioral aspects of job searching and ongoing career development and listed “Five Things Parents Can Do to Help Their Children Get Jobs.” Safier’s son Yehuda is in Yeshiva College; his daughter Michal is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology. Formerly a chief operating officer within the SUBWAY Sandwich company, Safier is now CEO at Of Both Worlds, a coaching business he founded to help college students and recent graduates find their first jobs. Noting that one’s behavior directly affects one’s employment opportunities and experiences, Safier said that self-image, personality and bearing are important differentiators of entry-level employees who have similar technical skills. In addition to a student’s education, he said, students must develop, and parents can assist in developing, five critical skills: reading comprehension, writing, presence, responsiveness and the ability to network — both to get interviews and to succeed in their jobs. Safier advised the parents on how to help their children and also asked the parents for some of their own ideas, which they were happy to share.

Marc Goldman, executive director of the Career Development Center, said the event developed because he separately came into contact with both speakers and wanted to think of a creative way to allow them to jointly share their enthusiasm with others. The information they offered was “very useful” said Goldman, who was glad to see “much of what they said was in sync with what we already do here.” The speakers had “a balance between knowledge about both the job market and the specific community that really engaged the audience, who obviously are invested in their children’s successes.”

Reaction to the event from the parents was equally positive. Will Schwartz, parent of a Stern College for Women freshman, said that he “enjoyed the event, which provided practical advice for both parents and students. The tips and advice were helpful, as in today’s tough environment any leg up can be a step in the right direction.”