News

Think of our response to war, famine, or natural disaster. Fire fighters, evacuation teams, and emergency shelters come to mind.

Last Friday, the new Helmsley Mechina Complex was inaugurated at Sapir College, in the presence of Mr. Sandy Frankel, trustee of The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, and his wife Ruth. The Mechina will serve thousands of students. In the moving ceremony, the Frankels, together with Sapir’s senior staff, unveiled the Helmsley Mechina Complex sign. Mr. Frankel and Prof. Kedar affixed the mezuzah together with a moving ‘Shehecheyanu’ blessing for this new beautiful space.

After nine years of planning and meticulous construction, a magnificent amphitheater has come to life at the heart of Sapir’s campus. Thanks to generous funding from JNF-Germany, the College engaged the services of the Urbanof Studio for Landscape Architecture to create a central, public space for students and faculty.  Nestled in the undulating terrain, the amphitheater emerges naturally from the landscape, its stone benches melding imperceptibly with grassy terraces and shady trees.

Sapir has just launched three, exciting new programs to mark the start of the 2022-23 school year, while appointing a slate of top-notch academic leaders to take the College forward. On October 23rd,  we launched the academic year welcoming some 8,000 students to Sapir’s campus.  New study offerings include an MA program on Innovation and Entrepreneurship; a MA in Art Therapy; and an MSW program for students with bachelor’s degrees in other fields. Meanwhile, our leadership team welcomes Dr.

The Israel Academy of Film and Television has awarded a prestigious prize to Sapir faculty member Shlomi Alkabetz for his documentary Black Notebooks, a poignant tribute to Alkabetz’ late sister, the talented actress screenwriter and director Ronit Alkabetz.The Ophir Prize, commonly known as the Israeli Oscars, is a standard of excellence for the country’s film industry. Alkabetz is a senior lecturer at Sapir’s School of Audio and Visual Arts.

With close to 20 million TikTok views, #QuietQuitting is more than just a viral hashtag. A survey by Microsoft shows that 54% of GenZ workers have considered quitting their job.  Now, experts have met to figure out what it all means. A recent conference at Sapir brought together over 100 industry professionals and leading academics from southern Israel to discuss the post corona job market. The meeting was organized by the Israel Manufacturer’s Association together with Sapir, the Ministry of Economy and the City of Sderot.

At Sapir, our alumni are the supreme measure of success. This past week, 1,133 students graduated from our BA and MA programs, a majority of them women! This is good news for the College, for the Negev region, and for Israeli society as a whole. These outstanding academics, many of them from underserved communities in Israel’s southern periphery, will go on to leadership positions in all branches of industry, government and the nonprofit sector. 42 of them graduated with Outstanding Honors, thirty women and twelve men. 164 graduated with Honors - 123 of them women.