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Jim Joseph Funds New Stanford Doctoral Program

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    Stanford University Receives $12 million to Establish New Concentration and Professorship

Committed to the creation of a new generation of scholars in Jewish education, the Jim Joseph Foundation has announced a $12 million grant, awarded to Stanford University’s School of Education (SUSE) to create a doctoral Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies. A key component of the new concentration is the establishment of an endowed Jim Joseph Professorship in Education and Jewish Studies. The gift is the largest in the history of Stanford’s School of Education.

Stanford previously offered a concentration in Jewish education from 1992 – 2002, establishing a track record for preparing scholars of Jewish education at the doctoral level. By using the JJF grant to renew its concentration, Stanford now joins NYU as one of only two research universities in the country offering this type of doctoral degree. It will admit two students per year for the first three years of the program and then will ramp up by one additional student per year afterwards to reach a total of seven.

Faculty in Stanford’s School of Education will collaborate with scholars in Stanford’s Taube Center of Jewish Studies to create the curriculum for this new concentration.

“We truly are embarking on a new era of research and understanding about how religion and education intersect,” said Professor Vered Karti Shemtov, co-director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies. “Our center is looking forward to contributing to this new concentration and working with its scholars and students. We have long participated in educating the next generations of leaders in the study of Jewish history, religion and literatures. Thanks to the Jim Joseph Foundation, the new concentration will allow us to train scholars who will influence not only the academic world, but also K-12 education.”

“What makes this renewed concentration unique is its broad, all-encompassing approach to education,” said Dr. Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University. “SUSE and the Jim Joseph Foundation understand that Jewish education encompasses issues of nationality, peoplehood and culture, as well as religion; that Judaism is a broad civilization embracing both secular and Jewish elements.”

This understanding, along with the idea that the meeting of religion and education can contribute to a broad array of fields, will establish Stanford as a national and international center for research in this new field.

about: The Shimon Ben Joseph Foundation, commonly known as the Jim Joseph Foundation, is committed to the legacy of its founder, Jim Joseph, z”l, devoted exclusively to supporting education of Jewish youth in the United States. Jim Joseph was a dedicated Jewish philanthropist who cared passionately about the education of Jewish children, youth, and young adults. He believed that focusing on young people was the best way to preserve a strong Jewish faith and proud heritage, thereby ensuring success of the Jewish people for the future.

The Jim Joseph Foundation also funds dual degree NYU masters and doctoral students in Jewish Studies and Education, part of the Foundation’s deliberate approach to fund Jewish education scholars at premier universities – one on each coast – who will populate the field as a next generation of educational leaders.

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  1. $12 million for two Doctoral students to study this year and two more for next year… Is that really the BEST way to spend $12 million-
    Not scholarships for Birthright
    Not saving Young Judaea youth movement
    Not for helping scholarships for Jewish Day School nor for Jewish Camping
    Not for innovative teen outreach
    Not for innovative ways of bringing Jewish singles together
    Not for reaching out to young couples with first or new child
    Not for first year of free/reduced synagogue membership
    Not for two million for each of the worthy causes above (even if JJF already gives some support to some of these things)
    No rather it is more important to fund a couple of Doctoral students
    As a Jewish educator who has given my life towards fighting assimilation
    this makes me SICK….way to go chip!

  2. Dear Mr. Neiberg:

    Stay healthy. The news is much better than you think. The Jim Joseph gift does not support a couple of doctoral students for a couple of years. It creates in perpetuity a concentration in Jewish education at one of the finest Schools of Education in the world. There will now be a senior professor of Jewish Education at Stanford who devotes his or her attention to the scholarly study of our field. Around that professor, and others who are attracted to the initiative from other parts of the School and the university, will be as many as seven fully funded FULL TIME doctoral students who will be prepared to engage in needed research, evaluation studies, policy analyses, historical inquiries, language teaching innovations, technology applications and other basic and applied scholarly activities in the service of Jewish education. The gift endows the support of those students as well. So as each student earns his or her doctorate and enters the field of research in Jewish education, another fully supported doctoral candidate can be recruited in her place, all supported by the same gift. At the end of twenty years, we should have a couple of dozen new PhD’s to lead research in this field, as many as we now have in all the doctoral faculties of Jewish education combined. And the gift will not have been depleted.

    As they complete their programs, we will have a new generation of faculty in Jewish education for places like HUC, JTS, YU, AJU, Brandeis and, I predict, a growing number of institutions of higher education that will add graduate programs in Jewish education. Experts in evaluation and policy analysis will be prepared to staff leadership roles in the Jewish world. Fundamental studies of teaching, learning, identity development, curriculum, testing and assessment, social and community learning, religious formation and many other domains will now be conducted by scholars deeply immersed in the literature and character of Jewish education.

    You may believe that our field needs no research, can continue its work without a scholarly base, but no one in the world of general education believes that to be true. From teacher preparation and professional development to the education of principals and clergy, a knowledge base is desperately needed for our field. We can not simply extrapolate from research in general education. We cannot persist without any systematic and aggregating knowledge base. The Stanford program offers the promise of addressing these needs with the same level of serious commitment that is now devoted to educating the finest scholars for other fields that higher education takes seriously. Combined with efforts at NYU, Brandeis and the denominational institutions, we may be on the brink of achieving a critical mass.

    The establishment of Jewish Studies at America’s finest universities was a significant accomplishment during the past generation. Establishing scholarship in Jewish Education in those same universities may be the challenge of the next generation.

    I agree. Way to go, Chip!

  3. David, we’re told by google you are not using valid email addresses to post comments. We have no problem with posting anonymous comments, but we will no longer post comments from you if we are not in possession of a legit address.

  4. Thanks to Lee for his insightful comments. As a doctoral student in the NYU Education and Jewish Studies program, and Executive Director of a Jewish educational organization, I can attest to the fact that such programs have the potential for wider impact. Graduates from the NYU program are integrating research and practice in a range of organizations from BJEs to day schools to camps and other venues. The programs that Dave describes above won’t flourish without a research base that can point to successes and challenges. Graduates of these programs will help shape policies and programs that are rooted in good research.

  5. Where is everyone on this?

    Lee Shulman is the head of the Dept or something like that at Stanford so of course he’s happy and Adam is one of those scholars sitting on a fellowship and perhaps aspiring to go to Stanford for the degree. (ever wonder why every scholarly study based on graduate study money ends with a call that we need “further funding for more such studies”!)

    Besides the creeps that run the dept and those that receive the scholarships anyone with their right mind knows that $12m for Day School, Camps and Israel scholarships would do a lot more for Jewish continuity than creating some more “scholarly research”. Sociologists have already documented (Amy Sales, Len Saxe, Steven Cohen, Bruce Phillips, and on and on) that Day Schools, Jewish camps, peer trips to Israel- are documented to increase Jewish identity and reduce chance of inter-marriage. Why re-invent the wheel?

    Would some other people besides myself please express their opinions?
    Anyone out there?

    LS

  6. To clarify, Lauren, I do not have a Jim Joseph Fellowship, nor am I eligible for one, and I am already studying for a degree in Jewish education at NYU. The reality is that of the thousands of universities, colleges, and seminaries in the United States, only a handful have programs in Jewish education, to serve an American Jewish community of 5-6 million people. One of the great tragedies of Jewish education in America is a severe shortage of trained professionals. It seems to me that the Jim Joseph Foundation’s approach of seeding programs to train educators and researchers in the field, is a great idea for the sustainability and growth of Jewish education.