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Creating Jewish Opportunities at the University of Illinois
Elana's Target Groups

Residence Hall Students * Women Students * Jewish Campus Journalists                 Conservative Chavurah * Boxes and Walls
 

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Residence Hall Students/First and Second Year Students

 

 

 

Goals

  1. Meet 250-300 students over the course of the semester
  2. Form intimate relationships with 35-50 students
  3. Connect Jewish students living in the same residence hall
  4. Create a Jewish presence in the residence halls

Strategies

  1. Table in the residence halls with information and activities
  2. Create residence hall-specific mailing lists
  3. As a partner with the Registered Student Organization Jews on Campus, develop engaging initiatives and bi-monthly programming
  4. Through staff development trainings and ongoing relationships, work with the Residential Life system to make Jewish life part of everyday life in the residence halls

Measures of success

  1. The installation of Jewish programming and initiatives in the residence halls
  2. The development of relationships between Jewish students in the residence halls
  3. Growth of residence hall-specific mailing lists

Summary

The major focus of my fellowship was programming in the residence halls to engage and connect first and second year students. The success of this work hinged on my ability to integrate myself and Jewish programming into what is already happening with residential life. Part of that integration meant understanding how the residential life system works--what types of students live where, which residence halls are the most active, how a non-student can have access to residence hall facilities. I was able to get answers to many of my questions from Philippa Soskin, an RA in Allen Hall who has been active in Jewish life. She explained to me the personalities of each residence hall cluster:

Allen Hall: Liberal, active, socially-conscious students who are looking to get involved. This past year, a lot of Jewish students lived in Allen Hall. Over the course of the year, as prospective students came to visit Hillel and the campus, we often referred Jewish students who fit the Allen mold to Allen Hall.

Illini Tower (IT): The largest number of Jewish students living in IT, giving it the nickname of Israeli Tower. Most of the students go Greek, and those that don't might feel socially isolated. IT is not the most social hall; its apartment-style living keeps people in their rooms with their roommates, who are usually friends from home. IT is a private residence hall (as opposed to the University's public residence halls), so there are a few more obstacles involved in programming. It has been run like an apartment complex, so outside organizations (particularly religious organizations) have not been welcomed with open arms. This relationship is evolving as the management of the building changes.

Bromley Hall: Another private residence hall, Bromley has traditionally housed a large number of Jewish students, though this year that didn't seem to be true. Most of what holds true for IT applies to Bromley as well, although the front desk staff seemed markedly friendlier than the IT staff.

Lincoln Avenue Residence (LAR) Hall & Busey/Evans: LAR and Busey are the two all-female residence halls. The women who live here range from quiet to catty (just like women everywhere!). The difference is that they're all together, a situation which can sometimes create what I call a "bad camp" feeling--a bunk or cabin full of girls who have vastly different personalities but who are put in a position where they have to get along.

Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Halls & Florida Avenue Residence Halls (PAR & FAR): These halls are the furthest from the center of campus. Residents often complain about the half-hour walk. There are buses. Students who live here usually love it, but there is a perception amongst Jewish students that no Jews live in PAR or FAR. These two halls are probably the most culturally diverse on campus.

Illinois Street Residence Hall (ISR): ISR is divided into an all-male building and an all-female building. Culturally diverse, the residents are all ages but tend to be engineers.

Gregory Drive Residence Halls & Peabody Drive Residence Halls (The Six-Pack): Called the Six-Pack because there are six residence halls, these halls house the most social students. The students are more social outside the halls than within the halls, though. Quite a few of these students go Greek, and many freshman and athletes live in the Six-Pack. Taft/Van Doren Residence Halls (TVD) can be grouped into the Six-Pack geographically--they're right next door. TVD houses some transfer students.

The U of I has a strong residential life system, and I was able to connect with some of the key players to ease my integration into the system. The first person I met with was Marc Goldman (lmgoldma@uiuc.edu), an assistant director in housing. The best thing he did was give me tons of meal tickets so I (and any other Hillel staff member) could eat for free with students in the residence hall dining halls. 

Marc connected me to Lilly Leon, the director of multicultural programming for residential life (lleon@uiuc.edu). She is a wonderful person and proved a great link--she suggested that I design a staff development training proposal to be offered to the resident directors (RDs) of each hall. The RDs design weekly staff development workshops for their RA staffs. I was able to do workshops with 7 staffs. Out of the workshops came an idea to create a guide for Jewish life for RAs. I created the guide and distributed it to over 50 RAs and 10 RDs, some who had also participated in a workshop and many who hadn't.

Student Leadership Contacts

Philippa Soskin: psoskin@uiuc.edu. A former RA and a great resource.

Andrea Gilman: gilman@uiuc.edu. President of Jews on Campus, a group formed to bring social programming to the residence halls. Will be an RA in Allen in 2002-2003.

