Spacing Out

It isn’t just your imagination telling you that the Belfer Hall elevators are getting more crowded each year, or that the din in the beis medrash is now drowning out your chavrusa’s voice. As survey courses now routinely overtally into the forties or higher, and enrollment in the largest MYP shiurim approaches 100 students, the Wilf Campus’s space problem has finally pushed itself into our frontal vision. Unless the Yeshiva administration makes long-term decisions to accommodate our growing population, 2002-3 will be the final year in which the Wilf campus enjoys a record enrollment.

The choices will be difficult. Should Yeshiva employ a more selective admissions policy, denying our peers the opportunity for Yeshiva’s unique Torah U’Maddah education simply because they were born a year too late? Whose space requirements will take priority – those of the RIETS kollel, whose families introduce a warm community atmosphere to our campus, or those of the undergraduate students, the larger, more dominant population? If Yeshiva should build a new dormitory or classroom building, where should it do so, and at what cost?

This year, thank God, we are all here. The band-aid solutions for creating space, however, will not work any longer. As Yeshiva’s top officials hire a new President who will guide our institution for the next generation, we urge them as well to formulate a visionary strategy for managing the university’s resources that will maximize its contribution to both its students and to the Modern Orthodox community.