By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
When the news from Israel is often so depressing, it’s nice to have a visitor to the area who has something good to say about what’s happening in the Jewish state. That was recently the case, when the Seattle chapter of the Women’s American Organization for Educational Resources and Technological Training — or ORT, as they’re more commonly known — brought Dr. Ilana Kepten to town.
Kepten is the Acting Director of the School of Biotechnology at the ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel. She came to speak about her school’s successes and the growth of a relatively new college that has been training people to become scientific experts both inside of Israel and out.
For various reasons, from the army’s need for technology to an environment that favors pragmatism, education in Israel has historically leaned toward science and engineering. Braude’s educational mission follows that focus.
The college has five programs offering four-year degrees: software, electrical and mechanical engineering, industrial engineering with a management track, and the School of Biotechnology, where Kepten comes from.
Most of its programs have grown significantly, with the exception of the software track.
“They don’t want to study software. Actually, their mothers don’t want them to study software,” Kepten says, largely because of the economic volatility that has affected so many software developers in recent years.
Braude also offers two-year course options that would be similar to a community college in the United States. Graduating students have the ability to perform many of the mechanical tasks, but would have to complete further training to achieve engineer status.
Kepten says all of her students should get their hands dirty in their programs.
“We really believe that to be a good engineer, you have to have good hands-on.” That means a lot of lab time — including teaching students how to treat the labs in a professional environment — and internships in the fourth year of the program. Several Braude students have come to the U.S. for their internships, and often times have ended up working for those companies after graduation.
Like in any school, however, especially one where a large number of students commute to classes and often hold jobs in addition to their busy academic schedule, some have trouble keeping up. Kepten says part of her job to help them stay afloat.
“I know them, I know them personally,” Kepten says about her relationship with her students. She says she works with them one-on-one and with their families to help them figure out ways to raise their grades without making them feel as if they are part of a faceless institution, as can often be the problem at universities stateside.
“I can pick [a student] up and follow him through the program,” she says.
In the biotechnology school, Kepten says nearly two-thirds of the students are female, which would be unheard of at Braude’s other colleges, not to mention engineering schools around the world. The electrical engineering school is 99 percent male, she says.
With the exception of Russian immigrants, most students at Braude are first-generation college students, Kepten says. As a result, many of them don’t have much knowledge of the academic world. She said one student actually asked her for medical advice — he didn’t know the difference between her Ph.D. and an M.D. Kepten says the parents of the Russian students, almost without fail, have been through higher education.
Karmiel is located at the top of the Galil Heights, in the northern part of Israel not far from Haifa. “It’s a very beautiful place,” Kepten says. Having Braude in the area “is beginning to build an impact on surrounding neighborhoods,” Kepten says, including new accelerated courses for high school students, and professors who come in to lecture from established universities around Israel.
Approximately 3,000 students attend Braude, and all of the courses are taught in English.
Kepten’s Seattle visit was arranged by Mercer Island resident Terry Azose, who hosted the event where Kepten spoke. The two met in Israel earlier this year, when Azose visited Braude during the World ORT Board of Directors meeting. She used the event as a way to jumpstart the Seattle chapter of Women’s ORT, which had been somewhat dormant over the past two years.
Though originally called Obschestvo Remeslenovo i Zemledelcheskovo Trouda, Russian for the Society for Trades and Agricultural Labor, ORT has been building schools and educating students for more than 80 years. The organization has 160 schools in Israel alone, and hundreds more throughout the world, and will continue to cultivate knowledge where it sees the need.