DECODING” Vision and Mission | Academic Engagement Network

Our Vision

We envision a world where American higher education welcomes, respects, and supports the expression of Jewish identity and robust discourse about Israel. [i.e. don’t critcize Israeli government policy of Apartheid or we will brand you as anti-semitic. Or as Shimon Peres said when writing to the South Africans

Our Mission

Founded in 2015, the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) is an independently run non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. which mobilizes networks of university faculty and administrators to

• Counter antisemitism [Censorship, Cancel Culture, Victim]

• Oppose the denigration of Jewish and Zionist identities [Stealing Arab Land is Kosher]

• Promote academic freedom [i.e. NO BDS, NO criticism of Israel]

• Advance education about Israel [why Bibi King of Jew Supremacy is Never Wrong]

In recent years, Israel’s detractors on campus — both faculty and students — have used increasingly aggressive tactics to delegitimize Israel and demoralize its supporters. [ding ding-3D IHRA definition]

 These have included attempts to exclude Jewish and Zionist students [? Do you support racism robbing other human beings of their land?] from participation in progressive coalitions, efforts to withdraw their own universities from study abroad and exchange relationships with Israeli academic institutions, campaigns seeking to discredit major Jewish American organizations and initiatives, denials of funding and recognition to pro-Israel student organizations, and refusals to write letters of recommendation for students wishing to study at Israeli universities.

These currents result in a coarsened, hostile climate for Jewish and Zionist faculty and students and run contrary to the fundamental values of the academy.  

AEN believes that faculty can play a critical role in countering these trends, including by using their institutional knowledge, authority, and academic expertise to speak, write, mentor students, host campus programs, work constructively with campus leaders and stakeholders, and more.

To support members in their efforts to further the organization’s goals, AEN provides micro-grants and Speakers Bureau grants to host campus programs; prepares guides and other educational resources; sponsors events for faculty; offers advice and guidance to faculty members who are facing issues on their campuses; and connects and mobilizes members in a growing national multidirectional network.

AEN offers its members several programs to support them in their work on campus. Learn about each program below:

Micro-grants Program

Regional Short Courses

AEN’s Regional Short Courses provide an opportunity for AEN members to learn more about contemporary Israel, develop strategies related to BDS on campus, and network with other interested faculty. The purpose of the Short Course is to bolster the knowledge and skill set of AEN members who we hope will be active as regional leaders in AEN’s efforts to respond to BDS and similar challenges on their campuses.

These 3-day courses will be residence-based, academically immersive, and interactive, will be limited to 15-20 participants per course, and will take place in regional hubs around the country. Reasonable travel and stay costs will be paid for by AEN.

Previous Short Courses have taken place in Atlanta, Cleveland, Boca Raton, Boston, Dallas, and Minneapolis.

AEN Advisory Board

Source: Leadership | Academic Engagement Network

Stanford University, Roger D. Kornberg

Roger Kornberg is the Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor in Medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. In 2006, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discoveries related to how genetic information stored in DNA is processed by the cell’s internal machinery; the conversion, or transcription, of DNA into RNA underlies all aspects of cellular metabolism. His father Arthur Kornberg had received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1959.

Brandeis University, David Ellenson

Rabbi David Ellenson is currently Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, where he is also Visiting Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. Before this, Ellenson served from 2001-2013 as the 8th president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), and is now chancellor emeritus. Holding a doctorate from Columbia University, he has been a Fellow and Lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies as a well as a Lady Davis Visiting Professor of the Humanities at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Smith College, Donna Robinson Divine

Donna Robinson Divine is the Morningstar Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Government emerita at Smith College, where she taught a variety of courses on Middle East politics. Able to draw on material in Hebrew, Arabic, and Turkish, her books include Women Living Change: Cross-Cultural Perspectives; Essays from the Smith College Research Project on Women and Social Change; Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power; Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israeli Conflict; Exiled in the Homeland: Zionism and the Return to Mandate Palestine and Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

University of Miami, Donna Shalala

Donna E. Shalala is the Trustee Professor of Political Science and Health Policy at the University of Miami, having previously served as President from 2001-2015. She is a board member and former president and CEO of the Clinton Foundation, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She served as president of Hunter College of CUNY from 1980 to 1987, and as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987 to 1993. In 1993, President Clinton nominated Shalala as Secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS), where she served for eight years. 

