CUNY Partners with Hillel International on Initiative to Improve Experience for Jewish Students on Campuses

Part of an Ongoing Series of Measures Chancellor Matos Rodríguez has Put in Motion to Address Antisemitism and Increase Engagement with Jewish Community, Israeli Institutions in Consultation with JCRC-NY

A Hillel poster.

CUNY and seven of its campuses are among 12 institutions included in Hillel International’s expansion this month of its national Campus Climate Initiative (CCI). The announcement is part of an ongoing series of measures the University has initiated to address an uptick in antisemitism globally, locally and on campuses across the country.

Currently in its third year, CCI works proactively with campuses to foster a positive campus climate in which Jewish students feel comfortable expressing their identity and values, free of antisemitism, harassment or marginalization.

“We have remained vigilant and unequivocal in our intolerance of antisemitism, yet we know more needs to be done globally and locally to combat antisemitism and bigotry in all forms,” said Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “I’m proud of our growing partnership with Hillel International and grateful that the organization selected our campuses for their Campus Climate Initiative, which works to end antisemitism and build safe learning environments in which all students can thrive, regardless of race or religion.”

CUNY’s collaboration with Hillel is one core component of a broad action plan to address antisemitism, as arrests for antisemitic crimes are up 45% in New York this year, according to the NYPD. The plan also includes:

  • Incorporating antisemitism in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) university wide and campus-based trainings that don’t currently include it.
  • Expanding DEI training for staff, administrators, and student leaders to help them understand and recognize the various forms of antisemitism and utilizing educational tools such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for these efforts.
  • Developing a system-wide web page for reporting campus incidents, including antisemitism, to facilitate and standardize reporting. This central page will connect to the individual campus reporting sites and will also be shared with the college president or dean, who will be required to report on these cases on a semi-annual basis and develop policy and training as needed.
  • Allocating $750,000 in new funding for events and programs that counter antisemitism and other forms of religious or ethnic bigotry, or for the expansion of DEI training incorporating antisemitism.
  • In addition to the central reporting system, instructing CUNY presidents and deans to share with their campus community the CUNY Policy on Equal Opportunity and Non-discrimination including the names, titles and contact information of all appropriate resources at the college to ensure widespread recognition of acts believed to be antisemitic and knowledge of the channels that are in place to report them both centrally and on each campus.
  • Formalizing the expansion of CUNY’s student exchange programs and academic partnerships in Israel, in collaboration with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC-NY).

The effort follows the JCRC-NY Scholars as Bridge Builders visit to Israel in late April, when Chancellor Matos Rodríguez led a delegation of 12 CUNY college presidents and deans to Israel and the West Bank to participate in a weeklong study tour of the country’s cities, historic sites, and higher education institutions that included meetings with academics, activists and public officials.

“JCRC-NY welcomes these important steps taken by Chancellor Matos Rodríguez to ensure a welcoming and supportive environment for Jewish students and faculty as well as actions to strengthen the connection between CUNY and Israel,” said Gideon Taylor, CEO of JCRC-NY. “Such steps will compliment CUNY’s ongoing efforts to celebrate its diversity and to reaffirm its commitment to inclusion and equity of members of the campus community. Throughout our long history of partnership, the Chancellor has demonstrated support for New York’s Jewish community, and we will continue to work closely with our CUNY partners as these efforts to combat antisemitism move forward.”

Successful, Immersive Model

Hillel’s CCI model has been successful because it offers an immersive, year-long cohort experience that facilitates learning and sharing among university administrators mutually committed to supporting Jewish students and addressing campus antisemitism. Hillel’s partnership with CUNY is supported by a generous grant from the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation.

Baruch College, Brooklyn College, The City College of New York, College of Staten Island, Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Queens College join a diverse cohort of 40 campuses nationwide and account for more than half the colleges Hillel selected to add to the CCI partnership this year. Others include San Francisco State University, Yale and Virginia Tech.

