I-8 Jewish Travel: SDSU’s Jewish president

-29th in a Series-

Exit 10, College Avenue, San Diego ~ SDSU President’s Office

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—Elliot Hirshman already had obtained a degree in economics when he decided that instead of going to Harvard Business School he would apply instead for a PhD program in cognitive psychology at UCLA.  His mother, Edna May Hirshman, had this to say about his decision:

“I don’t think you should be one, I think you should see one!”

Hirshman’s mother was used to speaking her mind.  Long active in the Jewish community, she was the first woman to be elected as president of Temple Ansche Emeth in New Brunswick, New Jersey, her son reported proudly.

Hirshman’s father, Harold, was no stranger to leadership either.  He worked his way up the ladder to become associate vice president for student services at Rutgers University.

“I often say that I went into the family business,” confided Hirshman, who was born in 1961 to a family “who rooted for the underdog.  Whatever it was, they were always concerned whether it was fair and just.  That was the kind of environment I was raised in and it is, I think, very congenial with the university environment with many students, faculty and staff who are really focused on trying to make the world a better place.”

Today Hirshman is president of San Diego State University, the second Jew to hold the office.  The first was Brage Golding.  “I have an economics degree and a psychology degree and I use them both in equal measure,” Hirshman confided during an in-office interview.

“Obviously,” he explained, “a university is a very large enterprise and while you wouldn’t want to call it a business, there are budgets to be managed and there are personnel issues, organizational and structural problems.”  At the same time, he said, there are human and cultural elements that must be considered, and that’s where psychology comes in handy.

Occasional debates break out among students about whether SDSU should participate in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel, and that debate offers some insight into how Hirshman conceptualizes his role as a mentor.

“One of the things that I try to emphasize to people is that my role is to facilitate a healthy discussion, a safe discussion, a discussion that will be a model for students and prepare them for the real world,” the SDSU president said.  “Whatever the issue—whether it is BDS or fossil fuels—if I get in the middle of the discussion and say, ‘No, the right answer is this!’ that actually is going to impede student development.  It is going to give them the message that some other authority resolves those issues as opposed to the concept that part of being a democracy is that democracy as a whole resolves them.

“I am very careful to not engage and say ‘this is the right or wrong way’ early in the day,” the SDSU president said.  “Now, ultimately, if it is a recommendation that comes to me, I will act on it one way or the other and I’m obviously glad to do that in a way I believe will be in the university’s best interests.  But the more important part is that the students have learned how to have a discussion and that they have been able to practice articulating their views and thinking through.  I think you would be surprised how many students through these discussions actually come to different views than they had initially.”

Hirshman shared that “I often get members of the Jewish community who will say ‘you need to shut this discussion down’ and I don’t think that is the right approach.  I think supporting the discussion and letting the issues come through is more true both to academic principles and Jewish tradition.”

I asked how one balances the need for such discussion with the right of Jewish student to go to college without feeling intimidated by anti-Israel demonstrators.

“One of the things that you want to do for all groups – racial, ethnic, religious – is to have outreach programs that are supportive– finding smaller communities within the larger campus,” he responded.  “If you look next to the campus, you will see a brand new fantastic Hillel building—I have been there a number of occasions—and that is a great opportunity for a university to have a welcoming community. Rather than playing defense about what is bad and how you want to fix it, is really to have that outreach.

“In terms of challenges, we always want to be advocating for free speech and expression but there is a line—usually not involved with speech—but there is a line where people might intimidate physically or harass somebody and then it is the university’s responsibility to protect the students and to keep them safe.  We have not had anything even remotely like that on our campus, but if we did, whatever group it was, we would work very strongly to protect the group.  So, for example, there are many concerns about student safety because of sexual assault and I think if you look at both our policies and our practices in that area you will see that we are working very aggressively to support student safety and we continue to improve our practices.

