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Senior Staff:
Joseph Kohane - Executive Director
As Executive Director, Joseph is the "visionary" of OSU Hillel. He works very closely with the Senior Staff and assists them in developing the mission of our Hillel and passing it on to the other staff. and eventually onto the students. Joseph spends a lot of time working directly with our major donors, community partners, and International Hillel. He is a great person to talk to when you need a little inspiration, a reminder about why you are doing this job, or advice about how to accomplish the vision you have.
Misha Zinkow - Assistant Director and Rabbi
Misha supervises all the Jewish learning, Shabbat, and Holiday events that happen around here. He is the director of the Covenant Program (which now has a new name but I'm sure students will still refer to it as this), designed to train students who want to enter the Jewish professional world. He offers regular learning opportunities as well as one-on-ones with students, and is the right person to go to when you need help designing a hand-out about a Holiday, writing a D'var Torah, or incorporating some Jewish aspect into your programming.
Susannah Sagan - Development and Marketing Director
Susannah brings in the big bucks and runs the "Critical Issues Series" in which we welcome big name speakers such as Marc Gafni, Carrie Fisher, Tom Gjelton, and Eli Wiesel. She is a great person to sit down with and just talk about life in general, and she's great at referring staff members to doctors, tailors, and stores! She works directly with donors, supervises several student interns, and is the person to go to when you need help writing a grant proposal.
Debra Feld - Program Director
Debra is being replaced by Valerie Kolko this summer, after spending three years at OSU Hillel as program director. Debra supervised the programming staff, organized the calendars, and did the Jewish Women's Collective programming (JWC). Val will also be responsible for supervising the programming staff (made up of the JCSC fellows and program associate) and acting as "coach" to the JCSC fellows. She'll be the one who will organize staff meetings, approve how much you want to spend on a certain program, and answer your questions about how to successfully do __ (fill in the blank). She'll also be responsible for the Jewish Women's Collective and Grads and Professionals (GAP), two of Hillel's student groups (check out Grads and Professionals (GAP), which I did this year). Oh yeah, she'll be in charge of the quarterly calendar (a gorgeous publication!) and all the flyer designs.
Administrative Staff:
Joan Koebel - Office and Building Manager
Joan is the glue that keeps this building together. She takes all the room requests, food requests and makes sure everything in the building is in top shape. She supervises the Café, Nightdesk, and Fitness Center staff and student workers, as well as the "set-up" team that arranges the rooms the way you want them for programs! Joan is also the best at coming up with catchy titles for programs, and has the cutest babies around.
Peggy Redmond - Administrator and Accountant
Peggy keeps the books for us and makes sure we are paid when we are supposed to -- use direct deposit and both your lives will be easier! She also handles reimbursements (so save your receipts) and the accounts that Hillel has at Big Bear, Staples, Cord Camera, Yankee Trader, Kinko's, and probably more places that I just can't remember right now. Peggy can also help with insurance questions. Help collect boxes for her to use in her E-bay dealings and she'll appreciate it!
Yvonne Decker -- Administrative Assistant
Wondering who that friendly voice is on the other end when you call OSU Hillel? That would be Yvonne, our fun and fabulous administrative assistant. She answers phones, sorts mail, and gives out parking passes -- but more importantly, she (along with Joan) operates our database, known as CIVIC. Yvonne is the one who makes lists every other week of everyone interested in a certain type of program, as well as the weekly WHH list and whatever other list you need!! She's fun to talk to, to gossip with, and to complain to -- just don't get caught spending too much time at her desk and not enough at your own!
Café Chef
Hillel also employs a full-time chef for the Bagel Café/Midweek Grille, who gets to show off his/her work at our weekly FREE Shabbat dinners. Jim Binger was the chef here for the majority of the year, followed by Kathleen Turner, but we do not yet know who will be here in the fall. Whoever it is, make sure you don't walk into the kitchen without permission, never change a food request at the last minute, and enjoy the great food!
Jake Williams -- Maintenance
Jake is the guy who takes care of all the little aspects of the building. He's very sweet, so stop to chat and brighten both your days!
Programming Staff:
Jonathan Strausberg - Program Associate
Jonathan reminds me of my grandfather -- very laid back, extremely quirky, but always forceful enough to get the job done. The bow tie and cigars help with the image as well. He oversees the majority of our student groups, including the Israel Action Committee, Holocaust Awareness Council, and the Upperclass Council (some of his other groups from this year are being redistributed to other staff, such as Hillel Players and the Jewish Business Student Association). Jonathan oversees the quarterly socials (big parties off campus) and student leadership development. He's much better at crosswords than I am, but even with his Simpsons obsession, he can never top my pop culture knowledge.
