Friday, September 25, 2009

Weekly Report September 21st - 25th, 2009

Sunday was the second day of Rosh Hashonah so it was a shorter week than usual.
  • On Wednesday, the Academic Department held a faculty meeting for those faculty teaching in the coming semester. In addition to the veteran teachers such as Uzi Avner, Avigail Morris, Elaine Solowey, Clive Lipchin, Elli Groner (Academic Director), Tareq Abu Hamed and Shmuel Brenner, the institute welcomed new teacher's Omer Pollack, Nadav Davidovitch, Nadav Shashar and Shlomo Chertok. The institute also welcomed back long time faculty member Rabbi Michael Cohen who is here in Israel on Sabatical. Course listing.
  • Among other information, the faculty heard that 11 Palestinians had received permits and 7 Jordanians had received visas. Altogether 47 students have been accepted to the fall semester and two are on waitlist.
  • Wednesday evening, Rabbi Michael and I went to Tel Aviv to attend the going away party of the European Union Ambassador at his residence. The food was great and we exchanged lots of business cards.
  • Thursday, Sharon travelled to Jordan to meet with alumni and with the new students. She had a meeting in Amman with 9 Jordanian alumni and 6 new students. Khaled Shorman our representative in Jordan helped arrange the meeting and also attended. The alumni talked about organizing an event in October around the issue of climate change. They also spoke to the new students about life at the institute.
  • Thursday evening, 9 of the 10 North American students arrived at the Institute as part of the MASA program. The institute holds a three week pre-program of Hebrew and Israeli studies for all Jewish students who have received scholarships from the MASA program. This is part of the agreement with MASA which certifies MASA programs in Israel.
  • On Friday, Tareq Abu Hamed spoke to a group of local Arava residents about energy conservation in building. This was part of a regional workshop on energy conservation in building that was organized by the Eilat Eilot Renewable Energy Initiative. It was Tareq's first lecture in Hebrew! He did great.

Gmar Hatima Tova

David

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