Drexel Hillel 2027:
Designing Our Future
The Drexel Hillel Board of Directors and staff, under the guidance of the strategic planning committee, developed this five-year plan to meet the following objectives:
To ensure that our mission, vision, and strategy position Drexel Hillel as a model for university-based Jewish life. We are committed to attracting Jewish students to our university, and to providing relevant and diverse experiences that help all we touch grow through their engagement with Judaism and Jewish community.
To ensure long-term financial viability and stability of Drexel Hillel.
To adapt to a post-pandemic higher education world. New challenges include preparing for the impending demographic cliff, increasing tuition, and emerging alternatives to traditional modes of education.
To re-imagine our audiences. Whom should we be serving in this new world?
During the implementation of the plan, it is the Board’s responsibility to ensure that the organization, through the actions of professional staff, is meeting its goals by monitoring progress on a regular basis and evaluating performance against each goal.
This is a working document, a tool to help Drexel Hillel achieve its goals. As such, it may be adjusted and modified as needed to support the changing environment and the needs of the organization.
Drexel Hillel’s 2027 plan is built upon five pillars
to ensure institutional excellence.
Core Values
Community – Pluralism – Inclusion – Respect – Integrity
Mission
Vision
Through innovative student-centered programming and initiatives, Drexel Hillel:
- Creates a welcoming community in which to gather, engage and grow
- Empowers and inspires students to learn, lead and serve in order to bring about positive change in the world around them
- Strengthens each student’s connection to their Jewish heritage
- Cultivates Jewish campus life
Drexel Hillel will be a prominent leader for Jewish campus life by welcoming, engaging, inspiring and empowering every student to be confident in their Judaism; to learn, lead, serve and make a positive difference in an ever-changing world.
Pillars
Encourage students to cultivate their own Jewish identity through spiritual, religious, cultural, academic and professionally focused immersive Jewish teachings and programming directed towards the betterment of themselves and their communities.
Redefine, reinforce, and expand our sense of Jewish community to include all movements of Judaism while welcoming people of all faiths to encompass students, leaders (however defined), educators, neighbors, and friends.
Establish and promote a diverse, inclusive learning community that confronts all forms of discrimination and provides equitable opportunities for excellence and achievement for all faculty, students, professional staff, and partners.
Cultivate religious, academic, and society-focused partnerships of impact that will enrich Drexel Hillel’s student and constituent experience.
Support the cultivation of an environment open to learning, information gathering, and human resource development that powers growth of the organization into the future.
Top Strategic Priorities for 2022-23
Tell our Story. Build a cutting edge communication’s strategy.
Expand our Undergraduate Engagement. Cultivate new micro-communities and programs to engage students from currently under-represented backgrounds at Hillel (eg. Syrian and Sephardi communities; LGBTQ communities; Jews of Colors; mixed-heritage Jews, Israelis).
Build on our Excellence. Sustain and expand signature programs and initiatives.
Measure our Impact. Develop regular systems to collect, analyze and integrate data and feedback.
Connect Generations of Dragons. Re-launch and expand the Hillel Mentors project.
Inspire Connection Beyond Graduation. Engage young alumni to take the next steps in their Jewish lives and remain connected to Drexel Hillel.
Invest in our Future. Build a 10 million dollar endowment to ensure our long term growth and success.
Recruit Future Dragons. Build and execute a robust, measurable strategy to inspire Jewish High School students to choose Drexel.
Launch Graduate Student Engagement. Expand our programming to meet the needs of graduate students.
Prepare for Future Challenges. Create a crisis communications playbook.
Expand Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts. Continue to follow our racial justice road map while addressing front-line physical and web accessibility issues and expanding support for neurodivergent students.
Implementation
Drexel Hillel is executing a strategic plan to effectively – and intentionally – address shifts in higher education and broader challenges facing society. The Board of Directors is currently working in implementation teams and will share more information here soon.
