Stephen Kuperberg is executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition, an organization dedicated to weaving and catalyzing the campus Israel network to create a positive climate regarding Israel on campus, and publisher of Israel Campus Beat. This article also appears in the author’s bi-monthly column for the Times of Israel.

Campuses are a bit of a paradox. We know that colleges and universities serve as the breeding grounds for innovation, collaboration and discovery. Yet due to the natural turnover that occurs in the student population every four years or so, the institutional knowledge—the memory of the useful or important—of such ideas often fades into the ether.

If retaining knowledge over time is difficult under ordinary circumstances, then those laboring to support Israel in the campus environment face even more challenging circumstances. Certainly there are many organizations, including my own, that work on this issue in the campus space and do their best to present and support innovative and engaging programming. But each individual campus is a distinct and dynamic environment, with needs and interests that change every year, as the campus population continually cycles and renews. The programs and initiatives that worked on a given campus last year may not work again this year; at times, precisely because they did work last year. Read More »