Director of Wellness

Role Overview

Make your mark on Jewish student life by joining Boston University Hillel as the Director of Wellness. We are seeking a dynamic professional to integrate wellness into the Hillel ecosystem, ensuring that student wellbeing informs everything we do. This is a significant role with the potential to impact to 6,000 Jewish students. This position will be in charge of 1) developing and implementing a comprehensive wellness programming, training, and engagement plan 2) cultivating relationships across campus to collaborate with campus partners in wellness, mental health, and counseling. This professional will serve as a thought partner to BU Hillel leadership to install a wellness strategy at one of the world’s largest Hillels. This will include priorities such as: student wellness-focused retreats, Jewish learning wellness classes, student-led wellness education events/programming, and more. We welcome candidates who are passionate about building meaningful relationships with Jewish students. If you’re team-oriented, determined, and truly believe that you must “be the change you wish to see in the world,” then this is the position for you! This position reports to the Executive Director. BU Hillel is a Zionist organization that is focused on putting students in relationship with the state, land, and peoples of Israel. With the current ongoing crisis in Israel, we are focused more than ever on fighting hate and antisemitism.

What You’ll Do

• Build meaningful relationships with BU students oriented toward wellness impact and deepened involvement in Jewish life.
• Guide and empower student leaders and interns to develop and lead meaningful wellness experiences based on their peers’ needs and interests.
• Create strategies with students and colleagues to expand wellness programming while infusing well-being curriculum into current Jewish life experiences at BU Hillel, with a global view toward offerings supporting physical, emotional, and mental health.
• Connect students with campus and community resources including BU Behavioral Health services to support their social, emotional, physical and environmental concerns. Identify and strengthen student support networks via family, friends, and university resources.
• Collaborate with on-campus partners to advocate and promote campus wellness including the BU Dean of Students, BU Behavioral Medicine, BU Well-Being Project, BU Sexual Assault and Response Prevention Team, BU Office of Religious Life, Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, and more.
• Provide training and consultation to BU Hillel colleagues, building a unified culture on our team and equipping our staff to offer appropriate student support.

Wellness-Informed Student Engagement, Jewish Life, and Learning

• Meet with individual or groups of students over coffee or a meal to understand which issues are most important to them and developing a plan of action together.
• Facilitate students exploration of Jewish ideas and approaches to well-being including teaching Hillel’s award winning Jewish Learning Fellowship Ancient Wisdom for Modern Wellbeing curriculum (teach 2-3 courses per year)
• Support student leader cohorts, including the Care Fellowship, in prototyping new ways to consider how Hillel fosters student well-being and increases access to mental health support for students (mentor 5-10 projects per year)
• Support and refer students in need of mental health to appropriate referrals as needed.
• Grow Hillel’s capacity to meet engagement goals through detailed management and analysis of CRM Database focused on understandings and insights around wellness topics
• Work Shabbat (monthly), Jewish holidays, and attend programs that you are mentoring/leading
• Staff short or long term immersive travel experiences from overnight retreats, to service-learning trips, to Israel experiences.

Training, Insights and Partnerships

• Train, consult with, and support our student-facing engagement team to integrate wellness practices into Hillel programs and overall engagement work; as well as to understand their student interactions, what’s needed, and how to make appropriate support referrals and connections to the Director of Wellness and help support the work as a higher-level professional
• Participate in team/leadership meetings with BU Dean of Students, BU Behavioral Medicine, BU Well-Being Project, BU Sexual Assault and Response Prevention Team, BU Office of Religious Life, Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, and more.
• Drive user insights while meeting with students, while helping them imagine and design wellness programs and offerings for students on campus.
• Meet with a BU Hillel senior staff to discuss what is needed from students and developing an action plan for the month ahead

Who You Are

We are most interested in someone who is organized, driven, and mission focused.  The most important experience we are looking for is the ability to be a Jewish leader, organize people and projects, and the ability to inspire commitment and action. In terms of prerequisite requirements, we are open to candidates with the following:

• Strong entrepreneurial spirit, a willingness to take risks and learn from your wins as well as your losses.
• Capacity to create space for a diversity of perspectives and allow all student voices to be heard.
• Strong relationship building skills and accessibility to students from diverse backgrounds.
• A desire to support students in their time of need.
• Experience training or empowering college students to design opportunities to promote social, emotional, or physical well-being.
• An attitude of proactive communication and collaboration.
• Expertise in leading complex conversations around mental health and wellness.
• A commitment to Jewish pluralism.

Additionally, we are looking for:

• A graduate-level degree in social work or other related field including, but not limited to: psychology, public health, etc.
• At least 3-5 years of post-graduate work experience in a related field.
• Prior experience working with college students.
• Previous program planning or training session development and facilitation experience.

What You’ll Receive

• High-level professional development to help develop core skills and gain expertise from changemakers, engagers, and Jewish life experts.
• Mentoring and career coaching to help you during and after your position
• A network of terrific colleagues from across BU and the Hillel movement.
• Exposure to and partnerships with highly trained and seasoned mental health professionals across BU’s 30,000 student campus
• Travel opportunities, both domestically and internationally, multiple times per year.
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, Tax Deferred Retirement Plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability insurances, Flexible Spending Plan, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
• A salary of $60,000-$75,000 depending on level of experience.

About Boston University Hillel

Boston University Hillel is at the hub of a thriving city of Boston, right near Fenway Park. Home to 4,000 Jewish undergraduates and 2000 graduate students, BU Hillel’s mission is to inspire, educate, and empower BU students to lead meaningful and joyous Jewish lives. Boston is a vital center for Jewish and young adult and family life. More than ever students need us, and we need to stand with them and to stand with Israel. Here are a few key resources and videos we are sharing with our community:

• Israel in Crisis Campus Plan
• Israel in Crisis Educational Resources
• Standing in Solidarity with Israel Video (Vigil and Shabbat w/ 9 BU Deans)
• BU students sing Hatikvah at BU Hillel Shabbat
• Israel Solidarity Vigil Recap
• Antisemitism Reporting Database

Boston University Hillel is affiliated with Hillel International. Hillel International enriches the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, and envisions a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.