Harvard University, Gabriella Blum

Gabriella Blum is the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School, specializing in public international law, international negotiations, the law of armed conflict, and counterterrorism. She is also the Faculty Director of the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC) and a member of the Program on Negotiation Executive Board. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in fall 2005, Blum served for seven years as a Senior Legal Advisor in the International Law Department of the Military Advocate General’s Corps in the Israel Defense Forces, and for another year, as a Strategy Advisor to the Israeli National Security Council. 

Israel Action Network, Geri D. Palast

Geri D. Palast is the Executive Director of the Israel Action Network (IAN), an initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) in partnership with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), created to counter the assault on Israel’s legitimacy. She is a graduate of Stanford University and of New York University Law School, and has had a rich and diverse career, including extensive experience organizing and leading broad-based national grassroots and legislative issue campaigns. From 1993-2000, she served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs during the Clinton Administration. Previously, she was national Legislative and Political Director of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Howard University H. Patrick Swygert [racial diversity pick)

H. Patrick Swygert served as President of Howard University from 1995 to 2008. He is currently President Emeritus and professor of law at Howard, where he earned undergraduate and law degrees. Mr. Swygert also was president of the University at Albany-State University of New York from 1990-1995, Before that, he was a faculty member at Temple University Law School and subsequently held positions as executive vice president, vice president for university administration, and special counsel to the president. 

McGill University, Irwin Cotler

The Honorable Irwin Cotler is Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, an Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, longtime Member of the Canadian Parliament, and a a member of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.

University of Illinois, Jeffrey R. Brown

Jeff Brown is the Josef and Margot Lakonishok Professor in Business and Dean of the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. As Dean, he launched the world’s first MOOC-based iMBA degree in partnership Coursera, secured a $150 million naming gift for the Gies College of Business, and repositioned the College as a leader in the teaching and practice of innovation. A member of the Illinois faculty since 2002, Brown previously served on the faculty at Harvard’s Kennedy School, as an economist on the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, with the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and as a member of the Social Security Advisory Board. 

Harvard Law School, Jesse Fried

Jesse Fried is the Dane Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2009, Fried was a Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy (BCLBE) at the University of California, Berkeley. Fried has also been a visiting professor at Columbia University Law School, Duisenberg School of Finance, Hebrew University, IDC Herzilya, and Tel Aviv University.

Stanford University, Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he directs the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Diamond is also the Peter E. Haas Faculty Co-Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and is Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. He was consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development and has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies. 

Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers

Lawrence H. Summers is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus of Harvard University. A former Secretary of the Treasury of the U.S., he has served over the past two decades in a series of senior policy positions, including Vice President of Development Economics and Chief Economist of the World Bank, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Internal Affairs, and, from 2009–11, Director of the National Economic Council for the Obama Administration.

University of California Los Angeles, Rachel F. Moran 1/

Rachel F. Moran is the Dean Emerita and Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. Prior to her appointment at UCLA, Professor Moran was the Robert D. and Leslie-Kay Raven Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she taught for twenty-five years and received the university’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Moran has also served at UC Berkeley as Chair of the Chicano/Latino Policy Project at its Institute for the Study of Social Change and as the Institute’s director. She was the first Latina dean of a top-ranked U.S. law school as well as UC Berkeley’s first Latina law professor. From July 2008 to June 2010, Moran served as a founding faculty member of the UC Irvine Law School. In 2009, Dean Moran was appointed as President of the Association of American Law Schools, and two years later was nominated by President Obama to the Permanent Committee for the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise, which maintains the official history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

