YUMesorah.com: The Ultimate Student Resource?
by Eli Isak and Zev Nagel

Traditionally, Yeshiva students spend the last few hours before an exam tracking down copies of notes and old tests that have been handed down by students previously in the course.  For many students, though, the search is finally over.

Established shortly before midterm examinations last fall, YUMesorah.com has quickly become the most popular student resource on campus with over 150 files available for download.  As the hype dies down, however, Yeshiva faculty and administrators are raising questions relating to the appropriateness of the website and its academic value.

YUMesorah.com, the brainchild of Yeshiva undergraduates on the Wilf Campus, offers registered members an array of services including downloadable student notes and old exams for a multitude of courses taught at Yeshiva College, Sy Syms School of Business, and Stern College for Women.  As of April 2003, the website boasted more than 650 members and 7100 downloads.

The founders of YUMesorah.com describe the website as the result of “students getting together and sharing notes and tests.  It’s been done in the past and this is just a way of formalizing the type of mesorah sharing that has always existed, giving many more people the access to these materials.”

Intending to “assist students academically,” the website offers these resources year-round to students, in contrast to notes and old tests that pop up “only during exam periods and are often difficult to get a hold of.”

The founders explain further that they started the website in response to constantly being hounded by other students for copies of their class notes.  In many of these courses, a good set of notes generated a good set of grades.

However, the founders of YUMesorah.com explain that it is more than just a classroom resource.  “Students and professors who are not enrolled in some of the courses download notes to see what they are missing.  If a student is interested in a course which conflicts with their schedule, they still can find out what is being taught.  Now they can simply download the notes and learn about the subject.”

All the materials on the website are volunteered by students and are not commissioned by the website administrators.

Although a central part of the website, the class notes are only as good as the students themselves.  Yet, for many students, sometimes having mediocre notes is far better than having nothing at all.  “Of course nothing can substitute for the classroom experience,” says one YC junior, “but I guess this is the next best thing.”

While some professors agree with this sentiment, and one YC professor claims he prefers students “downloading notes [rather] than having no notes at all,” there are still legalities to consider.

Firstly, Dr. Will Lee, associate professor of English at YC and Director of the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program, points out that some professors consider their lectures their intellectual property and that lectures can be copyrighted.  Therefore publishing notes of certain professors on the internet may create legal problems.  Even so, currently no legal charges have been brought forth against YUMesorah.com.

However, in an email sent out to his students, YC psychology professor Dr. David Rettinger gave another reason to be weary of YUMesorah.com.  Rettinger warned that “giving students these notes on demand undermines [his] teaching, allowing students to take shortcuts that hurt their learning.  It may be easier for them to get a good grade with less work, but results in less learning.”

Similarly, Lee thinks that the website at best “performs a low level educational function,” because it has nothing to do with research or active learning.  “The transmission of lecture notes is consistent with a limited passive model of education, which can undermine the attempts of the professor to teach students to think.”

At the same time, Lee concedes, “Mesorah can probably serve in certain cases to reinforce a basic minimalistic education, especially at an introductory level.”

Not all faculty members, however, disapprove of the downloadable notes that YUMesorah.com offers.  Dean of YC, Dr. Norman Adler, finds the notes posted from his courses to be “very reliable.”

Adler recalls from his days as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, that a note taking company was hired by students to transcribe his lectures.  “I wanted the students to listen during my lectures and absorb the material; not to get bogged down writing it on paper,” says Adler.

However, Adler does advise that such a system can only work when students are dedicated and interested in learning.  Echoing Lee’s sentiment, Adler adds that if used to circumvent learning, YUMesorah.com is simply advancing low and inadequate standards of education.

Even so, the founders of YUMesorah.com have no interest in the website replacing the classroom.  “Students who do not go to class are not doing so because they have YUMesorah.com to rely on,” contend the YUMesorah.com founders.

“They don’t go for their own reasons: they find the class boring, they do not like the professor.  But it has nothing to do with our website.  Also, there will always be students who don’t study, regardless of whether YUMesorah.com is here or not.”

One YC senior asserts that he would not attend class “if [he] could be assured that the notes contained everything from the lecture.”  Being that such notes are “hard to come by,” this student attends class to learn the material first hand.

However, the implications of such a statement bear a lot of weight.  There are a number of courses taught at Yeshiva that fall under the rubric of mesorah.  This includes professors who use the same lecture notes and examinations year after year, which students pass down to each other like an heirloom.  What YUMesorah.com does is feature a “centralized mesorah.”

In an interview last fall, Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Morton Lowengrub, referred to professors who teach the same courses annually without adjustments as “irresponsible.”  He claimed that such teaching habits simply “cheat the student out of the learning experience and should be avoided at all costs.”

In fact, Lowengrub pointed out that all fields of academia have pioneering breakthroughs “every few years” and professors who ignore those advancements disrespect “their own academic integrity and the academic excellence that Yeshiva aspires to provide.”

Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Jeremy Wieder, who was instrumental in organizing a committee of Rosh Yeshiva to discuss the cheating problems that have emerged in the past few years, points to the professors as the source of continual floating mesorah.

Wieder believes that the circulating mesorah that may have propelled YUMesorah.com is due to those professors who perennially do not alter their teaching tools.  If they refuse to change their tests and lectures, Wieder thinks, it is unfair of them to complain.

“At the same time,” Wieder adds, “there are also situations where mesorah is inevitable and not necessarily undesirable; if the questions cover all of the material, then to memorize the mesorah means to learn the course.”