“I am so proud of the partnerships we have developed with dozens of colleges and universities who are deeply committed to improving the experiences of Jewish students as part of their DEI commitments for all students,” said Mark Rotenberg, Hillel’s vice president for University Initiatives & Legal Affairs, who initiated and supervises CCI. “The challenges of antisemitic hate, harassment and marginalization on campus require awareness and commitment to change by university leaders, and the CCI program’s dramatic growth from eight schools to 40 in two years shows that those leaders are out there.”

“All students deserve to feel safe, nurtured and valued by their faculty and peers,” said Cass Conrad, executive director of the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation. “We are so pleased that CUNY and Hillel have chosen to work together to ensure that Jewish students, staff and faculty have what they need to thrive academically and socially on campus. We are happy to support the Campus Climate Initiative, which we hope will pay dividends for students of all backgrounds and faiths for years to come.”

Rich History

CUNY has a rich and storied history of service to Jewish New Yorkers that is an important part of the university’s tradition of openness to groups that have been excluded from higher education. That history continues to this day.

Throughout his more than 20 years of leadership at CUNY, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez has made confronting antisemitism, and bigotry in all its forms, a priority. During his tenure as president of Queens College, he cultivated a campus culture in which Jewish and Muslim students worked together to maintain an open dialogue and avoid confrontation. The media reported on those efforts, including in the New York Jewish Week and in the Forward in an article titled “Welcome to Queens College, Where Jews and Muslims Dialogue.”

Well before this most recent wave of antisemitism in the region, and right after he became Chancellor, Matos Rodríguez secured a $500,000 annual grant from the City Council to replicate the work of CUNY’s Center for Ethnic, Religious and Racial Understanding (CERRU) at a University-wide level.

CERRU is an outgrowth of a pilot program conceptualized by Queens College’s Center for Jewish Studies that for more than a decade has promoted diversity and inclusion with a range of programs to address the perils of racial and ethnic stereotyping and scapegoating. With the City Council funding, the work continues not only at Queens College but has expanded to other CUNY campuses.

Chancellor Matos Rodríguez has also stood with the Jewish community in city-wide vigils and marches, such as the January 2020 Jewish solidarity march across Brooklyn Bridge.

More recently, the Chancellor has denounced antisemitic acts, as well as resolutions by faculty and student membership groups that have supported the BDS movement with language that crosses the line between political speech about Israel and bigotry against Jewish people.

Hillel International is the largest and most inclusive Jewish student organization in the world. For nearly a century, Hillel’s network of dedicated student leaders, professionals and volunteers have encouraged generations of young adults to celebrate Jewish learning and living, pursue social justice (tikkun olam and tzedek) and connect to their peers and the global Jewish people.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC-NY), a proud UJA-Federation of NY agency, serves as the primary community relations agency for the Jewish community in the metropolitan New York area. As an active force in New York civic and communal life, JCRC-NY serves and a central coordinating and resource body for over 50 major Jewish organizations in the metropolitan area. JCRC-NY serves to build relationships to advance to values, interests, and security of the New York Jewish community and to build a more interconnected New York for all.

The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation is a is a private, independent grantmaking foundation that began active operation in 1998. The Foundation aims to increase economic opportunity by strengthening college and career pathways for low-income New Yorkers. Its goal is to ensure that all New Yorkers have the resources and opportunities needed to reach their goals in school, work, and life.

The City University of New York is the nation’s largest urban public university, a transformative engine of social mobility that is a critical component of the lifeblood of New York City. Founded in 1847 as the nation’s first free public institution of higher education, CUNY today has seven community colleges, 11 senior colleges and seven graduate or professional institutions spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving over 243,000 undergraduate and graduate students and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. CUNY’s mix of quality and affordability propels almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as all the Ivy League colleges combined. More than 80 percent of the University’s graduates stay in New York, contributing to all aspects of the city’s economic, civic and cultural life and diversifying the city’s workforce in every sector. CUNY’s graduates and faculty have received many prestigious honors, including 13 Nobel Prizes and 26 MacArthur “Genius” Grants. The University’s historic mission continues to this day: provide a first-rate public education to all students, regardless of means or background.

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