Why Start Off at Alumni House?

It so happens that this Fall 2021, two of UAlbany Hillel’s semester opening events were held at the Alumni House. True, it is a nice space and a retreat from campus (we had a portion of our son Moshe’s Bar-Mitzvah and the Bruce Lorence Alumni Torah dedication held there as well, back in 2014) but what can be learned from starting off a new semester at alumni house?

In some ways, you might say, it might not feel right. After all, many of the students here this year are new to campus altogether. All freshmen students are new, and even many of the sophomore students have not been on campus last year. It’s a new beginning, a fresh start, so why the focus on Alumni – which is a much later stage of campus life? 

Yes, yes, I know it’s just a location and venue, and there isn’t any alumni focus by having a Shabbat dinner in that space. But the Baal Shem Tov taught that there’s a lesson to be learned from everything!

One thing unusual about campus life that you don’t have as much in regular communities is the compression of generations. Every 4 or 5 years there’s almost total turnover, each year the group shifts and the crowd chemistry changes. Given the 3 semesters of mostly remote learning during Covid, this sense of disconnect from generations prior and after is even more acute than usual.

That’s the message of alumni house at the start of the semester or college experience! We should recognize those who came before us who helped create and shape the campus community you find here. And all that you bring to our campus community, the talent and time you invest, the choices you make, will last longer than your time here, they help keep the community going and growing forward, for years to come. Celebrating at alumni house reminds us of the longer view, the bigger picture, the intergenerational experience, from generation to generation at UAlbany. 

We (Raizy and I, and the Hillel staff and UAlbany faculty) are in the unique position to see the long-term bigger picture, we get to watch and connect with the student generations that come and go. It is one of the special blessings of this type of work.