Tapping Proven Potential

Paying it Forward, Giving Back

When two decorated Druze officers approached Bar-Ilan President Prof. Arie Zaban last year with the idea of creating an academic leadership program for their community, he knew just the right people with whom to put them in touch. “When I became dean of the Faculty of Education three years ago, I told Pres. Zaban that I wanted us to turn the traditional academic pyramid upside down,” explains Prof. Zehavit Gross, director of the Josef Burg Chair in Education for Human Values, Tolerance, and Peace. “Instead of placing community engagement after research and teaching, the faculty would make contributing to society our top priority. In turn, this would make our teaching more responsive and our research more relevant.” And the opportunity to contribute to Israel’s Druze community—a minority that itself makes an outsized contribution to the Israeli army, with nearly 100 percent of its male population serving, many in elite combat units—was one the faculty didn’t want to miss. “We said that if they brought us the candidates, the faculty would create a program that would enable them to learn at the highest level, in an environment that honors their identity and values their service and sacrifice,” Gross says. When she added, half-jokingly, that the only condition was that most candidates seek to pursue doctoral degrees, “so they can truly reshape the field of education in their communities,” the officers were sure that Bar-Ilan would provide a home for their vision.

And as of this year, Bar-Ilan is proud to be home to 16 outstanding Druze students, all of whom held key positions in the IDF and who are now studying for a master’s in the Program for Leadership, Organizational Development, and Policy in Informal Education. Alongside courses designed to cultivate senior managers for Israel’s “identity-shaping” educational frameworks, including youth movements and pre-military preparatory academies, students participate in weekly enrichment courses designed to strengthen their connection to their culture and to wider Israeli society. They also participate in a weekly seminar on the legacy of Lt. Col. Mahmoud Kheir el-Din, the fallen Druze hero after whom the program is named. And to ensure that students have the tools and support required to succeed to their fullest ability, they also received a scholarship, one-on-one academic tutoring, assistance with English, and, perhaps most critical, ongoing mentorship by a fellow Druze academic. This support helps the students, all of whom have demonstrated vast potential, overcome barriers to advanced academic degrees. Such as the mandatory course in statistics: “Since statistics involves mathematical concepts, it’s traditionally a hard course for students who aren’t mathematically inclined. It’s therefore become a psychological obstacle for members of minorities,” explains Gross. “Which makes the fact that in our first cohort, every student not only passed, but did well on his statistics exams, even more significant. Results like this underscore the tremendous potential in the Druze community, not only to become leaders in the army, but to make a positive impact in every sector of Israeli society.”