Israel Programs Asked to Prove Worthiness

Two months after a whirlwind visit to 25 Israel yeshivot and seminaries, Vice President for University Life Dr. Hillel Davis, and Dr. Scott Goldberg, Azrieli Professor and Director of YU's Institute for Educational Partnership and Applied Research, are weeks away from presenting a draft proposal to the University's S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program Committee. In November, as part of the reaccreditation process for the S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program, Drs. Davis and Goldberg conducted eight meetings with several yeshivot and seminaries at a time, discussing ways in which the Israel institutions could both articulate their own objectives as well as to create a system to monitor their own progress in meeting the self-proclaimed goals.

Dr. Davis compares it to the Middle States accreditation process, a commission on higher education - that Yeshiva is a part of - which evaluates and critiques schools. "The Middle States model is when they say to a school 'this is what you said you were going to do but we don't see it. Here's an area you can improve,'" commented Dr. Davis.

In fact, Dr. Davis sees the entire process as an aid to the schools, enabling them to take a step back and evaluate their own progress in achieving their goals, fixing the areas in which they themselves subsequently realize need improvement.

Many schools, said Dr. Davis, thanked them for giving them the opportunity to pull away from their preoccupation with day-to-day issues and to evaluate their own success at attaining their larger vision.

Admittedly, however, the evaluations are part of a larger reaccreditation process. With hundreds of students participating in the S. Daniel Abraham program each year, YU wields a considerable degree of unspoken influence over participating Israel institutions. Failure to be reaccredited by YU could spell the death knell of even a large seminary or yeshiva.

How the Israel Committee plans to use that leverage, if at all, still remains unclear. Dr. Goldberg, a recognized authority on Jewish education, was clear that YU would be making recommendations to the Israel institutions about their curriculum. "You can certainly expect that in a self-study model we'll include recommendations for improvement that will also be monitored by YU, so that a process reviewing it with both the Israel Program Committee as well as the Israeli schools would be created as to how they can improve."

Whether those recommendations will remain mere suggestions or would develop into expectations, and the exact areas of yeshiva and seminary life that the evaluations would cover, also remains unclear. Drs. Davis and Goldberg cited the unfinished work of creating the evaluation process as reason to defer answering such questions.

Some issues that were discussed with the Israel institutions, however, include student access to mental health professionals, the absence of any tests or grades in most men's yeshivot, and the way an institution might be able to evaluate students' growth in his or her yirat shamayim. These provided examples suggest that the talks were sweeping in their scope, covering issues ranging from quality of life to academic success to more esoteric areas of spiritual growth.

Both Drs. Davis and Goldberg, however, told The Commentator that the process would, by nature, have to be flexible and fluid. With expectations different for men and women as well as a considerable variation in the goals and objectives amongst the myriad of institutions themselves, rigid, blanket evaluation forms would be both unproductive and unrealistic. "The women's programs are structured much more so than the men's," Dr. Davis said. "There were different conversations about how to assess the challenges of women and men. It is a different experience for men and much more difficult to assess. There has to be different expectations."

This then, Dr. Davis explained, is why each institution will create its own form of self-evaluation, allowing them to come closer to realizing their own vision.

Yet, Dr. Davis seemed to envision something larger for the process than a technical, fixer-upper exercise. "I guess if I had a fantasy, it would not be that the nature of the day would change - the number of shiurim, breadth of curriculum, or structure of the day - where I think I'd like to see more emphasis is that as you go through this wonderful experience, someone helps you perceive this as a springboard which is an incredible part of the rest of your life."

That vision seems to reflect a desire from YU for a shift in the broader Israeli institutional culture and educational focus rather than merely an improvement in narrow areas, such as teaching methods or student lifestyle.

Dr. Davis stressed his desire to go about the process in a cooperative, non-invasive, and un-intrusive manner. Rather than turning into a feared monitor of institutional standards, his hope is that YU can work with Israel schools to achieve their own goals, thereby strengthening both institutions on both sides of the ocean.