Jewish Portal of Teacher Education

Source: eJewish Philanthropy

The Jim Joseph Foundation (JJF) today announced that it has awarded nearly $12 million in grants to The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC), and Yeshiva University (YU). The initial grants, to be administered over a five-year period, will be used as financial aid for students pursuing education degrees or certification in programs that prepare them to work with Jewish youth and young adults, and to assist each institution in planning new and enhanced programs that will attract more educators to the field.

The grants will provide $700,000 to each institution for each of the next five academic years for scholarships for future educators. The remaining grant funds will be divided among the institutions – $563,000 for YU, $221,900 for JTS, and $212,110 for HUC – to be used in the 2009/2010 academic year for planning purposes and innovative programs that will both seed and sustain the field. The three institutions will work to foster best practices and collaborate on projects when possible to ensure creative new directions and a renewed commitment to the education of future Jewish educators.

In addition, the foundation has agreed to explore support for inter-institutional collaborations that evidence promise for directly augmenting the educational enterprise across institutions. Two potential areas for such development are new technologies for distance learning and marketing of Jewish education as a desirable professional career.

Unique to the grants is also the unprecedented collaboration this partnership represents. To facilitate this cooperation, JJF will convene a steering committee comprised of the leadership of the three institutions. This group will monitor progress of the grant implementation and plan for additional initiatives that will be pursued with JJF’s support. They also will explore together how to expand distance learning, marketing, and recruitment.