During the first year of a new graduate program in the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, two students earned Judaic Studies Graduate Certifcates.
“We’ve been working on a graduate program for some time. Originally we had our sights on a master’s program,” says Beth Alpert Nakhai, Ph.D., ACJS associate professor and graduate advisor. But for now, Judaic studies has created the certificate program “to enhance the education of a graduate or professional student or to provide continuing education to professionals.” According to certificate recipient Amanda Cookson Carver, who added the Judaic studies certificate to her master’s program in classics, the program definitely enhanced her education.
“I am primarily interested in the role of Greece and Rome within the Near East, particularly Judea, Nabataea and Egypt. The graduate certificate greatly enhanced my knowledge of the ancient Mediterranean, providing me with a broader context
for understanding ancient politics, geography and history,” says Amanda. “The strengths of the graduate certificate include the diverse courses offered and the highly qualified and accessible faculty who taught them, notably, in my experience, Dr. Beth Alpert Nakhai and Dr. Ed Wright. Both of those faculty members served on my master’s thesis committee, and I attribute my M.A. Outstanding Thesis Award (awarded by the Department of Classics) to their support and advisement. In my opinion, my education would have been incomplete without contact with those two professors and the overall support of the graduate certificate program in Judaic Studies.”
Ken Miller, who received the first graduate certificate in December, had begun taking graduate-level courses even before the program was formally launched, enabling him to complete the 15 credits in the program’s first official semester.
“I have been on staff of the Tel Gezer Excavation Project since 2007 and have worked on archaeology digs for many decades. It was my life goal and, up until getting my BA’s at Judaic Studies in 2008, I had been self-educated and trained,” says Miller, 64. “Judaic Studies always treated me as a professional and academic despite not having the ‘papers’ and this is one of the reasons I was the first grad of the new program. The department is top notch, no pretensions and welcoming to both traditional and nontraditional students.”
Dr. Nakhai says the courses are offered as both a 400- and 500-level course that co-registers undergraduates and graduates, with graduate students doing extra work and meeting higher expectations for 500-level credit. “We are a small department and have been focused on creating an excellent undergraduate program. The faculty can only teach so many courses,” she says of the decision to offer dual-level courses. Having a larger group that includes both undergraduate and graduate students in the same classroom “creates a robust population.”
For the coming school year, Nakhai says she has spoken with about a half dozen individuals who are interested in the certificate program. Some prospective students are enrolled in master’s programs in other departments; others are
professionals, such as clergy, who want to learn more about Judaic studies or who are interested in liturgical languages such as biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.
Ed Wright, director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, teaches Aramaic every couple of years. The University of Arizona is one of only a few universities in the country that teaches the ancient language used in early sacred texts. The small department is an advantage for students, says Nakhai. “Since we are small, we can really personalize to meet the needs from a lot of different places. We are engaged in helping people learn things that are tailored to their interests.”
Additionally, being small means they can accommodate students quickly. Fall classes start Aug. 26; Nakhai says interested students could contact her as late as Aug. 20 and still be able to enroll in a course and then finish the paperwork for the certificate program after the term begins.
