First-year Hornstein students interested in camp management careers: Shira Brown, Isaac Rothbart and Josh Sternberg
The Hornstein/Heller dual degree is the first in the nation to offer professional, university training specifically aimed at preparing students to manage a Jewish camp.
The Hornstein/Heller dual MA/MBA degree program has a new track: a “camping-track” curriculum for students interested in shaping the future of Jewish camping in North America and the world.
Camping has been described by the Jewish Week as the new “it cause” in Jewish life. Hornstein faculty stand in the forefront of research in this field. Jonathan Sarna has written a historical study of Jewish educational camping. Amy Sales and Len Saxe penned the widely discussed book “How Goodly Are Thy Tents”: Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experience (2004). And Joe Reimer, a leading expert on informal Jewish education, is the lead faculty member for the leadership development of Jewish camp directors for the Foundation for Jewish Camping.
In 2006, The Foundation for Jewish Camping established, in the Hornstein Program, the Robert and Elisa Spungen Bildner Graduate Fellowship in Jewish camp management. The widely-publicized, competitive Bildner Fellowship, brought us numerous applicants. Hornstein accepted three camping students for this past fall: Shira Brown, named our first Bildner Fellow, and two other camping students, Joshua Sternburg and Isaac Rothbart. These students will receive special training relevant to Jewish camping in addition to their regular studies at Hornstein and the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
Beginning in Fall, 2008, thanks to the generosity of the Foundation for Jewish Camping, we are offering another Bildner Fellowship to a qualified student.
Hornstein/Heller students on the camping track follow the normal curriculum in both schools, with the following additions:
- a special “camping” course (as one of their electives)
- summer site visits to a range of Jewish camps to give students a comparative perspective
- professional field placements in the winter office of a Jewish camp, to learn the off-season preparation and administration required to run a camp
- attendance at professional conferences and workshops to learn additional administrative, legal, and educational aspects of running Jewish camps, and
- a Team Consulting Project (a graduation requirement for the Heller MBA) on a key issue confronting the Jewish camping profession.
Placements in camping offices and camps focus on professional skills each student needs, and will be made in conjunction with The Foundation for Jewish Camping. The Foundation will also assist in placing camping-track students in their first job after graduation.
With the establishment of a dedicated camping curriculum, and the support of the Foundation for Jewish camping and the Bildner family, Hornstein is emerging as an innovative, pioneer trainer in this important field.
“We are thrilled to create a camping track as part of the Hornstein/ Heller MBA,” offers Jody Gittell, Heller School MBA Program Director.
And as Amy Sales and Leonard Saxe concluded in their 2004 publication, “’How Goodly Are Thy Tents’” Summer Camps as Socializing Experiences”, “the field of Jewish summer camping might evolve in order to become a model of and inspiration for Jewish education and continuity.”
Hornstein is helping to lead the way.
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