Yeshiva Enrollment Up Eight Percent
Struggle to Accommodate Students Becomes More Desperate

by Yair Amsel

For the second year in a row, Yeshiva’s undergraduate enrollment reached the highest number it has ever been. As of August 21st, one week before the first day of classes, 2425 students were registered in Yeshiva College, Stern College, and Sy Syms School of Business. This figure – which includes 1365 men and 1060 women from the three schools – represents an unprecedented expansion of the undergraduate programs, dwarfing enrollment projections compiled by the administration in recent years. The 8% increase on the Wilf Campus in particular is exposing serious shortages of housing and classroom space that administrators are scrambling to fill in.

To illustrate the magnitude of the enrollment increase, Director of Enrollment Management Dr. John Fisher noted that 99 more men than last fall are slated to begin classes on the Wilf Campus next week. “This number is our latest projection, and if no dramatic developments occur in Israel, it’ll be our final number, plus or minus ten,” he said.

Fisher explained that the increase of students on each campus is a combination of many factors, mostly due to the demographics of feeder school populations. “Only 30% of them are first years who would’ve gone to Israel but their parents wouldn’t let them,” he explained. “The rest just reflect the perennially growing enrollment. High schools are growing, and we’re getting a larger percentage of their graduating classes. And since each year brings in an entering class that’s greater than the last year’s graduating class, the numbers keep going up.”

In terms of class breakdown, this year’s Wilf Campus figure of 1365 men is comprised of 914 continuing students and 451 “new to New York” students, a category that includes both students returning from Israel and Freshmen coming straight from high school. This is the first year that the latter number has risen above 400.

Director of Undergraduate Admissions Michael Kranzler dissuaded the myth that enrollment is increasing due to students’ reluctance to study in the Israel Program. “The overwhelming majority of our students who considered not going to Israel ultimately did go,” he remarked. “At this stage, the men’s and women’s Israel yeshivas have relatively full numbers of students in the Israel Program.” Kranzler agreed, therefore, that the 8% increase had much more to do with generally upward enrollment trends.

On the academic front, Yeshiva College Dean Dr. Norman Adler pointed out that to accommodate extra students, his administration has increased the size of the faculty. “We’ve added at least nine new positions within the past few years,” he said. “Both myself and Mort [Lowengrub, Vice President of Academic Affairs] have been working on our budget to allow for even more hirings.” Lowengrub mentioned, in fact, that at least two more Composition and Rhetoric class sections have been added to YC’s course list for the fall of 2002.

Academic appointments notwithstanding, the burgeoning enrollment is posing significant space problems on the Wilf Campus. Space is quite limited, and Yeshiva’s academic and dormitory facilities can accommodate only a certain number of students. Although the administration has discovered ways of temporarily “shoving the dirt under the rug,” as one put it, current growth projections predict that within the next year, Yeshiva may have to begin considering whether or not to cap future enrollment.

Practically speaking, Wilf Campus Registrar Dr. Lea Honigwachs has been leading the effort in “scouring the entire campus” for more classroom space. This coming year, more classes will be held in Schottenstein Hall and Zysman Hall, formerly Yeshiva’s Main Building. Honigwachs also said that her department is working on converting some of the old laboratories in the top floors of Belfer Hall, some offices in the library, and a room in the basement of Furst Hall into classrooms. “We don’t foresee any classroom shortages this coming year,” she said. “The only possible difficulty will be persuading teachers to use these ‘untraditional’ rooms [as meeting sports] for their classes, because they can often be far away from the other classrooms.”

Perhaps an even greater problem is the housing shortage. The dormitories are filled to capacity, so the Office of Student Services has secured “an additional fifty beds in the apartments [for the Independent Housing Program (IHP)],” according to Senior University Dean of Students Dr. Efram Nulman. Nulman admitted, however, that this type of solution will not work in the long term, especially if the enrollment trends keep up. “One of my main objectives as Dean is to advocate for the students … and specifically to argue for a new dorm,” he promised.

In addition, as a result of this necessity to extend the undergraduate IHP to other apartments in the area, there are fewer apartments available to couples or to Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Thological Seminary (RIETS) Semicha students who wish to live in the Yeshiva side of Washington Heights. Although some RIETS students were offered apartments in the building on the corner of 182nd Street and Amsterdam, they rejected the offer because it was too far from Zysman Hall and the apartments were too small. Justifying this allocation of apartments to Yeshiva College and Sy Syms students instead of to couples and RIETS students, Nulman said, “When it comes to prioritizing, our primary responsibility is for our undergraduates. We give them the prime real estate, the security, and the most convenient location.”

Nearly all administrators interviewed by The Commentator acknowledged, however, that long-term planning must begin this year. “The question is: are we going to allow this type of growth, or are we going to cap enrollment?” noted Lowengrub. “I intend to start a planning process soon, to work with students, faculty, and the Board of Trustees to see where we’ll be in four, five years down the line. We’re going to look at growth in a variety of ways, trying all along to satisfy the [educational] demands of the growing Jewish community.”

Rabbi Lamm noted, in fact, that this very issue is something that the next President will have to deal with. “We may have to soon decide that we’re not going to take students past a certain threshold,” he stated. “We may have to raise the bar, to become more selective. But it’s not up to me to preempt the prerogatives of my successors,” he concluded.