Funding and structure – these are new elements that have provided a firm foundation to build a durable and attractive Jewish studies center at the state’s largest institution of higher learning.
The newly configured Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at The University of Texas at Austin is indicative of a growing movement throughout American academia to recognize Jewish studies as a legitimate course of academic study. UT’s contributions to this movement through SCJS are a world-class, interdisciplinary curriculum and faculty; extensive and accessible resources and archives; and a strong commitment to campus and public outreach through innovative programming and events.
“What we want to do is make Jewish life and culture a part of the normal, everyday life at The University of Texas,” explained Dr. Robert H. Abzug, director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, and UT’s Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and American Studies.
Abzug has traveled twice to Houston, in as many months, to promote SCJS. On Feb. 16, he and a university development director met with The Emery/Weiner School and Robert M. Beren Academy officials to forge direct knowledge between the center and Houston’s largest day school programs. On Jan. 24, Abzug was joined by UT’s College of Liberal Arts dean, a public affairs director, two SCJS professors and a Jewish studies major at a local fundraising brunch, co-hosted by Susan and Max Reichenthal and Syma and Darryl Levy.
The brunch was part of a coordinated effort by local UT alumni to help SCJS maximize a $6 million challenge grant initiated by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. The window for the challenge grant closes at the end of December 2010.
SCJS was established two-and-a-half years ago. The center is the latest advance in what has been a noncontiguous, decades-long effort that has seen Jewish studies at UT graduate from being a concentration, to an integrative major, and now to a full-fledged center under the auspices of the Liberal Arts college.
The center offers a multidisciplinary curriculum that explores Jewish life, culture and religion from a variety of perspectives. Nearly 30 Jewish studies courses, most of which are cross-listed, were offered for the current academic year. The Schusterman challenge grant has allowed SCJS to hire new and distinguished faculty in core subjects and in the center’s concentration of the study of American and Texas Jewish life. SCJS’ faculty hail from a wide variety of fields, including American studies, anthropology, classics, French, Italian and Germanic studies, government, Hebrew, history, linguistics, Middle Eastern studies, public affairs, religious studies, Spanish and Portuguese and sociology. The center is looking to expand it catalogue to UT’s business and law schools.
SCJS teaches hundreds of students every semester. Two-and-a-half years ago, UT had zero Jewish studies majors; today, because of the center, there are a dozen Jewish studies majors. One-third of the current majors are not Jewish – a statistic for which the center’s director is very proud.
“It’s a wonderful thing to be able to serve the Texas Jewish communities, and in the public university setting. But, our primary audience, statistically speaking, is the non-Jewish world at The University of Texas who, all of a sudden, has an array of classes about Judaism, Jewish civilization, Jewish history, etc., that they’ve never had before. Our job, therefore, in some ways, is to integrate and normalize Jewish existence within Western civilization,” Abzug told the JH-V.
When Abzug arrived at UT 32 years ago, there was no religious studies program, never mind a Jewish studies track. A sea change occurred, however, after the state attorney general issued a ruling on how religious courses were to be treated at public universities. Occurring at a similar time, during the 1980s and ‘90s, UT hired a great influx of professors who were Jewish. Seeds for a formal religious studies program at UT soon were planted. Various attempts were made to cultivate an offshoot Jewish studies program, but these suffered from a lack of structure and funding.
The Schusterman grant solved the latter problem, while support from the College of Liberal Arts addressed the former.
“With the wisdom of the dean seeing this as a total, comprehensive center, not beholden to any one field, we were able to bring people together from a wide variety of disciplines,” Abzug said. “Once the structures were made right, and once we could find a way to maintain ourselves, that is, with some money to begin, then it just took off.”
Liberal Arts Dean Diehl, during his recent Houston visit, stated, “In order for a center or department to succeed at any institution, it has to have administration support. And I, as dean, am utterly committed to the success of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies.”
Aggressively recruiting new faculty for SCJS has been a top priority, indicated Diehl, who noted that he’s not Jewish. “Liberal Arts is, at its core, about the study of culture. Jewish culture,” he said, “is particularly rich. The Jewish traditions, the tradition of achievement throughout Jewish history, provide incredible models for our students – both our Jewish students and our non-Jewish students.”
SCJS, though in its infancy, already serves as a model for other centers and other programs in the College of Liberal Arts, due to the excellence of its course offerings, Diehl added.
Abzug highlighted other contributing factors that have set SCJS apart from its Jewish studies cousins at other American universities.
SCJS is helped by the fact that UT is home to the largest Jewish student community in the state – approximately 4,000 Jewish students, according to Texas Hillel – comprising some 10 percent of the total student population. (Nationally, UT boasts the eighth largest Jewish student community of all public universities, according to a study published by Hillel and Reform Magazine.)
“Jewish students on the UT campus really are openly Jewish and proudly Jewish,” Abzug observed. In years past, Jewish student happenings at UT largely were limited to fraternities, sororities, Hillel and the Chabad House. Abzug noted that SCJS has helped broaden the horizon.
The center has a healthy, and in many ways unique, relationship with Hillel. “We do many of our events at, and with, Texas Hillel,” Abzug said. “The personalities at the center and at Hillel are not at war with each other. We see a common goal and recognize that we are part of the same mission.”
Besides its faculty resources, SCJS has direct access to “extraordinary” Jewish studies resources in the UT archive, Abzug pointed out. Manuscript collections from Isaac Bashevis Singer, Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller, Leon Uris, Stella Adler and Arnold Newman all are housed at UT’s Harry Ransom Center. The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History is home to the papers of the Texas Jewish Historical Society. The Perry-Castañeda Library contains a vast array of Judaica publications and one of the largest collections of European Yizkor books. The Benson Latin American Collection, Fine Arts Library, The Architecture and Planning Library and The Tarlton Law Library also contain distinct materials related to Jewish studies.
Given that SCJS is a center within the Liberal Arts college, and is not a subhead of a department like Religious or Middle Eastern studies, it has a much higher position in the academic hierarchy and thus is granted a great deal of freedom for collaborative programming and events, Abzug explained. SCJS co-sponsored programs with six separate departments this past year. The center also has worked with Texas Performing Arts and the Center for American History to bring students, performance, rare texts and classes all together.
And, SCJS’ outreach extends beyond the UT campus. “One of the things that makes our center truly special is that we have a very strong commitment to public programming in the Austin area, as well as to forging links across the state,” Abzug said. During his Houston visit to Emery/Weiner, the center’s director discussed different ways to involve Jewish day school students with SCJS programming.
“We’re re-envisioning what Jewish studies can be at a public university where only a small segment of the state is Jewish,” Abzug summarized. “Course by course, program by program – for Jews, as well as for non-Jews – we’re demonstrating that Jews have had a role in the development of the West.”
He added, “We’ve tapped an enormous vein of thirst and interest – from students, from faculty, from the administration, from the community, at large.”
