Holocaust Education
Chapman University's Holocaust education programs have seen increasing prominence, and the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education was founded in February 2000 with the mission of "preparing young people to become witnesses to the future". It sponsors an annual Holocaust remembrance writing competition for area public school students, and a regular lecture series, which has included Elie Wiesel and Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl. In addition, the Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library, funded by Henry Samueli, is located on the fourth floor of the University's Leatherby Libraries, and provides a dedicated space where scholars and visitors may learn from survivors, visual testimonies and printed resources.
The Rodgers Center's Director, Dr. Marilyn Harran, was awarded the 2008 Spirit of Anne Frank Outstanding Educator Award. Other Chapman faculty with some association with the Holocaust Center include Justice Richard Fybel of the California Court of Appeal, who serves as an adjunct professor, and Prof. Michael Bazyler, a Chapman law professor and prominent Holocaust restitution activist-litigator. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Holocaust survivor and author of more than 50 books, including the internationally acclaimed Holocaust memoir, Night, is Distinguished Presidential Fellow at Chapman University for one week each spring through 2015.
On April 11, 2005, 60 years after he was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp, Wiesel dedicated the Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library, and a large bust of Wiesel stands at the entrance to the facility. Included in the Samueli Library are features celebrating Holocaust survivors within the Chapman community, including Leon Leyson, the youngest person on "Schindler's List", and former Dean of Students Joe Kertes, a Hungarian Jew born while his parents were still interned in a camp.
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“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
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