Queens College Hillel proudly announced its new executive director on Wednesday, who will continue to lead the school in its mission of enriching the lives of students and the New York Jewish community.
Jenna Citron, who currently serves as interim executive director of Queens College Hillel, a role she assumed in August of last year, will begin her role as executive director on March 1.
“I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to lead Queens College Hillel and build on the momentum of the past eight years,” Citron said. “In collaboration with students, staff, volunteer leadership, and supporters, I look forward to empowering all 4,000 Jewish students on campus, no matter their Jewish background or experiences, to engage with Jewish life on campus and around New York City.”
Citron joined QC Hillel as director of Jewish student life in 2012 and was promoted to assistant director in 2016, leading a team working to engage the 4,000 Jewish students on Queens College’s mostly commuter campus. Formerly, she served as Jewish student life coordinator at Hillel at Florida State, where she introduced Hillel’s relationship-based engagement strategy and oversaw student programming.
During her tenure at Queens College Hillel, Citron has worked closely with students to create a welcoming Jewish community that reflects the diverse backgrounds and experiences of Jewish students at Queens College. During this time, the organization has experienced unprecedented growth, achieving a fourfold increase in student engagement in six years.
Under her leadership, and that of former executive director Uri Cohen, Queens College Hillel received the Phillip H. and Susan Rudd Cohen Outstanding Campus Award from Hillel International in 2015, “for engaging a vastly diverse Jewish student body in deep, thoughtful and relevant ways and embodying pluralism and tolerance in the best tradition of Hillel.”
In 2018, after being appointed interim executive director, Citron received the Richard M. Joel Exemplar of Excellence Award from Hillel International, for “never being satisfied with the status quo, and for building a more diverse, inclusive and engaging Jewish community on campus.”
“I am so excited to welcome Jenna to her new position and pleased that we were able to find the best candidate for the position from within our own Hillel,” said Hillel Wallick, president of Queens College Hillel. “We are very proud of what she has accomplished so far, and very optimistic about what she will accomplish going forward, as we work toward fulfilling our mission of benefiting the entire New York Jewish community by serving the most diverse Jewish student community on any North American college campus.”
Citron earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Florida State University and a master’s degree in public administration from the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State. She is a graduate of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Fellowship for Campus Professionals, a former UJA-Federation of New York Ruskay Fellow, and served as the 2018 conference chair of Limmud NY.
She and fiancé Devon make their home in the Astoria section of Queens.
