Are students stealing teachers’ jobs? This year, Caleb Rosenfeld ‘22, past vice president and sophomore grade president took over the job of SFAC chair from Ms. Benus. SFAC, the Student-Faculty Administration Committee, is an organization that meets every six weeks to  review school policies and discuss paths to better Ramaz’s operations. In the past, Ms. Benus led the meeting with her gavel, asserting “order in the court”. However, this year, Caleb Rosenfeld ‘22 has taken over her job: a change most members of SFAC could not have foreseen considering how dedicated Ms. Benus was to her position.

Caleb explained that the holder of this position is conventionally chosen by a rotation between students, faculty, and administrators. Ms. Benus was the faculty representative for the past few years, but this year they decided to make the next switch to a student. Rosenfeld has been attending SFAC meetings throughout both his sophomore and junior years as a leader in the school. These years of experience gave him a good basis for him to understand the dynamics of the meetings. He views SFAC meetings as a great opportunity for anyone at Ramaz to talk about different issues in school and give their perspectives on things that can be improved. 

To prepare for each meeting, Rosenfeld writes up an agenda of topics to discuss. At the meeting, he moderates people and makes sure everyone stays on schedule. He also manages the follow-up committees and appoints everyone a job to further discuss the topics which were brought up at SFAC to try to implement real changes in the school.

Ms. Benus, the former SFAC chairperson, also shared her thoughts on this change. Despite SFAC being one of her favorite positions she’s held at Ramaz, she gave it up to Caleb when Rabbi Stochel suggested it last year. While this was a bittersweet experience, she’s watched Caleb lead two SFAC meetings very successfully. Her favorite thing about being SFAC chair was hearing all of the different perspectives and the ways in which everyone was open to new ideas. She also loved to stay organized with the agendas and be able to have the last word. Most importantly, she found it vital to be able to give students the opportunity to participate in leadership training and learn how to absorb other people’s opinions to improve the overall welfare of the school. 

While she may not be the current SFAC chairperson, Ms. Krupka still attends every meeting and plans to continue coming. “I don’t think me not being SFAC chairperson anymore has changed my perspective on SFAC. I still feel the same amount of passion for this cause as I did for the past few years.” She believes that a SFAC chairperson role can be successfully fulfilled by anybody that feels comfortable running a meeting in an efficient and productive way. This means that they don’t push their opinions on anyone, they are simply there to help the conversation progress smoothly. They must be confident in telling their peers or superiors when their time is up speaking, in order to keep up with the SFAC agenda. 

Based on the past two meetings, Ms. Benus believes that Caleb is doing a great job in his new position. She appreciates his gavel and that he prepares an organized agenda for each meeting. Although she acknowledged that at the first SFAC meeting it was difficult for people to adhere to the schedule, she noted that Caleb continued to run things smoothly and provided everyone with an open forum to discuss their concerns.