Carol Simon, center, resigned from the board of the Sister Rose Thering Endowment. She is shown during a visit to Poland in the summer of 2007 with Holocaust scholars.
Photo courtesy Carol Simon
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October 28, 2009
The Sister Rose Thering Endowment at Seton Hall University in South Orange was established in honor of the late Catholic nun who staunchly supported Holocaust studies and battled against anti-Semitism in her church and beyond.
Working closely with the Catholic university’s Department of Jewish-Christian Studies, the endowment has provided some 350 scholarships for study within the department for school teachers.
The endowment also “supports the academic mission” of the department, whose stated goal is to “promote understanding among Jews and Christians.”
But a program committed to “mutual understanding” is facing a mini-revolt, as five members of the endowment’s 75-member board and executive board resigned from the committee in protest on Oct. 16; the endowment, they say, has lost its way.
In their letter of resignation, the five complain about a lack of information about endowment finances. They charge that the endowment is “seriously eroding its principal” and that its governing board has not discussed “effective and significant ways to reduce expenses.”
Moreover, they suggest, the endowment and the department are adding the study of Islam in a way that violates Sister Rose’s vision of Jewish-Christian dialogue.
“In the last year, the Department of Jewish-Christian Studies has broadened its mandate and expanded its courses to include education beyond Jewish-Christian relations,” the letter of resignation states. “The Endowment continues to support the newly expanded curricula and mandate without considering the ramifications to the Endowment or its mission.”
The signatories, all Jews, are Barbara Wind, director of the Holocaust Council of MetroWest; Lois Dranikoff of Livingston; Dina and Wayne Polay of West Orange, and Carol Simon of Millburn.
Above all, the resigning board members say, their concerns have not been addressed by the board with “full and open deliberation.”
Dranikoff, a member of the executive board since its inception in 1992, said the endowment’s board should have been informed about the introduction of the study of Islam, and been given the opportunity to debate whether that would alter the endowment’s mission.
“The question comes up as to whether the endowment has the right to support this change because the donors have given money to the endowment for Jewish-Christian studies,” Dranikoff told NJ Jewish News. “Every time we brought it up, it turned into a huge battle and we could never discuss it,”
University officials insist they have been transparent about finances.
As for the teaching of Islam, they say the subject has appeared as a subject in various courses, but only in relation to the study of the three “Abrahamic” faiths and not in a way that suggests the university is extending the interfaith dialogue to include Islam.
According to Monsignor Anthony Ziccardi, who has been conducting an inquiry into the complaints at the request of Seton Hall’s president, Monsignor Robert Sheeran, the signatories’ concerns about Islamic content in the department are overstated — and are not the mandate of the board to begin with.
“There was no problem about [the resigning members’] asking the question,” said Ziccardi in an interview at his on-campus office. “Even though it kept being raised, the rest of the board decided it didn’t have an issue with this.”
The board’s mandate, he said, does not include debating the academic offerings in the Jewish-Christian studies department.
“The only right the board would have is to decide they would give a scholarship to a student for this course but not that course,” Ziccardi added. “Anything else would be an infringement of academic freedom.”
But Ziccardi also disputed the premise of the resigning board members’ complaint.
“At no time we can see here at Seton Hall will there be a changing of the basic character of the department,” he told NJJN. “There is no thought of making the department the Jewish-Christian-Islamic Studies Department.”
A page on the Seton Hall website titled “Donate to the Endowment” states the department’s curriculum “includes a study of the three communities and teachings within the Abrahamic family of religions, including Islam.”
What was proposed, said Ziccardi, was, “a slight change in curriculum, but curricula are always changing in view of present circumstances.”
“The greatest threat right now to Jewish people is precisely from Islamic faiths,” he said. “If we are going to work against anti-Semitism, we need to work at it both from the education of Christians and the education of Muslims as well. I think that kind of understanding of the roots of these two faiths in Judaism is sorely lacking.”
