Role Overview
Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Claremont Hillel as the Director of Jewish Student Life and Innovation. As a community builder, you’ll inspire students to be partners in creating a vibrant and welcoming Jewish community on campus. You will drive Claremont Hillel forward by thinking big and implementing with excellence on a day-to-day basis. Claremont Hillel uses a relational-engagement model to build micro-communities so that it can fulfill its mission to support a wide diversity of Jewish students with differing political and religious commitments. We are a Hillel that operates from community organizing principles, following the energy students already have, and empowering them to lead.
The Director of Jewish Life and Innovation will be an ambitious professional inspired by the opportunity to partner with the Executive Director to implement the cutting-edge community building techniques and someone who sees each person and values them, appreciating the diverse talents people bring to community life. Claremont Hillel is piloting a new student leadership model where students serve as interns and are given access to leadership coaching and professional training to empower them implement the community building work of the organization. You will be responsible for coaching student interns, leading and managing engagement strategies, and being the face of Claremont Hillel to the students. In this role you’ll combine your understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship and bring that to everything that you do. We are in an experimental phase of this organization, testing and evaluating our initiatives, changing our approach when needed, and we are looking for someone to join this team who is excited by this opportunity.
What You’ll Do
- Develop one-on-one relationships with Jewish students by meeting them where they live, work and/or study, utilizing creative methods to reach and connect them to Jewish life.
- Mentor student leaders in their Jewish growth through individual meetings, teaching, and group trainings.
- Manage and help to iterate our Claremont Hillel Internship Program (CHIP).
- Work with students and the director to implement Special Events and Programs that fit with the educational and celebratory mission of Claremont Hillel and respond to articulated needs of the student community.
- Create meaningful collaborations with academic departments or programs, other student life clubs or local organizations, helping Claremont Hillel be a bridge to a wider sense of community belonging.
On a day to day basis you will
- Conduct check-ins each week with student leaders.
- Collaborate with the executive director on planning the monthly learning sessions for student interns.
- Have a coffee date with a first-year student who has expressed interest in becoming more involved in Jewish life on campus. Network that person to a student leader who shared their interests or passions.
- Collaborate with the Campus Jewish Chaplain, other affiliate leaders, or faculty to create joint programs.
- Attend a professional development program or learning group.
- Communicate and coordinate with the Operations and Communications Director about logistics and ways to promote upcoming programs.
- Have a reflective conversation with the Executive Director on the successes and challenges you are facing.
What You’ve Accomplished
- 4-6 years professional experience in Jewish, experiential or higher education.
- Advanced degree is a plus.
- Proven success:
- Using community organizing or relational based leadership strategies
- Inspiring, mentoring, and motivating teens or young adults.
- Strategically networking and building partnerships with young adults and other leaders
- Managing multiple projects simultaneously while maintaining quality across all areas
What You’ll Bring to the Job
- A passion for working with emerging adults and investing in their growth as Jewish leaders.
- A commitment to pluralism and comfort with your Jewish identity so you may act as a role model and mentor for emerging Jewish adults.
- Owning your unique Jewish knowledge and experiences and inspiring others to be on a Jewish journey.
- Familiarity with higher education and campus settings.
- Comfort working independently and collaboratively.
- Ability to communicate honestly and openly.
- Supervisory experience with staff or students.
- An entrepreneurial spirit - things may not always go according to plan, but you understand that ambiguity is part of developing great new opportunities.
- Strong written and verbal skills, effective at communicating with a variety of stakeholders including students, parents, alumnae/i, and university partners.
What You’ll Receive
- Competitive salary in the nonprofit marketplace. The salary range for this role is $60,000 - $70,000
- A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability (LTD) insurances, Flexible Spending accounts, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
- Great professional development, mentoring, and skill building opportunities
- Travel regionally for professional development opportunities and conferences
- Plenty of Hillel and university swag
About Claremont Hillel
Claremont Hillel is in a startup growth phase. We are a Hillel with a legacy (founding in the 1970’s) that has never had a full-time professional staff member. We are rapidly growing, moving from 1 FTE to 3 in this coming year. We are also building a new culture and implementing a new vision under the leadership of our first Executive Director. This Hillel is aiming to engage 70% of the Jewish student body of 700 students in the next 3 years, rent a facility for off campus Jewish life, and build a reputation for innovative approaches to community building. We want to be known as a Hillel that helps Jewish students adult, empowering them to become familiar with and later contribute to the adulty Jewish communal conversation. To do this we focus on skill building in leadership and in Jewish ritual life, excellent educational experiences, and in being a community of care that looks out for one another, a reliable source of support and advocacy for Jewish students of all kinds.
We do this work with students from 5 undergraduate and 2 graduate colleges that make up the Claremont Colleges Consortium. These college are located 35 miles from downtown LA at the base of Mount Baldy in the city of Claremont California. Claremont is a beautiful historic community described as the city of “trees and phds.” There is a lovely downtown area of shopping and restaurants and the campuses of all the colleges are stunningly beautiful and all within one square mile of one another. Claremont is also near the beach. One can reach beautiful beach locations in an hour drive from town. Claremont is also only a 30 min drive from the ski slopes on Mt. Baldy. With beautiful warm weather and sunshine all year round, living in Claremont is truly a delight in all seasons.
The city of Claremont is also easy to navigate by car or by bike. Many people bike to and from work. You can easily reach grocery stores and restaurants without needing to drive. There is a train that connects Claremont to downtown LA where you can find a lot of diverse Jewish community groups and orgs. There is never any traffic on the surface streets. We are LA adjacent without the headache of LA driving. Claremont itself has a sleepier Jewish community with one Reform synagogue and a local Chabad. Many Israelis live in the area and will gather for casual hangouts at the park or for shabbas dinner.
Claremont Hillel is affiliated with Hillel International. Hillel International enriches the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, and envisions a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.
