Fordham, Yeshiva agreement boosts course offerings

Fordham, Yeshiva agreement boosts course offerings

In a mutually beneficial deal that provides Yeshiva University students access to Fordham University’s library during the Saturday Sabbath, and Fordham’s students the opportunity to get hands on clinical experience, the presidents of the two colleges came together.

In a conference held on Thursday, October 30 at Albrert Einstein College of Medicine Yeshiva’s president Richard Joel, and Fordham’s president Joseph McShane, met at to sign an historic pact between the two schools.

The agreement will create and augment interaction on the undergraduate, graduate, and faculty levels. Fordham will gain access to Albert Einstein’s vast array of clinical medical resources, while the medical college will benefit from Fordham’s high-caliber student body and the scientific expertise of its faculty.

“Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Fordham University have a natural affinity,” McShane said. “We are both New York research institutions with deep commitments to our [shared] religious traditions. The agreement is the tie that binds us closer, serving our respective student bodies.”

Much of the collaboration focuses on Fordham undergraduates, who will participate in a hospital mentorship, lab-based coursework and summer program at Albert Einstein.

The mentorship will be occur each semester at Weiler Hospital of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a division of Montefiore Medical Center, and be open to two Fordham students, who will shadow an attending physician.

“Yeshiva University welcomes collaboration with its sister institutions,” Joel said. “It is clear that the welfare of the community mandates that we look for ways to share increasingly scarce physical space and human resources for the benefit of society. Universities should show the way to such collaboration.”

The presidents of the respective universities each exchanged gifts after the signing of the agreement.

Fr. Joseph McShane presented Joel and Einstein executive dean Edward Burns with Baccarat crystal rams. The ram is not only the mascot of Fordham University, McShane stated, but also rescues the prophet Issac in the torah.

Joel presented McShane, and Fordham University senior vice president, natural science professor and chief academic officer Stephen Freedman, with busts of Albert Einstein.

“This is a wonderful example of two Bronx institutions with international reputations sharing resources to benefit both student bodies and faculties,” Freedman stated. “The agreement builds on the strengths of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Fordham University, the resulting partnership being greater than the sum of its parts.”