First Student Board Gathering in the New Building
Brittany Yesner ’19
By Brittany Yesner ’19
On Monday, January 16, the Rutgers Hillel Student Board met for the first time of the new secular year for our January Leadership Day. Leadership Day is an intensive training day for the Rutgers Hillel Student Board that is held 3 times per year: once before the fall semester, once before the spring semester, and once in May before the summer break. Leadership Day provides an excellent opportunity to the student board members to organize and plan for the weeks ahead, as well as participate in activities that help us to become better leaders in the community.
2016-2017 Hillel Student Board in front of the pocket doors to the Student Office in the New Hillel Building
We kicked off the meeting in the beautiful Cap and Skull Lounge in the College Avenue Student Center with some delicious food from Giddy’s Pizza and some wonderful talk about our winter breaks. After lunch, it was time to take the long-awaited 0.2 mile (0.3 km) walk over to 70 College Ave, where we would hold our first Leadership Day of the new year in the student leadership office of THE NEW EVA AND ARIE HALPERN HILLEL HOUSE!!! Although the building is not open to the public yet, we were able to get a sneak peak, and it was great to use it for our Leadership Day!
It was incredibly inspiring to be in this exciting new space completely dedicated to student leadership and furthering Jewish life on campus, so we got right down to business. First, our lovely president Sami Brandspiegel ’17 led the student board in an exercise where we got to reflect on our goals from last semester and get excited about our goals for the weeks to come. We then participated in a fun communication exercise where we had productive conversations about the new building and Shabbat dinners. We came up with ways to improve effective communication during our student board meetings using positive, encouraging rhetoric. We finished up the day by discussing upcoming events and taking in the beauty of the new building at 70 College Ave. There is a lot to look forward to for this semester!
The 2016-2017 Hillel Student Board Meeting in the New Student Office