By Kathleen Jarman, Research Associate
HEI is proud to spotlight our friends at Hillel International’s Campus Climate Initiative (CCI). The CCI works collaboratively with higher education administrators to ensure a positive campus climate in which Jewish students feel comfortable expressing their Jewish identity and values free of antisemitism, harassment, or marginalization. Since launching in 2020, 40 colleges and universities across the country have participated in the initiative. HEI recently served as an evaluation partner to help Hillel International collect feedback from the first two CCI cohorts to inform future programming.
The CCI operates primarily as a cohort model in which institutional teams of campus administrators and personnel collaborate with and learn alongside representatives from their local Hillel. Throughout the program, institutional partners attend cohort-wide learning sessions on key topics that aim to empower campus personnel to better understand the needs of Jewish students, the diversity of the Jewish community, and the challenges of campus antisemitism. Each campus also collaborates with the CCI team to gather campus-specific data to better understand the existing campus climate for Jewish students. After reviewing this data, campus teams create data-informed action plans for fostering a more inclusive climate for Jewish students and all students. HEI is proud to support this important work.