725 awarded degrees at Touro’s Lander Colleges commencement

Students from Touro’s Lander Colleges celebrated their 44th annual commencement at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. Bachelor’s degrees were given to 614 graduates and 111 students earned associate degrees.

Graduates accepted their diplomas from Dr. Alan Kadish of Teaneck, president of Touro College and University System; Dr. Mark Hasten, its board chairman; and the Lander College deans, Dr. Robert Goldschmidt of Lander College of Arts & Sciences in Flatbush, Dr. Moshe Sokol of Lander College for Men in Queens, and Dr. Marian Stoltz-Loike of Lander College for Women — The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School in Manhattan.

Dr. Kadish, who gave the commencement address, told the graduates, “We — the Jewish people — have a job to do in this world. We must project our greatest and most humane values outward into society, leading the culture in being reflective and constructively critical of our way of life.”

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Joshua Goldmeier, the valedictorian for Lander College for Men, flew in from Israel for graduation. After finishing his classwork in January, Mr. Goldmeier moved to Israel to pursue a career in artificial intelligence; he’s now in an elite, 10-month machine-learning program through the Israel Tech Challenge. Helene (Chanie) Weinreb, the valedictorian for the School for Women at Lander College of Arts and Sciences in Flatbush, will start a doctoral program in physical therapy at Touro’s School of Health Sciences this fall. Betzalel Krasnow was the first second-generation student valedictorian for the School for Men at Lander College of Arts and Sciences in Flatbush; the father of two will start dental school in the fall. Ayelet Schwerd, valedictorian for the Lander College for Women, plans to begin a Psy.D. program at Rutgers University; she wants to specialize in child and adolescent psychology.