Kiryat Moriah to Morningside Heights: Shalem Faculty Further Development at Columbia, St. John’s
This fall, the Shalem Core teaching faculty visited two of America’s leading institutions of higher education as part of the college’s ambitious goal of bringing the liberal-arts model to Israel. After nearly a year spent studying and debating diverse pedagogies and approaches to the study of classic texts, as well as determining the final look of Shalem’s unique core curriculum, faculty “saw theory come alive in the classroom,” said Ido Hevroni, Shalem Educational Director. “We also gained a common vocabulary for the expression of our vision: a community dedicated to learning the foundational works of both the Western and Jewish traditions, so that our students may go forth and lead.”
In what Daniel Gordis, Shalem Senior Vice President, Koret Distinguished Fellow, and Head of the Core Department, called a “touchstone,” the visit, funded by a long-time supporter of the college, took faculty to Columbia University in New York and St. John’s College in Annapolis, where they joined in ongoing Great Books seminars on subjects ranging from Homer’s The Odyssey to the Book of Exodus. Shalem faculty was also hosted for a seminar on The Iliad by Shalem board member Leon Kass, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago and former chairman of the President’s Committee on Bioethics, and renowned classics scholar Amy Kass, who together with Leon founded the immensely popular “Human Being and Citizen” common-core course at the University of Chicago, which seeks to understand what makes for an excellent citizen and human being. In each instance, participants experienced firsthand the unique approach to textual analysis and academic discourse that America’s premier core-curriculum colleges promote. They also utilized the opportunity to meet with leading figures from the liberal-arts movement, including the eminent St. John’s tutor and National Humanities Medal recipient Eva Brann and Columbia College Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum Roosevelt Montás. “In the past few months, as we began the process of implementing our mission and evaluating our progress, we find ourselves continually returning to this trip—things we saw, heard, and experienced,” Gordis explained. “It provided a critical context for our work.”
Avital Lavie, Shalem Core professor of statistics and probabilistic thinking, was most struck by “the sense of seriousness that surrounded the learning” at both Columbia and St. John’s College—a sentiment she hopes to help create at Shalem. “Our goal,” she insists, “is far more than simply teaching a given subject. We want our students to gain a real appreciation for great ideas, as well as the ability to engage, respectfully and articulately, in intellectual debate. Seeing how experienced faculty succeeds in doing this was both inspiring and helpful on a practical level,” she concludes. “I plan to bring the lessons I learned from these American institutions to bear on our singular Israeli academic program.”
To read an article by Daniel Gordis on the Shalem College faculty visit to his alma mater, click here.
