huh... I guess that's it!

Well, I survived. Today was my last day of work, and I am now officially unemployed. I somehow can't believe it's over, though. I've been thinking a lot about my time here, and found it especially cathartic to write my "reflection narrative" for my supervisors at the International Center. It ended up being 10 pages long! Here are some especially good excerpts (this is a LONG post):

What were your three greatest challenges from the Fellowship?

I think most of my challenges have to do with my specific Hillel, particularly stemming from the fact that they never really wanted a JCSC Fellow who would do engagement work on the campuses here, but rather cheap programming staff who would be able to fill in for everything the Jewish Student Life Coordinator could not handle. My greatest challenge, without a doubt, was this overwhelming feeling of constantly having to swim upstream, as I was caught between the expectations of the fellowship (which is what I signed up for) and very real expectations and consequences as envisioned by my supervisor. I felt permanently at odds with my entire staff as to what my work expectations ought to be and how I should go about doing my job. To be honest, after months of struggle and pushing and challenging, I felt it was easiest to simply buckle under the pressure (especially once news of the fellowship’s termination reached me), especially to avoid long “meetings” with my supervisor, whose extremely passive-aggressive management style involved a running tab of all the things I was doing wrong, or could have done better, and absolutely no positive feedback.
This brings me to challenge number two: my supervisor and I are not compatible, and I found him to be extremely difficult to work with. He provided absolutely no direction, but would simply say something like, “organize this program which we’ve done in the past.” If I had any questions, such as, “where did we do this program in the past?” or, “how many people should I expect for this program?” or, “who should I talk to about this?” or “how much should I budget for this program?” he would simply reply that he didn’t like to micro-manage and that I could figure that out by myself, or that I should just trust my instincts. Except— after the event or program was all over, he would say, “you should have called so and so,” or, “why didn’t you order pizzas ahead of time,” or, you spent too much money on this,” or a number of other comments that would have been extremely helpful to me while I was in the planning process. He never, not once in the entire school year, congratulated me on a successful program or thanked me for my hard work. Rather, he would attribute a successful program to the “ebb and tide” of involvement on campus, completely ignoring the many long hours I had spent advertising, putting up flyers, and calling students. Every time I attempted new programs that were intended to be low-barrier or high-impact, I was met with resistance. In particular, I had begun working on a program that involved the MSA and other Christian organizations—and although this program would have involved a lot of work and planning (on the part of me and my supervisor), it was absolutely possible to do. Instead of even trying, my supervisor simply said, “the board of directors won’t like it, so it’s not happening,” and would not allow me to pursue it at all. I was up against this kind of attitude on a daily basis.
Finally, I think that even disregarding my particular difficulties with the staff here, the JCSC Fellowship was not exactly suited for a Hillel that serves multi-campuses, medical and law schools, and commuter schools. I had to learn about several different campuses and try to figure out how I would possibly spend enough time on each campus to begin creating relationships with students there. Many of the staple programs and initiatives of other successful JCSC Fellows simply did not make sense here particularly because of time limitations—I really couldn’t successfully replicate or duplicate programs on different campuses. I faced different challenges than many other Hillels, and although I met other Fellows experiencing similar issues on their campuses through my Team phone calls, I found that I had to make my own path at every moment.

What are your constructive recommendations for your Hillel moving forward, specifically regarding engagement?

I have thought about this a lot during my tenure here, and I think that what it really comes down to is that you really have to buy into what you’re doing, and you have to actually do what you say you’re doing. My Hillel is simply not interested in engagement, as defined by the JCSC Fellowship and the International Center. It’s not that my Hillel doesn’t understand what this model is, or how it’s supposed to work, but rather that they do not see particular value in attempting to change the way this institution operates. Hillel has a fairly firm institutional memory, and generally speaking the kinds of programs we do here are programs we’ve done in the past, programs which often reach only the core group of engaged students and serve no other purpose than to fill space on the calendar (why do we need to have so many programs like “paint your own pottery at the Mad Potter?” there’s NO Jewish content and the same 10 people always come. And yet we continue to have it on the calendar year after year. And the JCSC has to do it) as “social” programming. It makes no sense, then, to hire staff to do “engagement” work when what is expected from that staff member is the same old programming. The few low-barrier programs we managed to have on campuses were completely my doing, and were met with negative feedback and questioning from my supervisor (yes, I spent money buying honey sticks, hours taping “Have a sweet new year from Hillel” on them, and then handed them out to total strangers. That’s the idea.). If you don’t buy into the engagement model, then it is really doomed for failure from the beginning. It’s like I’ve told students all year—in order to make a successful program, you have to take ownership of it, and really make it your own. If it’s not your own, then it just won’t fly. So, I think what would be helpful and constructive would be for this Hillel to take a good hard look at itself in the mirror, and really come to terms with what it is looking to do. If you don’t agree with the engagement model, then don’t pretend to do it.