The goal, he added, “is not to teach Islam. It is not to promote Islam. It is merely to say, ‘Judaism is the parent religion to two other major world religions, and this is what those two religions owe to Judaism.’”
Board member Rabbi Alan Brill, who teaches in the department as the Cooperman/Ross Endowed Professor in honor of Sister Rose Thering, declined to discuss details of the controversy. However, he labeled it “shul politics at a Catholic university.”
“There is no Islam being taught in the program now, and it is not on the agenda,” he told NJJN.
Wind, who called Thering her “second mother,” remains troubled.
“Those who knew Sister Rose well knew she felt the Muslim world was not ready for dialogue with Jews and even Christians. That’s what she used to say to me. I’m not saying she wouldn’t support this move by the department. It is not only about Islam.” But, she added, “our questions have been either ignored or rebuffed in no uncertain terms.”
Ziccardi said that when it comes to changing the terms of the Jewish-Christian dialogue, there is no “move” to talk about.
“I don’t think the Judeo-Christian Studies Department is looking to have a dialogue with Muslims,” he insisted. “The dialogue is still between Christians and Jews. The department has said on a number of occasions that is enough to deal with. I have spoken with professors individually, and none of them wants to change in that direction. They simply want to make reference to Islam in their courses without being told that it is illegitimate.”
Finances
The resigning board members also claim the school administration kept them in the dark about the endowment’s financial situation and the necessity to dip into its principal — or “corpus.”
“The corpus has been invaded and we did not know about this until after the fact,” complained Simon, who has studied at the department and competed one-third of the master’s degree program there.
“It has been very difficult to get information,” she said. “It appears we are eating up about 10 percent of the corpus every year. In 10 years it will have been eaten up. We have asked for figures and we’re not getting them.”
“This is not to say Seton Hall is doing anything wrong with our money,” added Dranikoff. “We just don’t know anything about our money.”
As far as the evaporating corpus is concerned, Ziccardi said “we have not verified that. We haven’t yet gotten all the figures in…But it doesn’t look like ‘Oh, my God. This thing is going to be bankrupt next year.’ That’s not the case.”
The monsignor added that “every year the board members are given statements as to how much money came from fund-raising and how much came in from the endowment’s investments and how much money has been spent and on what. I don’t know with what detail and how much they drill down, but I’ve read past minutes that include that kind of information,” he said.
Letter of resignation
The following is the letter of resignation from five members of the Board of Trustees of the Sister Rose Thering Endowment, received by the NJJN on Oct. 19, 2009:
We regretfully announce our resignations, effective immediately, from the Sister Rose Thering Endowment Board and Executive Board. We take this action after a great deal of deliberation and with great sadness, particularly in light of the fact that some of us have been involved since the earliest stages of the Endowment. We believe that there are very serious problems that impede the future of the Endowment and prevent it from functioning effectively and prudently. Our grave concerns and misgivings include the following:
1. Mission of the Endowment – It is prudent and accepted practice for boards to reconsider their mission, every five years, at least. This Board has never done so.
This issue was raised at many Board meetings since Sister Rose’s death. Most organizations headed by a charismatic leader re-consider and re-evaluate their mission after the death of the leader. The Executive Board voted to do just this in a retreat some nine months ago. The retreat has come and gone. Nonetheless there was no discussion of the Endowment’s purpose and mission at the retreat or since.
Many of you know that there have been profound changes in the activities and programs this Endowment supports that have never been subject to free and open discussion. In the last year, the Department of Jewish-Christian Studies has broadened its mandate and expanded its courses to include education beyond Jewish-Christian relations. The Endowment continues to support the newly-expanded curricula and mandate without considering the ramifications to the Endowment or its mission.
2. Finances – It appears, based on the inadequate and oftentimes incorrect financial information supplied to Executive Board members, that the Endowment is seriously eroding its principal. According to the most current (albeit incomplete) numbers, at the present rate of erosion, the Endowment will have exhausted the entire corpus of its trust in ten years or less.
