|
FROM JTS
|
Friends,
I write to let you know that at yesterday's meeting of the Board of Trustees I announced that I will be stepping down as chancellor of JTS at the close of the current academic year. It has been a tremendous privilege to serve and represent JTS these past 12 years-an honor matched by the pleasure of getting to know and work with JTS's extraordinary faculty, staff, students, alumni, and supporters. I am eager to return to teaching and scholarship as a full-time member of the JTS faculty and pleased this will allow me to continue my relationship with the JTS community and with many of you.
We have accomplished a great deal together. We have significantly diversified the JTS student body and changed the way JTS trains future Jewish professional and lay leaders. We have maintained and enhanced the excellence of JTS's distinguished faculty and continued our long tradition of world-class scholarship. We have expanded our ability to share far more widely the rich Jewish learning and exchange of ideas that define JTS. We have increased our partnerships with organizations both inside and outside of Conservative Judaism. And we have built our endowment, and transformed our campus, doubly ensuring the future strength and vitality of this institution and the kind of Judaism we serve and transmit.
I am grateful to all of you for the countless ways you have helped make these changes come to fruition. I want to offer especially deep and heartfelt thanks to the trustees with whom I have worked closely over the past 12 years, especially the board chairs who served during my time as chancellor: Gershon Kekst (
z"l), Abby Joseph Cohen, and Alan Levine. You will soon hear from Alan about plans in place for the selection of my successor. I hope you will assist that process in any way you can, and that you will join me on March 22 at the opening ceremonies for our new campus.
We have a great deal of work to do in the coming months and years if we are to meet the unprecedented challenges facing our people, our tradition, and our world. JTS remains essential to that effort. I love this institution dearly. With your help, we-and it-will continue to prove more than equal to the tasks ahead.
Sincerely,
|
 |
| Arnold M. Eisen Chancellor JTS |
Dear JTS Community,
With great appreciation for his devoted and distinguished service, I have accepted Chancellor Eisen's decision to step down from his position at the end of this academic year. His tenure has strengthened and renewed all that has made JTS a preeminent center for Jewish learning and scholarship, while bringing the kind of transformation needed to speak to and lead a rapidly changing Jewish world. I am delighted that Chancellor Eisen will remain at JTS as a member of our faculty, continuing to share his knowledge and experience as a scholar and teacher within our community.
As we embark upon the search for our next chancellor, the eighth person to fill this role in over 130 years, I wish to share details about the plan and process that we will undertake in the months to come.
We have assembled a distinguished and diverse search committee comprising board members, faculty, and Conservative Movement representatives, as provided for in our by-laws. (See the list of committee members below.) This group will be chaired by our longtime board members Dan Beller and Mimi Alperin. In addition, JTS has retained the search firm of Storbeck Pimental and Associates. Its principal, Shelly Storbeck, is one of the country's leading search consultants in the field of higher education and was responsible for the search in 2006 that brought Chancellor Eisen to JTS.
We hope and plan to have selected a new chancellor in advance of the 2020-2021 academic year.
As members of the extended JTS community, your voices are important during this process, and we encourage you to share your thoughts on what characteristics and qualifications you see as critical in our next leader. We have created this form for you to provide your feedback, and I hope you do so.
This is a tremendously exciting time for JTS. Our students are as bright and passionate as they've ever been. Our alumni are revitalizing Jewish communities and creating new paths to Jewish engagement. And we are opening a new campus that will educate and inspire future leaders, foster innovation in Jewish living, and strengthen our ability to share ideas with the Jewish community and the world.
Again, on behalf of the entire JTS community, I express our deep appreciation to Chancellor Eisen for his years of devoted service, and to his spouse, Dr. Adriane Leveen, for her partnership with him in that work. I invite you to learn more about the chancellor's leadership and legacy in this special section on our website.
JTS is poised for a new era. I am confident we will find a new chancellor with the knowledge and vision to lead us skillfully into our next chapter of enriching and inspiring the Jewish world.
Best wishes,
Alan Levine, Chair
JTS Board of Trustees
Members of the Search Committee :
JTS Trustees
Mimi Alperin, co-chair
Yale Asbell
Daniel J. Beller, co-chair
Alisa R. Doctoroff, ex officio
Jeffrey Feig
Lynette Koppel
Alan Levine, chair of the board
Jonathan M. Lopatin
Robert S. Rifkind
Eric Rosen, ex-officio
Emily Scharfman
JTS Faculty
Professor Benjamin R. Gampel
Professor Robert Harris
Associate Professor Jeffrey Kress
Professor and Provost Shuly Rubin Schwartz
Assistant Professor Sarah Wolf
Conservative Movement Representatives
Ned Gladstein, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Margie Miller, Women's League of Conservative Judaism
Thomas Sudow, Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs
Rabbi Stewart Vogel, Rabbinical Assembly
|
