The Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) on Monday broke ground on its new Tal Campus for women, marking a notable academic and socioeconomic milestone for the city of Jerusalem.
The ceremony was attended by dignitaries, including Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion. The event highlighted the $100 million Tal Campus and its role in expanding JCT’s decades-long role in bolstering the Israeli capital’s economic and cultural footprint.
“Tonight we finally take the first step in the evolution from dream to reality. We are honored to have a full house of our greatest supporters,” JCT Vice President Stuart Hershkowitz said at the event.
“We've been working on building a campus for Campus Tal for over 20 years and finally tonight after a lot of work a lot of blood sweat and tears, we're celebrating the groundbreaking of the new Tal Campus,” Hershkowitz told Israel National News. “Since its inception the Jerusalem College of Technology has been an integral part of Jerusalem. We believe very much in Jerusalem, we've always been in Jerusalem, and we hope to continue to be in Jerusalem as well. The women's campus today is in a bunch of rented buildings in an industrial area. We hope to move it to a state-of-the-art campus in the heart of Jerusalem here on the left, adjacent to the left campus.”
Hershkowitz thanked the many donors who attended the evening’s festivities.
“We have tonight many of our donors who are joining us who came specially from the United States, from Canada, from London, who believe very much in this project, who have been very good healthy supporters for the college. They believed in our vision and we had also some a lot of help from the government,” he said.
Professor Chaim Sukenik, President of JCT, addressed those in attendance at the ceremony:
“We at JCT stand before you today between Jerusalem Day and Shavuot, with a profound awareness of both the physical and spiritual opportunities and obligations that lay ahead of us. On one hand we are privileged to live in a State of Israel that is thriving and is hungry for our graduates. We live in a time of unrivalled opportunity and we have steadfast friends in both the public and private sectors who share our vision of academic excellence coupled with traditional values and lifestyle. Our continued growth and our success to date bode well for the future.”
“However, there remain numerous challenges quite frankly. The prevailing mood of today's society is not always supportive of our aspirations and we press on,” Sukenik added.
“We are motivated by a dream of continued excellence and achievement,” he went on to say. “We will continue to do our part by creating exciting new programs and recruiting the best students and the most outstanding faculty. We hope that all of you here today will help us by supporting both the Tal Campus campaign and JCT for many years to come. We thank you for your help and for joining us this evening. We look forward to continuing to work with you all towards a bright and exciting future.”