Education

Area Summary

Contemporary colleges and universities are tasked with a bewildering array of education goals that are divergent and often strikingly incompatible, from fostering the intellectual or social habits of democracy and citizenship to cultivating the array of technical skills and vocational training necessary for economic productivity and creative, flexible employability within a fast- changing workforce. In recent decades, however, faculty and students alike have returned to grappling with another set of questions: How can the experience of college education—including both classroom and co-curricular activities—contribute to one’s spiritual development? Rather than relegating such reflection to the margins of academic life, our work asks how Jewish texts, ideas, and traditions can contribute to our understanding of the contemporary practice and theory of education. Our programs in this field explore how the spiritual practices, social thinking, and sources of Judaism can offer scholars and students tools to address an enormous range of fundamental human questions, from specific problems to the process and nature of education itself.