Foulkeways
at Gwynedd
Attleboro Retirement
Community As Gratz has transitioned to a primarily
online institution, a process that began
in 2001 and continues to this day, the
student base has also changed. Today,
though still likely to be Jewish, the typical
student is almost certainly not within
commutable distance of Philadelphia,
according to Paul Finkelman, president
of the college.

offerings. Today, in addition to its Jewish offer-
ings, Gratz offers master’s programs in nonprofit
management, as well as camp administration and
leadership. It also confers doctorates in education in
leadership. Of Gratz’s 400 or so degree-seeking stu-
dents, 98% of them, by Finkelman’s estimate, learn
exclusively online.

The Holocaust and Genocide Studies doctoral
program is a particular point of pride. Though also
taught online, it brings students from across the
country to the college for a week in the summer for
graduate seminars.

Alexandra Rudolph is a single mom and high
school history teacher in her first year of Ph.D.

study at Gratz, taking classes from her Augusta,
Georgia, home. Though she isn’t Jewish, she learned
the importance of preserving the memory of the
Holocaust from a young age.

To be able to take the classes on her own time,
she said, “means the world to me.”
David Cotter knows what she’s talking about.

The retired Army colonel is the final stages of his
own Ph.D. in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at
Gratz, and he hopes to put what he’s learned to good
use at work — leading the department of military
history at the Command and General Staff College
at Fort Leavenworth. It’s important to educate the
officers who study there on the subject; they may
encounter genocidal activities in the course of
deployment, Cotter said, as he did during his time
in Iraq.

“These folks clearly knew how to do distance
education,” Cotter said of Gratz.

Though Gratz had a gala planned to celebrate
its 125 years, it has been postponed due to the
pandemic. It will be held instead in December. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
24 THE GUIDE 2020/2021