This past semester brought fascinating speakers and innovative programming for students of the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at Stern College for Women. Each semester, Dr. Cynthia Wachtell, director of the program, organizes events designed to help the students develop skills that will help them in both their personal and professional lives. Below is a roundup of events from the spring semester.
On Tuesday, Jan. 30, Stern alumna, Layaliza Soloveichik, spoke to the students. Soloveichik, who is the Deputy Chief of the Civil Division at the U.S. Attorney's Office, discussed her experiences in college and Yale Law School; clerking on the Israeli Supreme Court; working at a prominent law firm; her practice in law as a Jewish woman, wife, and mother; and the lessons she learned from those experiences.
She began her talk by discussing her time at Stern as well as her time in law school, which made her think more about her roots. She then went on to discuss her experience in the U.S. attorney’s office, which she views as “the government’s law firm,” and gave an example of a case that she successfully fought. One of the most meaningful take-aways from her talk with the students was the importance of raising children in the Jewish tradition, and Soloveichik advised the students to find people of faith in their workplaces and to strike a good balance between their family commitments and professional careers.
On Feb. 5, the students had the privilege to hear from acclaimed author, Dr. Dara Horn, a renowned novelist and author of the recent prize-winning essay collection, People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present. The event was co-sponsored by the Strauss Center for Torah and Western Thought.
Her lecture was titled, “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: Becoming Prosemitic in a Haunted World,” and she began by reflecting on her experiences serving on Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee following October 7th and being inundated with stories of antisemitic encounters experiences by Jewish students on campus. “Antisemitism is the twilight of thought,” she remarked. “And I think the stakes for understanding this and how to address it are really nothing less than the future of intellectual life in America.”
On February 2, the students heard from communications expert Dr. Kara Alaimo, author of Over the Influence: Why Social Media is Toxic for Women and Girls – And How We Can Take it Back. Following a relaxing group dinner, Dr. Alaimo led a very instructive session on women and social media, advising the students about how social media affects everything from relationships to physical and mental well-being. Dr. Alaimo explained how social networks hold women back because of the focus on women’s’ appearances and how social media allows the world to judge women very negatively.
During her talk, she explored various topics, including, how social media is a bad source of medical and parenting information; how women need to take action offline (not just to raise awareness of these problems online); and offered advice on how the situation can be improved by women empowering themselves to facilitate positive experiences for all women when using social media.
On Feb. 26, Dr. Chaya Karkowsky, a highly trained specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, spoke to the students. Dr. Karkowsky, the author of High Risk: Stories of Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected, has practiced in America and Israel, and has written extensively about issues related to medicine, women's health, and policy. She delivered an insightful and highly informative talk about her career and the challenges of the American healthcare system. As Naomi Handwerger, a junior, commented, “I was really inspired by the honors event.” In fact, she was so inspired, that following the event, she decided to focus her Senior Project on a topic that she now feels quite passionate about - nutrition and women’s health.
On March 15, a group of Honors students visited the American Museum of Natural History that began with a self-guided tour of the newly opened Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation - an innovative 230,000-square-foot structure filled with natural light and surrounded by undulating concrete-lined walls reminiscent of canyons of the Southwest.
Among other things, they viewed items from various explorers, including photographs, journals, and tools that were used during the explorations. The students also visited the insectarium and watched a fascinating planetarium show that taught them about earth from the perspective of the solar system. “Invisible Worlds,” a stunning 360-degree immersive experience, demonstrated the interconnection of all life on earth. Students left the museum with a strong reminder of the importance of taking care of planet Earth, as well as “doing what we can to keep it a habitable planet which will continue to hold life on it for years to come,” said Vered Gottleib ‘26S.
On March 28, students from the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at Stern College for Women attended the musical, Suffs, written by Shaina Taub, which focuses on a group of brave and determined suffragists, “Suffs” as they called themselves, and their relentless pursuit of the right to vote in the seven years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
At the start of the musical, the audience is introduced to a group of women fighting for the right to vote. They each have different opinions about what would be effective approaches to achieve their goal, making for some very interesting and entertaining dialogue. Some efforts portrayed include picketing in front of the White House and starting a hunger strike. The students greatly enjoyed the musical, learning in a highly entertaining way about the fight for equality that crossed generational, racial and class divides.
This past weekend, Suffs won the 2024 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. Taub quoted the Talmud in her acceptance speech.
On April 5, the students visited Central Park to tour some of its most iconic sites. Guides from the Central Park Conservancy led the group through the southern portion of the park, where they visited the magnificent elm-lined Mall, sweeping lawns of Sheep Meadow, movie-perfect Bethesda Terrace, and the famous Bow Bridge, among other locations. Along the way they learned about Central Park’s designers and architects who transformed rocky and swampy land into the world-famous public park.
It was literally an earth-shaking experience, as the students were touring the park when New York City experienced a 4.8-magnitude earthquake.
On April 11, the students participated in their senior project presentations and dinner. The evening began with a festive dinner, which was followed by each senior presenting her research projects and its findings. It was a fun-filled event and a perfect way to end a meaningful year of learning, discovery and friendship.
Among the topics that students presented were: Israel’s Relationship with Iran: The Proxy and Nuclear Threats to Israeli National Security; Characterizing Spermatogenesis through the Inactivation of Uba2 in the SUMOylation Cycle and Its Meiotic Arrest; Fingerprints of Authenticity: Exploring AI Solutions for Detecting Deepfakes; The Cause of the Conflict Between Yosef and His Brothers: A Survey of Various Commentators’ Perspectives; and A Survey of the Lithuanian Yeshiva Movement.
Many thanks to Vered Gottleib ‘26S for her help with the writing of this article.
