Rela Mintz Gef­fen, Ph.D., was the pres­i­dent of Bal­ti­more Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty from 2000 – 2007 where she is cur­rent­ly pro­fes­sor emeri­ta of soci­ol­o­gy. Dr. Gef­fen earned her under­grad­u­ate degrees at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty and the Jew­ish The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary (where she was one of the first three women Tal­mud majors), her MA at Colum­bia and Ph.D. in soci­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da. She received an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from Gratz Col­lege in 2004 and was named alum­na of the year by JTS in 2004. Her book (coau­thored with the late Daniel J. Elazar),The Con­ser­v­a­tive Move­ment in Judaism, was pub­lished by SUNY Press in 2000.