The challenges of directing a Jewish Studies program range from the sublime to the banal:

(1) Finding the right questions that will draw faculty and students out of their own research to engage in interactive and collaborative dialogue in workshops and conferences that will intellectually excite them.

(2) Competing with all the other demands on faculty time and energy to garner active participation in the center.

(3) Predicting attendance at lectures and events and knowing how much to order for receptions. This challenge has a subsidiary one: how to finish all the leftovers and excess food when you have overestimated the number in attendance.