Dec 5, 2002 — Capping off an intense and historic evening, Richard M. Joel was elected the fourth President of Yeshiva University and Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary last night.
Although he required only 80 percent of the Board of Trustees’ support to be named President of Yeshiva, Joel secured 15 out of 16 votes from the Executive Committee of the Board and 36 out of 39 votes from the general Board. After a lengthy session following the University Board’s vote, the RIETS Board elected Joel as its head, when he earned the support of 26 out of 29 present members.
“I am just filled with yir’ah, and I am grateful to the ribbono shel olam to be worthy of such a position,” Joel said in a phone interview immediately after the RIETS vote. “It’s a zechus to be able to work for students, and help administrators and faculty assist students meet their challenges. I’m thrilled to lead this wonderful team, to keep building something special.”
The Executive Committee of the Board, as well as the Board itself, voted for Joel at 6 PM, as was expected. Thereafter, the RIETS Board deliberated intensely for over two hours before coming to a conclusion. During the two-hour period, Roshei HaYeshiva Rabbis Michael Rosensweig and Mayer Twersky cautioned the RIETS Board members against appointing a non-rabbi as its President. Current Yeshiva President Dr. Norman Lamm assured the crowd that in Joel’s case, this would not be a problem, for although Joel “does not have the credentials” of a rabbi, he nonetheless has the values of one.
The final RIETS vote, which occurred at around 9:20 PM, elected Joel as CEO of RIETS after it was determined that the official title for the head of RIETS is actually CEO, not President.
Chairman of the Board Ronald P. Stanton will officially announce Joel’s presidency to the Yeshiva community at the annual Hanukkah dinner this Sunday, a lavish affair attended by hundreds of Yeshiva supporters.
Within the next few months, Joel, who is currently the President and International Director of Hillel will prepare to leave his position in Washington, D.C. For the time being, he plans on spending some time at Yeshiva to acclimate himself with the institution from the inside. “He will be coming to the University a couple of days a week to get his feet wet,” said Mr. Stanton.
The official presidential inauguration is slated to take place in May or June.
Joel’s presidency is believed by many to come at a crucial time in Yeshiva history. “He has a vision and there’s going to be some major changes,” said Stanton, who believes that, above all, the University will become more student-friendly under Joel. Major overhauls in the University’s structure, as well as the formation of new executive positions and a reconsideration of fiscal realities, are expected to begin next year under Joel’s leadership.
Throughout the past two weeks – following the announcement of his candidacy – Joel has met with nearly every constituent group of the Yeshiva community, including board members, faculty, Roshei HaYeshiva, and students.
The meetings were not intended as an opportunity for Yeshiva’s constituents to have input in the search process, however. On Tuesday, November 26, in an informal straw vote, both the Executive Committee of the Board and the Board itself voted for Joel’s appointment as Yeshiva President. From the University’s perspective, therefore, the meetings before and after Thanksgiving were a “charade” because the Board’s decision was, from the very beginning, all but official.
The final scheduled meeting was held on Tuesday night with RIETS board members. Drawing over half of the 43-member board, as well as Lamm and Stanton, the meeting was planned to allow the board members to “get to know” Joel and consisted of board members voicing certain concerns, such as Hillel’s pluralistic values under Joel’s leadership, as well as his association with Edah.
Yeshiva insiders had considered this meeting the most critical for Joel, who had said that he would not accept the Yeshiva University Presidency if he were not also the head of RIETS. As an affiliate rabbinical seminary of the University, RIETS has the authority to appoint its own leader, which in effect would sever the bond between the religious component of Yeshiva and its other schools. Refusing to cause for such a fracture at the Yeshiva, Joel had thus developed a “both or nothing” stance.
For the most part, the meetings were successful and Joel gained a lot of support, including the backing of Yeshiva’s Einstein College of Medicine. “They all liked him, and think he’ll do a good job,” said Stanton. “No one was really opposed except a few people at RIETS and some rabbis.”
This objection to Joel from the Roshei HaYeshiva concerns the split of the head Rosh HaYeshiva and Presidential positions, a clear departure from Yeshiva’s 116-year history. In the new arrangement, Joel will be President of Yeshiva and CEO of RIETS, and Rabbi Lamm will stay on as the head Rosh HaYeshiva. The exact detail of the split has yet to be decided by the Board.
At a meeting on Monday, December 2, the rabbeim articulated their opposition to Joel, who is not a rabbi. They claimed that allowing such an appointment was embarking on a slippery slope that may one day enable a non-Jew to become president. “They are opposed to Joel because he’s not a scholar and a rabbi,” said Stanton. “They have a vision of what the president should be, and it doesn’t coincide with the views of the majority of the Board.”
The meeting seemed to have little effect on the Board’s determination to see Joel’s candidacy to completion. “They made their views known to me, and I made my views known to them,” said Stanton. Frustrated by the decision and their lack of input, a group of rabbis encouraged their students on the Wilf Campus to pass around a petition opposing Joel and went so far as organizing a mincha rally early this afternoon.
While the Board acknowledges the Roshei HaYeshivas’ concerns, Stanton considers the appointment “an interlude,” and believes that within a few years Yeshiva will be able to find someone to fit the dual model. He explained that Joel plans to create a new program at Yeshiva to train rabbinical students who “want to go out in the world and become leaders.”
Since Stanton became chairman of the Board in September, he has taken a firm hold of the Presidential search committee, ousting Michael Jesselson as its chairman. Under Stanton’s reign, the newly formed committee departed from the previous model of a President who could also be Rosh HaYeshiva. According to Stanton, the ideal of “the Rabbi Lamm model” had proven to be impossible to find over the past year.
The presidential process, intended to be completed by May 2002, slowly turned into an embarrassing fiasco for the Yeshiva community. Following Rabbi Lamm’s resignation in March 2001, Yeshiva organized an elaborate search process to find suitable recommendations. Last March, the search committee unexpectedly announced its premiere candidate, Undersecretary of Defense Dov S. Zakheim, triggering a public brouhaha over the splitting of the roles. Zakheim withdrew his candidacy shortly thereafter. Other names bandied about for some time include Rabbis Shlomo Riskin and David Schnall.
In early September, Yeshiva Professor of Philosophy Dr. David Shatz became the premiere candidate, drawing the support of the community at large. However, soon after he began the official process, he withdrew his candidacy, claiming that he did not want to give up his scholarly pursuits.
Plagued by failure, the committee then was revamped when Stanton came on board. In what seemed like a boundless state of limbo the University had almost reached a standstill in conducting its business, and Stanton was committed to speedily finding a President. He revealed his first candidate in the beginning of November: Dr. Baruch Brody of Houston Texas, a medical ethics and philosophy professor from Houston, Texas. However, within a few days, news of strong opposition to Brody, who is not a rabbi and has no affiliation with Yeshiva, reached the search committee.
During that time, the committee approached Joel to solicit his candidacy. Joel, who offered the presidency twice before and turned it down, now expressed interest in the position were it to be offered.
A communal leader with strong administrative and fundraising capabilities, as well as ties to major Jewish philanthropists, Joel seemed an obvious choice to the search committee. Hesitant to evoke the same sudden reaction as it had with Brody, however, the search committee proceeded cautiously with its new candidate and Stanton discussed the possibility with all the Yeshiva Boards before the news became public.
Joel’s appointment has been a major victory for Stanton, who has procured a president only three months after assuming his position.
