2008 Woodie Awards
Editorial: A Student's Heavy Conscience
Issue date: 9/20/05 Section: Editorials/Op-Ed
- Page 1 of 1
Like the rest of the semester, the first few weeks on campus offer students a range of activities, from the action-packed orientation events to a late-night kumsitz. Such activities are invariably run by a select cadre of students; for the overwhelming majority of undergraduates, student activism does not define their college tenures.
Students provide various reasons for this phenomenon: maintaining a high GPA is indispensable for career advancement, a dual curriculum can be most exhausting, or night seder simply takes precedence. While Yeshiva certainly has its differences from other college campuses, something must happen here that saps the creative energy that inspires students elsewhere to want to make a difference.
Which is why the surprisingly large turnout at the Center for the Jewish Future's tent on the Danciger Quadrangle this past week, in which the Center's staffers recruited students for various community initiatives, was encouraging. Free giveaways were only part of the reason students seized upon the Center's opening. The Center's initiatives serve as a forum and outlet for students' creative energies and drives. Teaching and leading, two of the values that the Center stresses, are indispensable to community involvement, and the Center offers meaningful opportunities for students to make a difference.
But President Richard M. Joel's ambitions involve more than just expanding student activism. By announcing a strategy of hiring one hundred additional faculty members along with a promising new dean, President Joel has begun to demonstrate his commitment to enhancing Yeshiva's intellectual character. So while on the one hand he is crafting a forum for community activism, on the other hand he is striving to raise the level of scholarship and academic discourse.
While the pockets of donors may be deep enough (along with rising tuition) to finance these somewhat disparate goals, there may not be enough of one key commodity: a student's time. Despite good intentions and valiant efforts, there is just not enough time in the day to be teaching and giving to others while at the same time studying and enhancing oneself. In the past, Yeshiva University's ideology was clearly introverted - the pursuit of Torah U'Madda was an internal ideal. The President has now added the ideal of community service to the longtime mantra of Torah U'Madda. At the same time that we devote our energies in service to humanity, can we also be expected to excel at Torah U'Madda? While this is a good problem to have, it is one that students will have to seriously consider as they juggle their obligations and responsibilities in the coming year. The university's responsibility is to provide its students with an array of worthy endeavors; we, however, have the unenviable task of choosing which to pursue and upon which to yield.
Students provide various reasons for this phenomenon: maintaining a high GPA is indispensable for career advancement, a dual curriculum can be most exhausting, or night seder simply takes precedence. While Yeshiva certainly has its differences from other college campuses, something must happen here that saps the creative energy that inspires students elsewhere to want to make a difference.
Which is why the surprisingly large turnout at the Center for the Jewish Future's tent on the Danciger Quadrangle this past week, in which the Center's staffers recruited students for various community initiatives, was encouraging. Free giveaways were only part of the reason students seized upon the Center's opening. The Center's initiatives serve as a forum and outlet for students' creative energies and drives. Teaching and leading, two of the values that the Center stresses, are indispensable to community involvement, and the Center offers meaningful opportunities for students to make a difference.
But President Richard M. Joel's ambitions involve more than just expanding student activism. By announcing a strategy of hiring one hundred additional faculty members along with a promising new dean, President Joel has begun to demonstrate his commitment to enhancing Yeshiva's intellectual character. So while on the one hand he is crafting a forum for community activism, on the other hand he is striving to raise the level of scholarship and academic discourse.
While the pockets of donors may be deep enough (along with rising tuition) to finance these somewhat disparate goals, there may not be enough of one key commodity: a student's time. Despite good intentions and valiant efforts, there is just not enough time in the day to be teaching and giving to others while at the same time studying and enhancing oneself. In the past, Yeshiva University's ideology was clearly introverted - the pursuit of Torah U'Madda was an internal ideal. The President has now added the ideal of community service to the longtime mantra of Torah U'Madda. At the same time that we devote our energies in service to humanity, can we also be expected to excel at Torah U'Madda? While this is a good problem to have, it is one that students will have to seriously consider as they juggle their obligations and responsibilities in the coming year. The university's responsibility is to provide its students with an array of worthy endeavors; we, however, have the unenviable task of choosing which to pursue and upon which to yield.