The only responses have been: (A) a stated effort to reduce costs by decreasing the number of postal mailings to Board members and (B) exhortations to increase the corpus through donations. Exactly how Board members are expected to increase donations during this severe economic downturn has not been addressed.
There has been no Board discussion of either the propriety of continuing to deplete the corpus or of identifying effective and significant ways to reduce expenses, including the recent increase in salaried positions. As to the recent hire, for example:
· Why, when most businesses and organizations are laying off personnel, is the Endowment continuing to support a new hire?
· Why, despite the marked decrease in scholarship applications (and therefore recipients,) has the Endowment increased staffing?
Numerous requests to discuss these and other profoundly serious matters have been rebuffed by executive officers, in no uncertain terms.
We believe the ongoing failure to address these issues in a full and open Board discussion may well constitute a breach of Board members’ fiduciary duties to Seton Hall University, to the Endowment and to its donors and supporters.
As Board members, our primary responsibility is to oversee the mission and the finances of the Endowment. Despite our many attempts to have these issues addressed in an open meeting of the Board, with full knowledge and by open and democratic vote, we have not succeeded. The Board and the Executive Board have, in effect, allowed the Endowment to operate without Board supervision and without a clearly defined and agreed upon mission.
We cannot stand by in silence. Sister Rose fulfilled all of her board commitments and responsibilities. She never avoided difficult issues. In her memory, and as she so often demonstrated, we must act responsibly, with knowledge and after full and open deliberation.
The undersigned will not continue to allow these critical concerns about the direction and financial health of the Endowment to be ignored. In Sister Rose’s name we are standing up and speaking out to the Endowment community to raise some of the problems that threaten the Endowment’s future and purpose.
Lois Dranikoff, Dina Polay, Wayne Polay, Carol Simon and Barbara Wind
Reader Discussion
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Molly Maffei Baldwin
November 05, 2009
November 5, 2009
I, too, have resigned from the Sister Rose Thering Endowment Board.
I am not Jewish or directly involved in what the good rabbi disingenuously refers to as “shul politics.” If differences of opinion can be denigrated so cavalierly, then nobody makes any progress toward understanding. Sister Rose would be appalled at the dissension within her endowment.
After receiving a Master’s Degree in Education from Seton Hall, I participated in the SRTE, taking four informative Jewish-Christian Studies courses. Upon retiring after 34 years as a New Jersey educator, I moved first to Virginia then to New Mexico. Although geographical distance is evident, philosophical distance has expedited my resignation.
Involved in Holocaust education within my third grade classroom and as a teacher-trainer since NJ’s 1994 mandate and then as an educator at the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, I can attest that attempting to teach about the Holocaust is daunting and requires a unique approach. It seems Seton Hall misses the boat when it does not couple pedagogy with their outstanding courses.
While acknowledging that it is the prerogative of the J-C Studies Department to structure their syllabus, I suggest any inclusion of Muslim studies presented to SRTE teachers be balanced with the not-so-benign aspects of Islam. Let’s understand that the goal of conquering the world for Islam hasn’t change much since the 7th century. The West is being seduced by militant Islamists who use our freedom of speech, our laws and our universities to forward their goals. However admirable our efforts to engage in multi-faith discourse are, we need to keep our proverbial heads out of the sand.
Obtaining funding is a given component of any endowment. An August 6, 2009 letter from the SRTE chairman specified that board members must either financially contribute, attend events and/or meetings, or, failing to call to plead their personal situation, will be asked to resign. I had advocated Holocaust pedagogy while attending courses and in a board meeting. I contributed research from afar concerning a potential SRTE speaker. No response. Knowing my financial contributions were minimal, I eliminated myself from the next round “to strengthen the structure of our board.”
Offering my thoughts as summarized above in my resignation letter did not sit well.
Molly Maffei Baldwin
Albuquerque, NM
Home: 505-275-0740
Cell: 505-220-9026