University of Texas at San Antonio, Ricardo Romo

Ricardo Romo served as the fifth president of the University of Texas at San Antonio from 1999 to 2017. Under his leadership, UTSA grew in student enrollment, academic programs, and research facilities, and been recognized as an emerging Tier One research institution. Romo has received numerous awards for his contributions to higher education and social justice: the San Antonio North Chamber Gov. Dolphin Briscoe Salute to Excellence Award (2010); the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Chief Executive Leadership Award (2011); the Colonel W.T. Bondurant Sr. Distinguished Humanitarian Award (2012); the Clark Kerr Award for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education (2013); the Wheaton College Otis Social Justice Award (2013). In May 2011, 

George Washington University, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

Stephen Trachtenberg served as the 15th president of George Washington University from 1988 to 2007, and is now President Emeritus and University Professor of Public Service. Trachtenberg came to George Washington from the University of Hartford, where he served as president for eleven years. His views on issues pertaining to higher education are widely published internationally. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, the American Bar Foundation, and the National Academy of Public Administration. Trachtenberg has served in several government positions, including attorney with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, legislative aide to former Indiana Congressman John Brademas, and special assistant to the U.S. Education Commissioner. 

University of California-Berkeley, Steven Davidoff Solomon

Steven Davidoff Solomon is professor of law at UC-Berkeley and co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. The National Association of Corporate Directors has three times named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the United States corporate boardroom community.

Harvard University, Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. His research on language and cognition has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the American Psychological Association, and the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. He has also received several teaching awards and many prizes for his ten books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, and The Better Angels of Our Nature. He has been named Humanist of the Year, and has been listed among Foreign Policy magazine’s “The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He is currently Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New York Times, Time, The New Republic, and other publications. His most recent book is The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.

University of Connecticut, Susan Herbst

Susan Herbst is University Professor of Political Science and President Emeritus at the University of Connecticut. She served for eight years as the 15th President of UCONN and returned to the faculty in 2019. Herbst is author of four books about American politics and public opinion, including most recently Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics. Before coming to UCONN, she was Professor and Chair of Political Science at Northwestern University, Dean of Liberal Arts at Temple University, and Chief Academic Officer for the University System of Georgia. 

University of Virginia, Teresa Sullivan

Teresa Sullivan is President Emerita of the University of Virginia, having served as the institution’s eighth president from 2010-2018. A respected scholar in labor force demography, she is the author or coauthor of six books, including The Social Organization of Work and The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt. and many scholarly articles. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Sullivan arrived at UVA from the University of Michigan, where she was provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

University of Maryland, William E. (Brit) Kirwan

Brit Kirwan is Chancellor Emeritus of the University System of Maryland, serving as chancellor from 2002 to 2015. Prior to that position, he was the 12th president of the Ohio State University and 26th president of University of Maryland, College Park where he was also professor, provost and chair of the mathematics department. Brit is a nationally recognized authority on critical issues in higher education and speaks on a wide range of topics, including diversity, access and affordability, cost containment, economic impact, gender equity, financial aid and innovation.

Source: Leadership | Academic Engagement Network

AEN LEADERSHIP

Mark G. Yudof, Chair of the Advisory Board

Mark G. Yudof, who served as the 19th president of the University of California from 2008 through 2013, is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yudof previously served as chancellor of the University of Texas System and as president of the four-campus University of Minnesota. Before that, he served as dean of the law school at the University of Texas at Austin from 1984 to 1994, and as the University’s executive vice president and provost from 1994 to 1997.

