Penn State Hillel awarded top Measuring Excellence Hillel at the Hillel International Global Assembly

DECEMBER 5, 2016 – ORLANDO, FL – Penn State Hillel awarded as a Top 5 University with Greatest Improvement in Breadth, a certificate for achieving significant improvement in student engagement as part of Hillel International’s Measuring Excellence program.

This week marks the 3^rd annual Hillel International Global Assembly. The Hillel International Global Assembly brings together over 850 Hillel professionals from across the world to celebrate our successes on campus, learn with each other, reflect on our growth, and to think critically about our goals ahead. This year’s opening night began with the 2016 Drive to Excellence Awards, recognizing Hillels that demonstrate Excellence in Hillel’s movement-wide Strategic Implementation Plan, The Drive to Excellence, and the 2016 Exemplar Awards, recognizing outstanding individuals who demonstrate outstanding devotion and passion to Jewish campus life.

The Drive to Excellence – Measuring Excellence program, now on 80 campuses, articulates a set of engagement goals to help a significant number of Jewish students make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.

“With the Drive to Excellence, we commit to building open, welcoming, pluralistic Jewish communities to inspire every Jewish student to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel, thereby building and helping secure the future of the Jewish people in the 21st century,” said Eric D. Fingerhut, president and CEO of Hillel International.

To really accelerate the Drive to Excellence effort, an entrepreneurial foundation from Pittsburgh identified campuses with the potential to achieve Excellence through a Comprehensive Excellence Pilot (CEP) grant. Penn State University is one of them. The Comprehensive Excellence Pilot grant is an experiment to see if a fully-funded Hillel, with resources set up through Hillel International, can set a new, higher bar for what a high performing Hillel looks like.

Through the Drive to Excellence and the CEP grant, Penn State Hillel aims to know the names of 90% of Jewish students on campus; interact at least once a year with 70%; form an ongoing relationship with 40% and provide high impact experiences (think Birthright Israel, leadership roles, fellowships, service learning, Jewish study) with at least 20% of Jewish students each year. Penn State Hillel has achieved those goals by tripling its engagement numbers and reaching nearly 2,400 Jewish students on campus.

Penn State Hillel’s mission is to enrich the lives of the estimated 5,000 Jewish students at Penn State so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.

Contact Information: Hannah Giterman, Director of Community Engagement – Penn State Hillel, [email protected].

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