The questions asked in “Five Minutes With UWM Chancellor Mike Lovell” in the July issue paint a picture of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that bears little resemblance to the institution I have come to know in my first year as director of its Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies.
The tone of the questions presumes a climate of fear and danger to Jewish students and to Israel, at UWM and nationally. While the well-being and physical safety of students is a legitimate and important concern, the questions left little room for Lovell to highlight the positive developments taking place in the Jewish studies program and the university as a whole.
The Center for Jewish Studies recently moved into a beautifully renovated historic building at a prime location on campus. We received a prestigious award — one of just four nationwide — from the Association for Jewish Studies that will fund exciting public programs throughout the 2011-12 academic year.
We have recently received gifts that will support student scholarships, curriculum development, and other endeavors. Our faculty includes highly regarded teachers producing first-rate scholarship, and our students are going on to graduate programs, rabbinical school, and careers in Jewish communal work and other professions.
Our courses and public programs this year were well attended — and happened without incident. Jewish students from across the religious and political spectrum sit in class alongside Christian and Muslim students, and exchange ideas freely and civilly. We are fostering new ties with Israeli universities.
The next time The Chronicle has time with Lovell, I suggest it ask him about such developments, rather than conveying the misleading impression that UWM’s Jewish students live under a menacing cloud.
Joel Berkowitz
Joel Berkowitz, Ph.D., is director of the Sam & Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. (See Chronicle, May 2010.
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