Message From Our President
Dear Students, Faculty, Staff and Friends,
I am pleased to present to you this Guide to our plans for the upcoming fall semester and reopening of our campuses. In form and in content, this coming semester will be like no other. We will live differently, work differently and learn differently. But in its very difference rests its enormous power.
The mission of Yeshiva University is to enrich the moral, intellectual and spiritual development of each of our students, empowering them with the knowledge and abilities to become people of impact and leaders of tomorrow. Next year’s studies will be especially instrumental in shaping the course of our students’ lives. Character is formed and developed in times of deep adversity. This is the kind of teachable moment that Yeshiva University was made for. As such, we have developed an educational plan for next year that features a high-quality student experience and prioritizes personal growth during this Coronavirus era. Our students will be able to work through the difficulties, issues and opportunities posed by our COVID-19 era with our stellar rabbis and faculty, as well as their close friends and peers at Yeshiva.
To develop our plans for the fall, we have convened a Scenario Planning Task Force made up of representatives across the major areas of our campus. Their planning has been guided by the latest medical information, government directives, direct input from our rabbis, faculty and students, and best practices from industry and university leaders across the country. I am deeply thankful to our task force members and all who supported them for their tireless work in addressing the myriad details involved in bringing students back to campus and restarting our educational enterprise.
In concert with the recommendations from our task force, I am announcing today that our fall semester will reflect a hybrid model. It will allow many students to return in a careful way by incorporating online and virtual learning with on-campus classroom instruction. It also enables students who prefer to not be on campus to have a rich student experience by continuing their studies online and benefitting from a full range of online student services and extracurricular programs.
In bringing our students back to campus, safety is our first priority. Many aspects of campus life will change for this coming semester. Gatherings will be limited, larger courses will move completely online. Throughout campus everyone will need to adhere to our medical guidelines, including social distancing, wearing facemasks, and our testing and contact tracing policies. Due to our focus on minimizing risk, our undergraduate students will begin the first few weeks of the fall semester online and move onto the campus after the Jewish holidays. This schedule will limit the amount of back and forth travel for our students by concentrating the on-campus component of the fall semester to one consecutive segment.
Throughout our planning, we have used the analogy of a dimmer switch. Reopening our campuses will not be a simple binary, like an on/off light switch, but more like a dimmer in which we have the flexibility to scale backwards and forwards to properly respond as the health situation evolves. It is very possible that some plans could change, depending upon the progression of the virus and/or applicable state and local government guidance.
Before our semester begins, we will provide more updates reflecting our most current guidance. Please check our website, yu.edu/fall2020 for regular updates. We understand that even after reading through this guide, you might have many additional questions, so we will be posting an extensive FAQ section online as well. Additionally, we will also be holding community calls for faculty, students, staff and parents over the next couple of months.
Planning for the future during this moment has certainly been humbling. This Coronavirus has reminded us time and time again of the lessons from our Jewish tradition that we are not in full control of our circumstances. But our tradition also teaches us that we are in control of our response to our circumstances. Next semester will present significant challenges and changes. There will be some compromises and minor inconveniences--not every issue has a perfect solution. But faith and fortitude, mutual cooperation and resilience are essential life lessons that are accentuated during this period. And if we all commit to respond with graciousness, kindness, and love, we can transform new campus realities into profound life lessons for our future.
Deeply rooted in our Jewish values and forward focused in preparing for the careers and competencies of the future, we journey together with you, our Yeshiva University community, through these uncharted waters. Next year will be a formative year in the lives of our students, and together we will rise to the moment so that our students will emerge stronger and better prepared to be leaders of the world of tomorrow.
Best Wishes,
Ari Berman
When Rep. Dafna (Kalish) Michaelson Jenet ’95S, who represents House District 30 in the Colorado State Legislature, wants to find proven solutions to big problems, she doesn’t sit home and wait for ideas; she gets out there and finds them. That’s what inspired the Denver resident to visit all 50 states—one each week for 52 weeks in 2009—to hear about what real people were doing to solve community problems.
Following the grand tour, she and her husband, Michael Jenet, co-founded the Journey Institute, where they work with schools, businesses, organizations and individuals to train in community problem solving to build sustainable solutions. Her 50 in 52 Journey was the catalyst for her book, It Takes A Little Crazy to Make a Difference, which won an International Book Award in the social change category and set her off on another big adventure: the Colorado State House.
In the people she interviewed—more than 500 of them—she found creativity, compassion and courage. The project received national attention from NPR, CNN, the Denver Post, multiple radio stations, local news outlets and abundant blog recognition.
“CBS Sunday Morning did a nine-minute segment on my travels, and we weren’t really prepared for all of the publicity and interest that followed,” Michaelson Jenet recalls. She wrote a blog detailing her conversations and was interviewed by writer Maya Angelou, who called her a “kindred spirit.”
But in May 2010, she found a lump in her breast, and all opportunities were temporarily put on hold as she underwent a bilateral mastectomy.
A few years later, while working on It Takes a Little Crazy, she ran into a local politician who encouraged her to run for office. Running as a Democrat, she was elected to her seat in 2016, unseating the Republican incumbent with an 8% margin.
Many of Michaelson Jenet’s legislative efforts are informed by her own experiences, such as a bill requiring health insurance for breast imaging. She points to support for struggling youth and suicide prevention as her number one focus. Suffering from a severe learning disability and unable to get appropriate support at school, her son, Eytan, now 17, attempted to commit suicide at the age of nine. She takes this phone interview from a school conference where, she says, “we’re trying to figure out how to make sure not one more child dies from suicide.”
One solution is House Bill 19-1017 (Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade Social and Emotional Health Act), a bill Michaelson Jenet sponsored and which was passed into law. It created a pilot program to place one behavioral health professional—such as a social worker or counselor—in each grade from kindergarten through fifth grade, in all schools participating in the program.
Born in Tel Aviv, Michaelson Jenet moved to the United States as a child. “My parents, who had made aliyah, met in Ulpan,” she states. “It was hard to survive, and they moved back when I was young.”
While she attended yeshiva in elementary and middle school, there was no girls yeshiva in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lived, so she attended public school. Her mother, Margie Strick (now Malkah Karas) ’71S, spoke fondly of her years at 
State Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City, speaks to a crowd on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol
