Updated: July 6, 2016 at 2:47 p.m.

The Consortium for Applied Studies in Jewish Education is moving to the Graduate School of Education and Human Development this year, according to a University release.

The consortium is “an alliance of educational, philanthropic and research institutions aiming to provide improved data and scholarship relevant to the practical needs of teachers, administrators and leaders in Jewish education,” according to the release.

The move is funded by $2 million in grants from the AVI CHAI and Jim Joseph foundations, two of the organizations that helped found the consortium in 2011, according to the release. The other founding organizations were the Stanford Graduate School of Education and Rosov Consulting.

Michael Feuer, the dean of GSEHD who will serve as the director of the consortium, said in the release that the idea behind the consortium is “to connect the world of high-quality education research to the needs of the Jewish community for the purpose of improving policy and practice in education.”

He said in the release that the first projects that will come out of the consortium after the move will include leadership at Jewish day schools and early childhood education. He added that part of the consortium’s “mission” is to “shed light” on how Jewish and secular education overlap.

“Jewish education takes place in secular institutions, and secular education takes place in Jewish institutions,” he said in the release. “CASJE takes advantage of that cross-fertilizing collaborative [potential].”

Feuer also said in the release that GSEHD is an “example of a secular institution where Jewish education takes place.” The school offers a degree in experiential education and Jewish cultural arts – the only such master’s program in the country.

“There are pressing, important questions about Jewish education, and the quality of research about those questions could always improve,” Feuer said in the release. “So we’re looking forward to being able to tackle that from a variety of angles and building off the remarkably rich and diverse perspectives of our faculty.”

This post has been updated to reflect the following correction:
Due to a reporting error, The Hatchet incorrectly stated that one of the projects from the consortium will be leadership at Jewish day camps. Those projects will actually take place at Jewish day schools. We regret this error.