Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 13 text:

On March 29, 1928, the New York State Board of Regents amended the Charter of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary to authorize the granting of the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Science degrees. In September of that same year, Yeshiva College began classes with an enrollment of thirty-five students. Those first classes were held at The Jewish Center on West 86th Street in Manhattan, because the new building would not be ready for another fifteen months. In December of 1929 Yeshiva College moved uptown. The first graduation was held in the Nathan Lamport Auditorium on June 16, 1932 and nineteen students received degrees. By 1933 enrollment was in excess of 125 students, and by 1943, the year Dr. Samuel Belkin was elected president, it had soared to more than 250.

Page 12 text:

This approach did not at all appeal to Dr. Revel who, in a letter to Samuel Levy, chairman of the executive committee of the Yeshiva campaign, reaffirmed his position; The chief purpose of the college department of the Yeshiva is, and should always he, to afford the students of the Torah who are continuing their studies in an atmosphere of love and loyalty to the Torah and Jewish ideals, an opportunity to acquire the learning and culture of the modern world in addition to the learning and culture of Israel ... Thus, the emphasis was to be on Torah, and the college cur- riculum was to complement it, rather than be an independent enti- ty as an end in itself. Has Yeshiva remained consistent in this policy. ' ' That is a question that we will return to after examining the development of Yeshiva College.

Page 14 text:

When Dr. Belkin assumed the mantle of the presidency, he brought with him a blueprint tor the expansion of Yeshiva far beyond anything Dr. Revel had foreseen. Dr. Belkin was determined to provide the American Orthodox Jew with an opportunity for com- plete educational fulfillment. His grandiose plan took giant and necessary strides towards fruition in 1945, when the college Charter was amended to make the institution the first University m America under Jewish auspices, and in 1948 when it was accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Yeshiva University was quickly becoming recognized as a quality educational facility. Under Dr. Belkin, the University continued its phenomenal growth in two areas. In 1954 Stern College for Women was establish- ed, offering the opportunity for educational tultiUment to Jewish women that Yeshiva College offered to men. By 1968 the enrollment in Yeshiva College had exceeded one thousand students. Additional- ly, Yeshiva University established affiliated graduate schools, of which it has eight today, with a total enrollment of over seven thousand.