Jennifer Ackerman - JCSC Fellow - Social Justice Coordinator
As the Tzedek JCSC Fellow, Jenny supervised the groups that relate to social justice and works with the two Tzedek interns. These groups include Starfish, the social action team, Hotep-Shalom, a Partnership of Blacks and Jews, and Jewish Queers. Her major programs included "PB Jam," a collaboration with more student groups across campus than you can imagine, and the quarterly "Do the Deed" day of service. Jenny is leaving to spend a year with Avodah, living with eight others in NYC while working as a social justice advocate; Ben has a tough act to follow here.
Ezra Post - JCSC Fellow - Portfolio Manager
Ezra was instrumental in getting students into the building. His main job was to call up students and invite them in for a free lunch. He also did some dorm storming and sat outside big classes to find Jewish students around campus. Ezra may be more laid-back than anyone else around here, but he was great at listening to the students and finding ways for them to get involved here. His position is being combined with mine next year so that one fellow has the chance to program and do some true relationship building.
Eve Oster - JCSC Fellow -- Residence Life
That's me!! I had two main target groups this year, Residence Life (through the group Jews on Campus) and Grads and Professionals (GAP). I also did a lot of tabling and dorm storming, but spent the majority of my time developing programs in various dorms and off-campus. Read more by clicking on these links: Residence Life Grads and Professionals (GAP)I also wrote and sent out the weekly "What's Happening, Hillel?" e-mail to more than 3000 recipients (What's Happening, Hillel?).
Seth Rosenzweig - Senior JCSC Fellow - Greek Focus
Seth also did a big chunk of the tabling on campus, together with Eve and the foundation fellows (student mini-JCSC's). The groups he oversaw and worked with include Greek Chai (all the fraternities, sororities, and stuff like that) and the Fitness and Nature group, plus all the intramurals, Jam with Da Jews weekly basketball game, and other stuff like that. Seth was also the in-house Israeli Dancing specialist; he taught regular classes and encouraged students to learn some modern steps and other fun stuff like that! Seth is off to be the program director at San Diego State, but you'll see get to see him at Staff Conference in December. He's being replaced by Melanie, a new JCSC Fellow who is also an OSU alum! (FYI: I have purposefully made fun of Seth's tendency to say "stuff like that" frequently, although I will admit that he has gotten better since the beginning of the year.)
The Students:
Who could forget our wonderful students? There are several ways that OSU students get involved at Hillel: the most obvious ways are to have paid-jobs, lead student groups, or be on the student board. Not only do we pay students who work at the Cafe, Fitness Center, and Night Desk, but we also employ many student interns -- including Foundation Fellows, Tzedek and Israel interns, Development interns (they work with Susannah), and more!! We also pay students to hang up our beautiful flyers around campus.
Many students are designated leaders of student groups, but even more are active leaders within the groups. We also have students who sit on the Adult Board of Directors -- juniors and seniors, they are appointed each spring after an application process.
Engagement vs Empowerment:
Engagement:
By definition, an engagement student is someone not yet connected to Jewish life on campus. At OSU, I would define an engagement student as someone who would never walk into Hillel on his or her own and who has not (yet) found a comfortable place in any of our small or large communities. Any student met tabling or at a dorm program is an engagement student; in addition, the students on our mailing list whom we do not know should be treated as engagement students. A lot of creativity is needed to even contact these students, let alone introduce them to Jewish life at OSU.
What do these students need from you? Your job is to find a place for each one, whether that means telling them about certain member groups within Hillel, introducing them to other students with whom you think they may feel comfortable, bringing programs to their Residence Hall, or just being there as a friend for when they need to talk to someone. Often we think only in terms of getting them on our mailing list, plugged into the programming system that works so well here. But we should always be thinking outside of this system -- many students do not want to attend programs, even in their own dorm, but still need to feel connected to Jewish life. Your goal is to make each student comfortable with her or her Jewish identity; the true gem is when an engagement student becomes an empowerment student.
Empowerment:
We define empowerment students as those who take on some aspect of leadership or responsibility. At OSU Hillel, that means they become actively involved in an aspect of our programming, including student groups and general programming. We consider all of our student interns to be empowerment students, as well as the members of the student board. You will learn that in truth, there are not enough "official" leadership positions at this Hillel for all the students who want to become more involved, so your job is to find an outlet for each student.
What do these students need from you? Some might need help finding a way to express their ideas and leadership skills; others will need direction in developing programs or achieving their visions. You will be needed to assist students as they learn how to effectively organize and run a program -- showing them the ropes of grant proposals, budgeting, reserving space, and all the other details involved in programming. In addition, you should try to find ways to continually develop the leadership skills of each student -- from the first year with youth-group experience to the know-it-all senior who has been an intern for two years.
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