Josh Sandler: jdsandle@uiuc.edu. An IT resident always willing to lend his room to Jewish life.

Marli Williams: mbwillms@uiuc.edu. An enthusiastic Allen Hall resident who will be an RA in 2002-2003.

Strategies for Success

Become integrated into residence hall life: I ate regularly in Field of Greens, a popular specialty restaurant in LAR, and in the IT dining hall. The IT meal plan ($55 for 10 meals) is a great investment. Just being there is part of your job. Eating in the residence halls is like tabling on the Quad--I always had flyers and was a human source of information about what was going on and coming up.

Support student life: My favorite moments were when students created Jewish life on their own. Josh Sandler built a menorah out of Rolling Rock bottles and lit it in his room each night of Chanukah. I was there as long as I didn't have any other menorah-lighting commitments, a presence which I think was meaningful to the students who were also there to participate in lighting the menorah.

Use the RDs: All of the RDs with whom I interacted were incredible people and were so willing to help me achieve my goals. They are also people who have the ability to work around most of the red tape associated with the university, such as space and grant requests. They appreciate the value of learning about a culture different than their own and graciously allowed me to facilitate their staffs' learning as well.

Goals for the Future

My major goal is to connect a group of students, one for each residential area/group of geographically close residence halls, who will be responsible for creating programming in the residence halls. Part of my work with the residence halls involved working with Jews on Campus, a group formed several years ago to create student-initiated Jewish programming in the residence halls. The mission of the group had been diluted in the passing time, and the president became increasingly frustrated over the course of the year as fewer and fewer people were willing to work with her to achieve the groups goals. The key to success in creating this group is finding dynamic first or second year students with few extra-curricular commitments who are willing to devote a set amount of time each week to creating Jewish life. There also has to be an incentive for them beyond the rewards of community service (a stipend, academic credits, generously subsidized conference opportunities). The students who are usually the best at taking an active role in Jewish life are already overly committed to other projects. 

Go to the "Programs" page to find out about some of the best programs in residence halls this year--like Shabbat-to-go, Chanukah Study Breaks, and Eat Dirt in Allen Hall.

Check out the Guide to Jewish Life on Campus created especially for Residential Life staff!

click here to download file

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Women Students

 

 

 

 

Goals

  1. Establish a Jewish women's presence on campus
  2. Create a group focused on Jewish women's discussions and interactions

Strategies

  1. Have monthly (Rosh Chodesh oriented) gatherings
  2. Create Jewish learning initiatives focused on Jewish women
  3. Work with other on-campus women's organizations (Feminist Majority, Women's Studies program, feminist magazine) to inform Jewish women about resources and programs

Measures of success

  1. The establishment of a group of women interested in Jewish women's issues and connections

Summary

When Staci and I began our fellowships, we were the first women to work in a programming position at this Hillel in about two years. While that may not seem like a significant amount of time, for female sophomores, having two women on a staff where before there had been none was a kind of a lifeboat. Women's concerns and issues weren't on the map, and student-initiated women's programming had not been successful (probably due in part to the lack of women on staff to support such programming). I was nervous about the success of the programming I would create, but was excited to be filling an obvious gap in programming. The students who became involved in the women's programming through the women's group K'hilat Isha were excited to participate in the new offering, and the programming itself diversified our Hillel and took Jewish learning to a new level. Out of women-focused programming came women-focused thinking and Jewish women formed connections and created rituals. Women's programming operated under an "if you build it, they will come" model.

Student Leadership Contacts

A few students who participated regularly and have a lot of enthusiasm:

Olga Shneyderman: shneyder@uiuc.edu. Olga is very interested in women's programming and helped to create our women's seder.

Karen Kohn: kohn@uiuc.edu. Karen is a graduate student who was looking for a way to connect Jewishly on campus and found it through the women's group.

Sarah Andich: andich@uiuc.edu. Sarah is a great, organized student who participated in the majority of women's programs this year. Her programming skills would be great to utilize in this capacity.

Others not to forget:

Judie Levy: jlevy1@uiuc.edu.

Ali Siegel: aesiegel@uiuc.edu.

Aimee Solo: asolo@uiuc.edu.

Shoshana Hindin: hindin@uiuc.edu.

Mollie Holman: meholman@uiuc.edu.

Alison Marlowe: marlowe@uiuc.edu.

Strategies for Success

Listen to the students: They have great ideas! Our first program took me about a week to come up with--I thought, and thought, and thought and finally hit on what I thought would be a great idea. At that program, we brainstormed as a group and planned virtually the entire year.

Get creative: The best programs (all of our programs, really) were artsy-craftsy. Aside from being fun, the women enjoyed getting to talk as they worked and walking away with something new that they had created.

