Yeshiva University Opens Two New Colleges; Starts Its 81st Year

Two new educational facilities, one on the undergraduate level, the other a graduate school, were launched here today by Yeshiva University, as that institution, with an enrollment of 6,500 students and a faculty numbering 2,200, opened its 81st year.

The new undergraduate facility is the Erna Michael College of Hebraic Studies, made possible by a $1,250,000 gift by Jakob Michael. This college, according to Dr. Samuel Belkin, president of the university, is designed to meet the critical shortage of qualified teachers in Jewish education. Dr. Belkin said it is the first all-day American college to provide liberal arts and professional as well as Jewish studies.

On the graduate level, Yeshiva today launched the Ferkauf Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Bringing together under one roof students and scholars from a wide variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, this school, according to Dr. Belkin, will employ a pioneering approach to “enable sociologists and psychologists, authorities in the education of mentally, emotionally and culturally handicapped children, experts on guidance, literature and the arts to gain greater familiarity and respect for different but often complementary academic disciplines, while at the same time pursuing their own specializations and priorities.”

At the same time, Yeshiva launched at its graduate center today the Israel Rogosin Center for Ethics and Human Values, a pioneering program that will focus on teaching and research into the history, philosophy and practical application of Jewish ethics. This Center, developed with the aid of a $1,000,000 gift from Israel Rogosin, will have a student body of rabbis, teachers and other qualified graduate students.