The course offering list for fall 2014 boasts several new course titles and professors, but also reflects the efforts of the departments to accommodate budgetary concerns and limited resources.
“As a department we have been thinking about how to continue to meet the needs of our majors and of all of our students with less faculty and fewer resources,” said Dr. Nora Nachumi, English department head. Dr. Nachumi discussed several possible changes for the future, such as reducing the number of electives offered per semester and changing the types of assignments required.
In a similar vein, the head of the Jewish Studies department, Rabbi Ephraim Kanarfogel, noted that all department heads have been working to replace “any departing full-time faculty using adjuncts.” Mrs. Yael Leibowitz, who will be making Aliyah with her family, will be replaced by Mrs. Moriah Weiss as an adjunct instructor of two Tanakh classes. Mrs. Weiss, an honors graduate of SCW, is a doctoral candidate at the Bernard Revel Graduate School and has been a TA in Tanakh for several years.
Dr. Joseph E. Luders, head of the political science department, commented that “the university’s financial situation has required that we find ways to economize in deciding on our course offerings. We hope to make use of generous contributions and other available resources to continue offering a full range of provocative courses.
Remarkably, the Political Science department has actually increased the number of course offerings for fall 2014. Next semester, ten courses will be offered instead of the usual eight, and it is likely that the same number will be offered in the spring. Enrollment in these courses has been very strong, and Dr. Luders hopes that interested students will continue to take courses in the department to learn more about political science, to develop their analytical skills, and to be more effective democratic citizens.
Professor Julie Browne has moved to a full-time position in political science and will be co-teaching a course on social revolution with Art History professor Marnin Young in Paris this summer. Professor Cynthia Bernstein (a 2006 Stern College alumnus) joins the faculty from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs program and the White House. Professor Matt Holbreich will return to teach Great Political Thinkers (an introductory course in political philosophy), which wrestles with the great questions of political life concerning justice, authority, obedience, and individual rights. This fall, Professor Adina Levine (a Stern College and Harvard Law graduate) will be returning to teach her comparative US and Talmudic law class. Also, Professor Joel Strauss will be teaching a nuts-and-bolts course about the workings of the legal system, particularly valuable for students interested in pursuing a career in law.
Students may have been surprised to find a new department in the course list: Women’s Studies. According Dr. Nachumi, who will be teaching the single Women’s Studies course being offered next semester, interest in Women’s Studies has been present for quite a while, and a significant number of alumni have minored in Women’s Studies. In addition, the Women’s Studies club organized a number of successful talks and events over the past few years. While Stern does not offer a major in Women’s Studies, interested students, especially those pursuing careers that benefit from a background in Women’s Studies, such as women’s health, have created shaped majors which incorporate Women’s Studies.
As courses alternate, so will the professors. Dr. Naomi Grunhaus will be on sabbatical during 2014-2015. Her plans for the year, she said, start with her “three substantial papers that need some polishing before they can be sent for publication—one on how R. Jonah Ibn Janah uses chazal in his Shorashim, another on how Radak uses chazal in his sefer by the same name, and a third on the difference between Radak’s Shorashim and his commentaries. All of the papers comment on the intersection between linguistics and biblical interpretation.” She does not anticipate that any new courses will emerge out of the research she does over the sabbatical, as these are areas she has researched previously, but she hopes to gain a deeper knowledge of the subject matter through her research and “to pass this deeper understanding along to students.”
Finally, a much-anticipated addition to the fall course offerings is “Judaism and Democracy,” a philosophy/Jewish philosophy Honors course which will be co-taught by former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought.