Excerpted from Dan Ehrenkrantz's presidential remarks at RRC's 2005 graduation:

This past year was a breakthrough year for RRC. When I was a student at RRC in the 1980s, I entered a school that had never been accredited. Accreditation — in our case, by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education — signals that our peers in the field of education deem that we act with integrity and with a commitment to excellence, and that we are deserving of public confidence.  We received provisional accreditation during my student years and full accreditation five years later, though our accreditors encouraged us to continue to develop our long-term administrative and financial health. Since that time, we have climbed a steep ladder of improvement so that this year, the fourth time outside evaluators have visited RRC, our re-accreditation process was an exercise in self-reflection and an opportunity to hear perspectives from outside our own community. There was never any doubt about the end result.

The report from our evaluation team held us up as a model for other institutions to follow.  In a 20-year period, we have gone from being unaccredited to an institution held up as an exemplar among our peers.

So what was it that our evaluators — all professors and administrators at leading colleges and universities in the area — saw, that led to such a positive evaluation? They saw that students are active members of the college community. Students participate actively on many college committees, in co-curricular programs, and in their own learning. They also saw students they wish they could teach — students who are intelligent, motivated and creative.

Our accreditors saw a first-rate faculty dedicated to superb teaching. With 38 full-time and adjunct faculty members, RRC boasts one of the largest groups of scholars outside of the state of Israel engaged in Jewish study. This past year, the faculty sponsored a fascinating series of seminars on the changing role of technology in education and on recent developments in the sciences. Because we are committed to incorporating the insights of the sciences and social sciences into religious life, it is important for us to stay abreast of current thinking in those fields and to consider how those developments should influence the study of religion.

Our accreditors saw a board actively engaged in the work of planning, policy-setting, assessment and fundraising. They were most impressed by the easy relationship between the board and the students and faculty. And they were struck by the deep sense of caring that motivates the members of our board.

Our accreditors saw an institution rising to the challenge of a rapidly changing environment for fundraising. They saw an endowment that has grown 50% in the last three years. And they saw the early successes of an ambitious fundraising effort that has the potential to change the face of Jewish life in the 21st century.

Our accreditors saw the remarkable development of our centers. They saw our Center for Jewish Ethics being the organizational backbone of the creation of the first-ever coalition for Jewish bioethics. They saw Kolot, our Center for Jewish Women's and Gender Studies create ritualwell.org, the finest available Web-based resource for creative Jewish liturgy. They saw Hiddur, our Center for Aging and Judaism create Sacred Seasons, celebration kits that make it possible for Jewish elders in residential care settings to celebrate Shabbat and holidays. All three of our centers have influenced their respective fields, changing the nature of what people imagine to be possible.

Perhaps most significantly, our accreditors saw an institution successfully navigating a transition to a new vice president for academic affairs. Tamar Kamionkowski successfully took over this position following 17 years of inspired leadership from Jacob Staub. With full support from the faculty, Tamar was able to be an immediately effective leader. In her first year, she excelled in providing guidance and direction to faculty and to staff, she threw herself into the necessary tasks of administration, bringing our written materials into line with our practice, leading a committee that hired a new tenure track professor, and ushering important new policy through the faculty and various committees.