“I think this is true of most universities—students should be excited about engaging in a discussion even if it makes them a little uncomfortable sometimes, and then if there are cases where there is any physical or safety threat that is where everyone needs to come together as a community to keep people safe.  We are committed to that.”

Hirshman noted that San Diego State University has “an international focus—we have literally hundreds of exchange programs, and study abroad opportunities.  I think we were ranked 22^nd in students abroad, and we had eight Fulbright scholarships last year.”  Israel is among the mix of nations with which SDSU collaborates, “for example our Entrepreneurship Center which has trips to Israel and outreach to Israeli entrepreneurs which I think is an area where a lot of universities are interested, given the success that Israeli entrepreneurs have.  We are certainly open to a range of relationships.  We visit with the consuls-general of Israel and many other nations in terms of building relationships and will continue to do so.”

Hirshman came to SDSU in 2011 after serving as vice president for academic affairs and provost as the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.  Soon thereafter he established a goal for SDSU to become ranked within the top 50 research universities within the country.  In 2015, SDSU was in a seven-way tie for the 149th ranking by U.S. News and World Report.

“The importance is that the research university, as a public entity, provides so much more to students and to the community than a more generic institution.  The students have the opportunity to interact with state-of-the-art, or state-of-the-field knowledge of cutting-edge technology.  It really enriches the experience whether it is through direct research or through engagement with the faculty members and all the knowledge they bring to bear in their instructional role.”

He said two areas of research, in particular, hold out exciting possibilities for SDSU.  One is viromics, “which is the study of the DNA of viruses and how that then affects human hosts and environmental hosts.  That is an area where we have multiple leading figures in computer science, where we do analysis, and in biology, where we do the actual DNA restructuring.”

A second area, he said, “is clinical and cognitive neuroscience where we have people in language, people in autism; there is a whole range of people who have interests, and I think it is growing on the campus.  When we build our new Engineering-Interdisciplinary Science Complex (approved in May by the State University and College Board of Trustees), it will have functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging so that our researchers can image the brain of people who have neuro-degenerative diseases or image the brain as they are performing tasks so that we can understand in a greater way what is going on in the brain, both the diseased and the healthy brain.”

Remembering that his own field was cognitive psychology, I suggested he may one day want to get out of the president’s office and head over there.

“Perhaps!” he laughed.

I asked how the emphasis on research would fit with California Governor Jerry Brown’s goal to produce one million college graduates to fill California jobs by 2025.

“Nationally the average graduation rate is about 59 percent, and so it really is not a question of a dichotomy between educating students and pushing them through, so to speak,” said Hirshman.  “Rather, think of the potential loss if 59 out of 100 are making it but the remainder aren’t.  Our graduation rate is in the low 7o’s now, quite a bit above the national average, but still we would really want it to be 100 percent.  So our focus in insuring student success.  We want to see whoever comes here being successful and graduate.  And of course if they can do it faster that will be better for everyone because it will cost them less, it will cost their family less, it will reduce debt loads. .. What he (Brown) is saying is ‘let’s be sure we are successful with more students and when possible let us try to do it faster. I think those are reasonable things to talk about.”

At SDSU, Hirshman added, “one of the things that we have seen historically is that commuter students have struggled relative to students who live on campus.  So we have taken a number of steps to make sure that our commuter students are more likely to succeed, all the way from more tutoring, supplementary instruction, to having a commuter center where people get together and get involved in activities.”

Living on or near campus, he suggested, results in students being “more immersed in what the work of the student is.  The farther you get away from campus, the more possibilities there are for diversion.  Just as a practical matter if you think about students who commute an hour each day, they are losing two hours a day that they could be more fully engaged.  I think there are practical reasons where the more you are engaged with the campus, the better you are going to do.  We see that repeatedly.  The time loss in driving can have a big impact on a student.”

Next: Preserving local Jewish history

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  You may comment to him at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com. Any comments in the space below should include the writer’s full name and city and state of residence, or city and country for non-U.S. residents.