Dont worry so much about feminism: As an overt (and sometimes token) feminist, I sometimes worried that the women's group activities didn't include any feminist learning or weren't focused enough on women's roles in Judaism. The women participating didn't notice, and it was enough to have a group of women doing something that was special for them. In the end, I realized what an impact having women's programming had on our campus--every Passover seder sponsored by Hillel had an orange on the seder plate; feminism had become a part of Jewish life and practice.

Goals for the Future

Even though I recognized that feminism did not have to be a part of every women's program, it would be great to see it become even more a part of young Jewish women's thinking and self-perception. I would like to see programming go a step further and gain some Rosh Chodesh focus (creating ritual and understanding women's roles in Judaism) in a more direct way.

Go to the "Programs" page to find out more about some of the best women's programming this year--like Recreating the Shabbat Table, Miriam's Cup, and the Orange on the Seder Plate seder.

Jewish Campus Journalists       

Goals

  1. Create a group where Jewish campus journalists can explore the connections between their Judaism and their journalism
  2. Have this group write and develop a publication about Jewish life on campus

Strategies

  1. Through initial gatherings, introduce campus journalists to one another
  2. Engage group in thinking about and eventually writing about Jewish life on campus

Measures of success

  1. The creation of a publication that comes out once a semester
  2. The development of relationships between Jewish campus journalists

Summary

At the start, I was supposed to work to create a group of Jewish students interested in writing and/or journalism and connect them. Out of the group would come a once-a-semester newspaper or magazine about Jewish life on campus. After the first issue of L'Chaim came out in December, the excitement and reception were so great that we re-evaluated our goals and decided that L'Chaim should come out monthly. Student contributions went up, but the responsibility of producing the newsletter was given to a staff member. Also, while student writing was still the bulk of what was on the pages of L'Chaim, its became less of an outlet for student creativity and reflection and more of a publicity and fundraising tool. The evolution of the newsletter was positive overall, as it gave students a place to showcase their writing and programming work.

Student Leadership Contacts

Samantha Kriesberg: kriesbe@uiuc.edu. Samantha's involvement in Hillel increased once she became involved with L'Chaim. She has writing and design skills.

Leigh Manson: lmanson@uiuc.edu. Leigh is a great writer who is an engagement student. She wrote several times over the year.

Melanie Palmer: mpalmer@uiuc.edu. Melanie is a media studies student who is always up for contributing or working on L'Chaim.

Maury Saiger: saiger@uiuc.edu. While Maury didnt work on L'Chaim this past year, he expressed interest in getting involved in the future.

Strategies for Success

Ask many and varied students to write: They are flattered that you are asking them, and they often just need a little guidance and support.

Be a good editor: Grammar is one skill, but so is following up with your writers. Creating a great publication sometimes requires being a little bit of a hound, but it's worth it. Sometimes students don't take something seriously until you do.

Talk about the newsletter like it was any other program: At first, I would only talk about the newsletter with students I knew were interested in writing. Then, I started getting into conversations with students who I had no idea were interested in writing, or who had high school publishing experience, or who just liked the idea of being published. Getting the word out is the best way to get the most students involved.

Goals for the Future

L'Chaim was chosen as a name because it means "to life." When we brainstormed names, L'Chaim stuck out because of its familiarity, but also because of its positive connotations. The possibilities for growth for L'Chaim are great--redesigning or updating the design is a possibility, and having a graphic design or computer science student be responsible for producing the newsletter would be a great direction to go, as would having journalism, English, or rhetoric students act as student editors. The more student control the better, but that's the opinion of a former student editor.

Conservative Chavurah

Goals

  1. Build a community of students which extends beyond Shabbat and holiday services

Strategies

  1. Hold monthly gatherings (social programs, field trips)
  2. Work with KOACH, the Conservative movement on campus
  3. Promote attendance at conferences related to issues relevant to the Conservative Jewish community (KOACH, UJC, General Assembly)

Measures of success

  1. Increased community spirit amongst Conservative Jewish students
  2. Participation of a wide range of Conservative students in Jewish life on campus 

Summary

My first experience as a participant in our Hillel's conservative minyan was not the most positive. My personal Hillel experience was so different--we had created a service over about two years that drew from different students traditions and abilities. Here, there was one student who led a group of 20-40 students in the service with which he (and most of them) was familiar. Although the service leader had ruach and great ability, there was no togetherness and no sense of belonging to something bigger than oneself. I participated in the minyan every week for the whole of first semester, trying to evaluate what we could add to make the situation more than "come, pray, eat." I sat with one student frequently, and at the end of the semester, we talked about some possibilities. She suggested starting by bringing in an icebreaker each week, a different question to be answered after each student shared his or her name with the group. Over the second semester, either the service leader or I facilitated the icebreaker. There were points during the second semester when I wasn't there, or was running in late from greeting students before services began, when the students would look around and ask what the question was for this week. Along with creating that tradition, we diversified our lineup of capable service leaders, adding two men and a woman to the ranks. Now, there is a much greater sense of community in the service, and I think the students feel more involved in having helped to create that feeling.

