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Gratz Refocuses, Ahead of the
Curve with Online Classes
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
G ratz College in Cheltenham
Township was going online
long before it was common.

Th e Jewish school off ered its fi rst digital
course shortly aft er the dot-com bubble
burst in 2001 — back when the internet
was less a dynamic dimension and more
of a cornucopia of static websites.

Th at class at Gratz was Essential
Rabbinic Beliefs, according to Ruth
Sandberg, its professor. It had fi ve stu-
dents and no video component. Sandberg
assigned readings and students posted
comments on a discussion board.

Today at Gratz, which dates to 1895,
there are video lectures, PowerPoint
slides and yes, still readings. And there
are all of these elements in most of the
classes that the school off ers to its 5,000-
plus adult education students in “36
states and six countries,” according to
the college’s website.

Gratz, which serves “educators and
communal professionals,” per its site, is
not a fully online college. It still off ers
plenty of programs at its Melrose Park
campus. But it is about as close as a
school can be to a digital-fi rst institution.

“Th at really was a visionary pivot,” said
Naomi Housman, the school’s director of
institutional advancement, of the deci-
sion to off er an online class in 2001.

Gratz off ers two fl agship programs,
according to President Zev Eleff : a mas-
ter’s degree in education and a master’s
and Ph.D. distinction in Holocaust and
genocide studies.

Pennsylvania public school teachers
make up most of the student base for
the education program; while 75% of
students in the Holocaust and genocide
studies program live outside the state.

Both areas of study were off ered mostly
online before the pandemic broke out.

Today, both are entirely online.

Despite the pandemic era shift to
hybrid education, most U.S. colleges
and universities are still more in-person
than on the internet. But for Gratz, the
digital approach works because its stu-
dents are oft en adults with lives who seek
advanced credentials.

“We are right now fi guring out how
to best support a broad student base,”
Eleff said.

At Gratz, the COVID-era transition
was less tectonic than gradual. Th e school
did not have to embrace a new dimension
and approach to education overnight. It
just had to off er a little more of what it
was already doing.

Eleff credits Sandberg for that. Th e
professor, now an academic adviser in the
Holocaust and genocide studies program,
started teaching at the school almost 40
years ago. She believed in online educa-
tion not because she was some technol-
ogist or futurist but for a moral reason.

“I believed in the possibility of online
learning reaching many more students
who could not otherwise receive a Jewish
education,” Sandberg said.

So, she lobbied school offi cials to adopt
the approach and her Essential Rabbinic
Beliefs class within it. While the course
only attracted fi ve students, it opened
Sandberg’s eyes to digital education’s
Jewish qualities, she said.

A page of the Talmud oft en has com-
ments from rabbis who lived in diff er-
ent centuries, Sandberg explained. Th ere
could be one from the second century, one
from the fi ft h and another from the 12th.

While a class discussion board does
not quite have the same scope, it does
feature student comments from diff erent
times. One may add something early in
the evening, another later and another
the next day. It’s an ongoing conversation
that becomes a sort of historical record.

“I saw that the internet had the capa-
bility of producing its own version of
that type of Jewish discussion over time,”
Sandberg said.

Th is is also a fundamental diff erence
between online and in-person education.

In person, students must off er insights
and analysis within a short time window.

Anyone who has ever been in a college
class knows that, in many instances,
most students do not get to speak during
a single session. But in a digital class,
everyone expounds on everything.

It’s a very Jewish quality.

Sandberg compared it to a Yeshiva
where students have debating partners.

“All the students have access to each
other’s thoughts,” she said. “Everybody
is walking around and debating and dis-
cussing. It’s a very active form of
education.” Th is quality plus the practical-
ity of attracting more students
from outside the state convinced
Gratz that Sandberg was right.

Over time, the school added
more and more online classes
and more and more students who
wanted to take them. Eventually, it
reached a point where many more Gratz College President Zev Eleff
Courtesy of Gratz College
students were online than on
campus, according to Sandberg.

So around 2015 and ’16, offi cials recog- only grow. Modern tools allow students
nized that the future of education, at least to learn in a variety of ways. As she
explained, digital education is ideal for
at Gratz, was online, she said.

“We’re a 19th-century institution from visual, audial and text-based learners.

Philadelphia and, at the same time, we
Plus it’s a great way to attract students.

“We have students from all over the
are embracing an opportunity to be a
national leader in Holocaust education, world now,” she said. JE
in educational studies,” Eleff said.

Sandberg expects the new approach to jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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