By Shloimy Lowy, Photographer and Staff Writer
With the positions of the SCW and YC honors program directors open, Undergraduate Dean Rebecca Cypess set her eyes on Dr. Shaina Trapedo to fill both.
This comes after Dr. Cynthia Wachtell announced her retirement as director of the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at Stern College for Women (SCW) this past June, there has been a shuffling of positions within the administration at Yeshiva University. Dr. Eliezer Schnall, formerly the director of the John and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program at Yeshiva College (YC), has been named Yeshiva College pre-health advisor, a position formerly held by Dr. James Camera of the Chemistry Department. Dr. Camera was recently promoted to Associate Dean for Strategy and Operations.
“This moment calls us to elevate the level of excellence set for the honors programs and for the greater Yeshiva University community to which these students contribute.” Dr. Trapedo told the YU Observer, reflecting on the state of higher education, especially for Jewish students.
A highly accomplished assistant professor of English at Stern College for Women, Dr. Trapedo earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. at U.C. Irvine, specializing in religious studies and early modern literature. She is also a YU Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought resident scholar and recruitment officer.
Dr. Trapedo joined YU as a lecturer in the Fall of 2019, and began her work as a resident scholar a year later, in the Fall of 2020. Since then, she has been a beloved professor, teaching courses like rhetoric and composition, modes of expression, essentials of writing and more. As a scholar, she has studied and taught topics like the Hebrew Bible on the world stage, a topic on which her current manuscript entitled From Scripture to Script: The Hebrew Bible on the Early English Stage, is focused on. She has also co-taught seminars on Psalms and Sonnets and Shakespeare and the Bible. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Dean Karen Bacon Faculty award.
Dr. Trapedo understands the similarities and the differences between the SCW and YC honors programs and aims to balance the two. “While I hope to facilitate greater alignment and cohesion among the honors programs, I also recognize that the faculty and student experiences at YC and Stern are different in many ways,” she said. “From schedules and course offerings to the campus environment and distributions of academic interests, these distinct dynamics pose their own challenges and opportunities.”
She added, “To that end, I am excited to partner with administrators, various university offices, the Faculty Honors Committees at Stern and YC, and, of course, most importantly, the students.”
Dr. Trapedo met with the YU Student Honors Council at YC last month, where they discussed ideas relating to the future of the honors program.
Ezra Lebowitz (YC ‘28), a member of the council at the meeting, told the YU Observer that the group discussed strategies for creating a feeling of camaraderie between the honors students. “Right now it’s kind of just a scholarship and a few different classes, but it feels like Dr. Trapedo is aiming to create a different culture,” Lebowitz said.
Additionally, the group discussed the issue of thesis completion rates. “We also discussed ideas of how to get more people to actually write their honors thesis (and how it is stealing not to write it),” Lebowitz said.
Previously, Dr. Wachtell already had thesis completion rates at 99 percent, but Dr. Trapedo wants to ensure that every single student who completes the honors program finishes their thesis.
Dr. Trapedo also noted some changes she would like to see in the thesis writing process. “I am hoping to supplement and strengthen our students’ intellectual and professional development by fostering more collaborative research and writing communities among the honors cohorts,” she said.
This would be done by holding workshops, where students can engage with each other’s work, or through optional write-ins, to strengthen arguments and foster collaboration. “While the form needs refinement, the goal is simple: no one should write alone,” she said.
Dr. Trapedo also spoke about the importance of peer to peer writing workshops, telling the YU Observer, “From Murray Hill to Furst Hall, I’ve seen honors students take ownership of their ideas, and sometimes of each other’s Google Docs, to reshape the ‘so what’ of a thesis, strengthen claims with credible evidence, and together cultivate a habit of critical thinking, which is arguably the most essential skill needed among college graduates and emerging leaders today.”
Dr. Trapedo also wants to reduce “Disciplinary Discrimination,” which she defines as “the limiting belief that there is value only in one or a few areas of learning and/or that one is exclusively a STEM or humanities person.” She believes that there is great value in interdisciplinary studies. “I personally learn the most when I’m challenged by thinkers, texts, and ideas outside my intellectual comfort zone.”
Dean Cypess commented on the search process for a suitable replacement for Dr. Wachtell and Dr. Schnall, telling the YU Observer, “When I appoint academic leaders, I look for individuals who can articulate and develop a vision of their own—one that is compatible with the overall vision of the institution but that represents a unique and compelling contribution within that framework.”
She continued, “Dr. Trapedo is precisely this kind of person: she is a visionary and a team player who will work with all her colleagues—most importantly with the faculty Honors Committees—and who will motivate students to reach ever higher in their intellectual and personal journeys.”
Photo Caption: Dr. Shaina Trapedo
Photo Credit: Yeshiva University