The Diversity Unit offers the managements of the university’s academic and administrative units a holistic system of support and assistance with both mental-emotional and professional coping in wartime and emergency:

1. Unit-level organizational consulting

The intervention of the Diversity Unit on the organizational level is designed to help the units cope with the emergency routine and with tensions and dilemmas due to the war. This intervention can address the following areas:

• Developing self-awareness and sensitivity towards our colleagues.

• Providing professional tools for conduct and management in a professional space characterized by diverse identities, attitudes, and behaviors.

• Providing professional tools for effective interpersonal and organizational communication in times of crisis and conflict.

• Providing professional tools for coping in interfaces and encounters between students and administrative and academic staff members.

The specific intervention will be tailored to the unit’s needs, and may occur on different levels, from individual consulting through group workshops and facilitation of peer groups for learning and consulting, to comprehensive organizational consulting for an academic unit, school, department, or faculty.
The consulting intervention is based on the assumption that the knowledge and experience are already there in the university space, and that it is designed to provide a safe and secure space necessary for successful learning and joint professional development.

2. Administrative management in the eye of the storm

management and conduct in a heterogenous space during and after wartime. Members of the administrative staff are at the core of our organization, an operational hub for all academic endeavors and players: administrative and academic unit, the lecturer staff and students, and contacts with the community. The Diversity Unit offers a variety of interventions adapted to the needs of the various group forums (including senior administrative staff / deputy deans and coordinators / directors and administrators of the teaching and learning area / departmental staff, etc.). These include workshops and interventions to enhance emotional resilience, providing tools for team management and teamwork in emergency in a heterogeneous professional space, and appointing and regulating the role of diversity officers in both academic and administrative units.

3. Pedagogical tools

teaching in a heterogenous class during and after wartime. We offer a variety of workshops and resources designed to equip the lecturers with pedagogical and emotional tools for teaching in a heterogeneous class. What requires coping in routine becomes a serious challenge in wartime, given the intergroup conflicts that intensify in such a time. At first, priority will be given to departments with particularly heterogenous classes or that teach politically and socially sensitive issues. The following are some of the proposed workshops:

• Teaching in the Shadow of War – Dr. Udi Tsemach (Pedagogical Officer at the Diversity Unit and TLU). This workshop provides pedagogical tools with focus on three major questions: (1) How to start the year and what to say in the first lesson? (2) What scenarios may occur in the classroom and should they be dealt with? (3) How does returning to school support the students’ resilience? The workshop is accompanied by a pedagogical process – the participants formulate an outline for coping with teaching challenges. The workshop facilitator will consolidate the recommendations and send them to the participants and to the heads of the department/unit after the workshop.

• Restarting Your Learning – Dr. Udi Tsemach. The anxiety and difficult emotions we experience make it difficult to resume teaching. Teaching and learning at the university require concentration, dedication and higher-order thinking. Stress and anxiety affect our cognitive skills and ability to learn effectively. The objective of this workshop is to provide lecturers with practical teaching tools to enable students to get back in mental and cognitive “shape”.

• Wartime teaching in a diverse campus – Dr. Adar Cohen – This workshop provides pedagogical tools for wartime teaching. It focuses on conceptualizing the challenges involved and helps lecturers decide on their own approach upon entering the classroom – should they “start” a conversation about the situation in class (reaching out, ignoring), and what (political or emotional) issue should they focus on. The workshop also provides practical recommendations for conducting classroom dialogue.

• Between partnership and conflict – Dr. Tammy Rubel Lifschitz – The workshop deals with the interrelations between the individual experience, the sociopolitical context and events in class, and addresses courses dealing with socio-politically sensitive contents. The workshop will present principles and tools for maintaining clarity, emotional availability for studying, and constructive conflict management, in both on-campus and remote learning.

• The containing classroom: Orientation and teaching in a diverse classroom – aChord Center – This is a practical workshop for academic staff designed to support the lecturer’s conduct in the classroom and on campus during this crisis, relying on social-psychological knowledge. The workshop offers recommendations and tools for conducting dialogue in class, for giving voice and facilitating expression while restraining inappropriate statements. These tools are suitable for lecturers of various disciplines.

• Imperceptible biases – Gender, diversity and excellence at the Hebrew University: Where do we stand, where are we heading? Dr. Tammy Rubel Lifschitz and Dr. Yael Ben David – A dedicated workshop for staff members serving in screening and search committees, as well as in staff development and appointment committees. It is designed to present to the committee members recent findings on gender and other biases and practices that impede the advancement of women and minority members. It will also present recent studies on the effectiveness of ways to increase gender and other diversity to ensure excellence. Based on all these and on the experience of the participants, we will discuss barriers relevant to the Hebrew University and various ways of overcoming them.

4. Mental-emotional support for managers and teams

Mental-emotional resilience is key to the ability to cope with emergencies and wartime events, and continue to function and contribute in a constructive way. The Psychological Service at the Dean of Students Offices and helping professionals in the university staff have joined together to provide a preliminary response to ensure routine conduct during the emergency and provided group support and interventions on student-related issues. Moreover, the Service offers individual consulting through a hotline active on all weekdays from 8:30-18:30. Please contact this email: psyserv@email.huji.ac.il.

5. Winter at the Hebrew University – preparing for the aftermath – picking up the pieces and creating a horizon for partnership

The Center for Multiculturalism at the Social Engagement Unit at the Dean of Students Office, together with the Unit for Diversity and Inclusion, are building a forum for thought and action made up of administrative and staff members and students. Initially, the forum is designed to deal with the contemporary destructive implications of the war. Later on, it will act to create and promote a desirable future vision that enables a sense of community and partnership.