Obtaining these exams, however, is also a matter of debate.  The YUMesorah.com founders assert that any exam that a professor has not allowed students to keep will in no way be posted on their site.  “Although our policy is that we post whatever students want, if a professor tells us that he did not hand back an exam and this student’s copy is illegal, we will not post it.”

Nonetheless, if a professor willingly returns an exam to students for their keeping but does not want the exam circulated, YUMesorah.com will post the exam if students submit it, despite the professor’s wishes.  “A professor does not have the right to protest the posting of a returned test,” explain the YUMesorah.com founders.

The YUMesorah.com founders believe that once a test is returned to students it is inevitable that others will use it.  Therefore, “why not give everyone the same opportunity by publicizing what is out there?” they ask.  Not permitting all students to access the mesorah creates an uneven playing field.

Adler, however, disagrees vehemently with this approach.  He argues that only materials sanctioned by professors can be posted and that their wishes shall be respected when it comes to exams and materials that they wish to restrict.  Professors return exams, Adler explains, in order to propagate thought and contemplation.  Therefore placing the exams in public domain against the professors’ wishes, Adler considers theft.

In response, the YUMesorah.com founders respond, “We obviously have policy differences which we will gladly discuss with the administration.”

The YUMesorah.com founders, however, also stress the importance of being able to see old exams to “get a feel of the professor’s style of testing.”  Many professors demand different things and going in blindly into an examination, unaware of the testing style, can be a harmful experience.

“The exams are meant to be models of what the professor wants you to know, without relating to specifics. It is not meant to replace studying,” say the YUMesorah.com founders in defense.

Clearly though, not all professors protest the notion of mesorah.  Indeed some professors have already posted model exams on their faculty websites for some time, such as YC associate professor of Bible Rabbi Shalom Carmy, and copies of other examinations can be found in the library where professors have made them available to students.

Lee refers to his involvement a number of years ago, in an YC/SSSB Senate initiative to create a test bank.  Lee believes that a test bank authorized by professors can and should be accessible to students.

Nonetheless, although Adler and others support the creation of such a test bank, it has yet to become a reality.  YUMesorah.com founders purport that they will not wait around until the administration organizes the test bank, and therefore they created one on their own.

Furthermore, “Yeshiva’s faculty websites,” say YUMesorah.com founders, “are outdated and poorly maintained.”  The founders claim that there are even faculty pages for professors who are no longer faculty members, not to mention the large number of professors who do not utilize their pages.

“Being that the school administration has not gone the distance to create anything, we are taking the initiative,” state the YUMesorah.com founders.  YUMesorah.com has invited all faculty members to submit syllabi, course requirements, and old exams to be posted on the website at the professor’s wish.

“We can centralize the information that students need to succeed,” they add.  “We envision in the future bulletin boards and even audio lectures.  We are there for the YU student.”

Therefore SSSB sophomore Michael Nahamias says not surprisingly “everyone should visit the site.  It does a great service for students and they should take advantage of it.”

However, one Yeshiva faculty member was quick to point out the differences between the goals of a test bank and those of YUMesorah.com.  While a test bank can compliment and reinforce the education of students already willing to put the effort into class, YUMesorah.com is more of a “bastion of sloth and irresponsibility aimed at spoon-feeding what is supposed to be hard work into the mouth of negligent students.”

As these students allege to stand for the values of the university, in reality, according to this faculty member, they patiently wait at their computers for a truly competent student to come along and do the work for them.

While most Yeshiva professors do not echo this level of negativity, there is an underlying current of truth to his assertions.  Questions pertaining to the motivation of Yeshiva students have been chronically explored; however a successful resolution has yet to be advanced.  Although Yeshiva exposes students to a first rate education, one cannot help but notice the countless number of students who take shortcuts to graduate.  In the eyes of this one professor, YUMesorah.com is simply adding fuel to the fire.

Another feature of the website, allows students to rate courses and professors from their respective undergraduate schools, a system similar but different than the teacher evaluations conducted at the end of each term.  Although websites such as ratemyproffesor.com already exist, YUMesorah.com exclusively serves the Yeshiva community.

“Students need a place to find out what their peers think about professors and their courses,” explain the YUMesorah.com founders.  Although the Yeshiva administration has spoken of publishing the results of their biannual teacher evaluations, to date no actions have been taken.

The founders deny any accusation that their ratings are meant to supplant the teacher evaluations commissioned by the Dean’s Office.  “Being that there is no objective standard for the ratings, we encourage students to tell about their course experience but to make it as universally applicable as possible,” say the founders.

A number of professors have expressed their concern of receiving poor ratings from vindictive students.  YUMesorah.com pledges to monitor the posted comments on the server and will remove any that are deemed inappropriate.

“But students have a right to know about the professors and the Dean’s Office evaluations do not give them that option,” argue the founders.

“Ultimately, the ratings will balance out because we average all the scores.  This is to ensure that the ratings are not affected by one negative student,” the founders further explain.

For example, one professor received a 3 out of 10 rating from a student because the course was “one of the most difficult” that student had ever taken.  Conversely, the other comments all endorse the course with glorifying reviews.

A number of years ago students at Columbia University set up a similar website for rating professors and courses, and numerous other students at other universities have followed suit.

An official endorsement from Yeshiva notwithstanding, the founders of YUMesorah.com avow that the website will always remain “a student initiative independent of the Yeshiva bureaucracy.”  The opposition voiced by faculty members has not influenced the website founders.  They avow to continue providing what they believe is “a great service to Yeshiva students.”

And as it seems, Yeshiva students will continue to offer their thanks affectionately.♦