Student Leadership Contacts

Jeremy Fine: jmfine@uiuc.edu. Service leader.

Josh Sandler: jdsandle@uiuc.edu. Service leader.

Will Silberman: silbermn@uiuc.edu. Service leader.

Shoshana Hindin: hindin@uiuc.edu. Service leader.

Alison Solow: solow@uiuc.edu. Icebreaker extraordinaire.

Strategies for Success

Talk to the participants about what they want: I can't reiterate enough how important it is to talk to students at the beginning of the creative process. They have the best ideas! Sometimes they're shy about sharing them and really just need to be asked. Also, with this group in particular, there was a lot that they were comfortable with--like the format and content of the service. Changing the melodies was about as far as we could go (and even at the end of the year, when we tried to add in a Carlebach-style mincha service, a few students said, "I only know the Hebrew with the other tunes.") You dont want to challenge something so much that people get upset.

Create one new tradition: The addition of the icebreaker had an unexpectedly phenomenal effect. One new tradition helped create community.

Pay attention: Facilitating and participating are two very different activities. For the first semester, I participated by listening, mostly trying to hear who knew the service really well and sang loudly. I also read announcements, which became sort of a tradition (no one ever wanted to do it, and I was pegged as the most enthusiastic announcement reader by virtue of my being on the Hillel staff). I was able to identify potential service leaders by listening to who knew what (Jeremy always asked Josh to pick a tune for L'cha Dodi) and understand what students were and were not willing to do (unless designated as a service leader, students did not like to stand up in front of a group, even if all they were required to do was read in English).

Goals for the Future

The success of just tweaking the arrangement slightly is inspiring, so I hope to continue to be able to make tiny changes that make a world of difference. It would be great to have a few more service leaders, and new leaders are sure to come in with each new freshman class. It would also be great to have consistently higher numbers. I think that as more people become comfortable with participating in the service, they will bring friends, and the group will grow.

Boxes and Walls

Boxes and Walls is the student-run creation of an interactive museum chronicling the history of oppression of different groups.

Responsibilites

  1. Recruit students to participate
  2. Continue the involvement of Jewish students in the project
  3. Assist the room coordinator in setting up meetings
  4. Supervise the development of the Jewish Room

Summary

Boxes and Walls is a Registered Student Organization with which Hillel partners each year to help create the interactive museum. I worked with the coordinator of the Jewish Room on all aspects of room development from brainstorming with student participants about telling the history of Jewish oppression to finalizing a script and purchasing materials for building our room. I also acted as a Jewish resource and support agent for the students as they worked to understand anti-Semitism and historic Jewish oppression.

Student Leadership Contacts

Aaron Saposnik: asaposni@uiuc.edu. Aaron was the Jewish room coordintor this past year and will be one of two co-chairs for the whole Boxes and Walls project next year.

Alison Marlowe: marlowe@uiuc.edu.

Andrea Gilman: gilman@uiuc.edu.

Marli Williams: mbwillms@uiuc.edu.

Strategies for Success

Look for students who self-identify as being interested in social action: My major role was to find students to become involved in working on Boxes and Walls, so I turned to the sheets we use to gather information about students interests and contacted all the students interested in social action and community service. 

Be open and supportive: The topics dealt with throughout the process of creating Boxes and Walls are sensitive, and people have different reactions depending on their experience dealing with these issues. Be very open to listening to students as they work through these issues--it's a great place to meet someone along their Jewish journey.

Goals for the Future

My two goals for the future are to increase Jewish student participation in Boxes and Walls and to create a more organized forum for discussing issues of anti-Semitism that may come up during the process of creating the Jewish Room.

The Role of the Jewish Encounter
 
The JCSC plays the role of facilitator, bringing out the Jewish knowledge and interest that undoubtedly lies within every student. In my programs, students connected with Judaism either through creating Jewish cultural objects (challah covers, hamentaschen, menorahs), informally learning about Jewish traditions (fun facts), or by utilizing my presence. In the last case, just having someone who comfortably, positively and publicly identifies Jewishly (me!) in the room allowed students to ask questions and have conversations that might have seemed less appropriate under other circumstances.

Tracking
 
In the past two years, our Hillel has used Palm Pilots as our primary tracking method. Each staff member can create a directory of students with whom he or she is in contact, and can download other staff members' directories (ex.: a new JCSC fellow can easily have a list of all birthright returnees). The Palm Pilot allows users to store data about each person in the directory. We input birthdays, where students live, Greek affiliations, parents' information, and information about our connection to the student (ex.: met while tabling, interested in women's programming). Information can be changed easily and quickly and can be saved as an Excel or Word file on a desktop computer.