Yudof is a recognized authority on constitutional law, freedom of expression and education law. He is the author of When Government Speaks and co-author of five editions of Educational Policy and the Law. A Philadelphia native, he earned both LL.B. and B.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2013, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion awarded him an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. He is a member of the governing boards of Hebrew University and the University of Haifa, and also serves on the boards of the Lumina Foundation, the Opportunity Institute (Berkeley), and the Blum Center for Developing Economies. In addition to chairing the advisory board of the Academic Engagement Network, he is currently a senior consultant to the Schusterman Family Foundation. His spouse Judy is the former president of United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism.

Miriam Elman, Executive Director

Dr. Miriam F. Elman has served as Executive Director of AEN since 2019. From 2009-2022, she was an Associate Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University, where she held the title of Robert D. McClure Professor of Teaching Excellence at the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs. An award-winning scholar and teacher, Dr. Elman has edited and co-edited six books and a number of special issues for academic journals, including Israel Studies. She is the author of over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on topics related to contemporary antisemitism, academic freedom and campus free expression, peace and conflict resolution, religion and politics in Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dr. Elman received her B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University

Joshua Suchoff, Managing Director

Joshua Suchoff joined AEN as its Managing Director in August 2021. Josh’s career thus far has focused primarily on institutional advancement in the non-profit space, including the creation and implementation of strategies that increase engagement, promote program visibility, and bolster charitable giving. Prior to joining AEN, Josh was the Chief Development Officer at MILTON, a pluralistic Jewish day school in Washington, DC. Josh also worked in the Federal, State, and Tribal Programs Branch at the Environmental Protection Agency where he administered hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for the agency’s Hazardous Waste Management Grant Program, and for Capital Segway and Segway International as a manager and grant writer helping the company grow its touring business and secure lucrative government grants. Josh received a bachelor’s degree in Political Communications from the George Washington University, and he has completed his coursework for a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from Gratz College.

Raeefa Shams, Director of Communications and Programming

Raeefa Shams is the Director of Communications and Programming at the Academic Engagement Network, having joined the organization in September 2016 as its Senior Associate for Communications. In her role, Raeefa is responsible for communications with AEN members, media outlets, and AEN’s partner organizations and stakeholders; developing select AEN programs and initiatives; and contributing to the development of AEN’s overall organizational strategy.  Raeefa earned her B.A. in History from Wellesley College and her M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago.

Naomi Greenspan, Director, Improving the Campus Climate Initiative

Naomi Greenspan is Director of the Academic Engagement Network’s Improving the Campus Climate Initiative. In this role, Naomi partners with universities to establish and implement antisemitism awareness education and training programs in order to help create a healthier campus environment. Prior to joining AEN, Naomi designed and developed educational programs and resources on antisemitism, its intersection with racism, and the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. She has extensive experience facilitating  workshops to address bias and bigotry and promote interfaith dialogue and understanding on college campuses, in schools and communities. Naomi earned her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis where she studied Psychology and Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies, and an M.A. from Teachers College at Columbia University in International Educational Development and Peace Education.

Spencer Kent, Senior Associate for Membership

Spencer Kent has been AEN’s Senior Associate for Membership since January 2020. Spencer earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan and holds Master’s degrees in International Politics and Religion and the Social Sciences, from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, respectively.

Christopher Vasquez, Membership Associate

Christopher Vasquez is AEN’s Member Associate. He formulates strategies for member outreach and diversifying AEN’s network. He drives member involvement and partners with AEN’s academics to facilitate activities with administrators and students. Chris has served as a campus organizer within the pro-Israel space and taken up advocacy projects in Israel

Kenneth Waltzer, Executive Director Emeritus

Kenneth Waltzer is Professor Emeritus of History and former Director of Jewish Studies at Michigan State University. He is a historian educated at the State University of New York at Binghamton (B.A.) and at Harvard (Ph.D.), and came to Michigan to help build James Madison College, MSU’s highly reputed residential college in public affairs. During his career, he served as Dean and Associate Dean of the college, Director of Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities, and co-founder of MSU’s Jewish Studies Program and its study abroad initiatives in Israel.