Gratz College 122nd Commencement

President’s Message 122nd Commencement

Zev Eleff, Ph.D. Gratz’s graduates are changemakers. They shape minds in classrooms and incubate big ideas in boardrooms. They are women and men, like all our students, who have seen within Gratz College a learning community deeply invested in applied-learning and impact-making.

That last phrase is important. Our gradu- ates impact the lives of their students,

coworkers, clients, and families. An alumnus of Gratz’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies on the West Coast will reach hundreds of public school students, empowered by their Gratz training to get the most out of Elie Wiesel’s writings and connect those messages to humani- tarian crises in Darfur and Ukraine. Another graduate of that very program, situated in a museum, perhaps in the Midwest, will lever- age studies in curatorial design and art education to improve exhibits and access to nontraditional modes of learning. A graduate of Graz’s M.Ed. program will support literacy education for thousands of young people in their Pennsylvania school district. Another commencement participant, armed with a graduate degree in Camp Administration and Leadership is better poised to imagine a more diverse and equitable summer camp experience for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of teenagers. Graduates of our robust Jewish Professional Studies degree, like the counterpart in the Nonprofit program, will look to accomplish much of the same, perhaps in a social work setting or maybe in the workplace.

That’s the impact of Gratz College.

Sincerely, Dr. Zev Eleff

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