Assistant Professor of Government Ronnie Olesker says her interest in teaching happened by accident. While a graduate student at Tufts University, she saw an advertisement for a teacher of Israeli domestic politics. As a lawyer and civil servant in Israel, she had extensive experience in both the practical application of Israeli politics and a theoretical background from her Ph.D. dissertation, which dealt with minority rights in Israel. Walking into the classroom, she was “hooked,” and soon “the job became a vocation,” she says.
           
Since joining the St. Lawrence faculty last fall, Olesker feels “very much supported by the people here.” She appreciates the liberal arts environment and the eagerness that students display for learning and absorbing material that is not necessarily familiar to them. Her teaching philosophy is, “if a student walks out of my classroom with more questions than answers, I’ve done my job.”

She admits that there are challenges posed by teaching such controversial subject matter as Middle Eastern politics. She says, “You have to deal with the issue of biases,” a problem made acutely more difficult by what Olesker calls the “two competing narratives” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her method of teaching applied politics, however, gives her students the chance to think for themselves and gain valuable practical experience at the same time.

Olesker’s background in Middle Eastern politics has given rise to her involvement on campus and in the surrounding community in spreading awareness about the various issues related to that region. She participated last spring in the Contemporary Issues Forum, giving a lecture entitled One Land - Three Peoples? Future Prospects for Jewish-Arab-Palestinian Relations in Israel.