Leading with Heart:
A Senior Year Reflection
Sometimes, I forget how much has changed.
I walk into the Hunter Hillel lounge, and it feels so natural—greeting students, checking in with my team, setting up for another Not Shabbat Shabbat. It’s routine now. But if you had told freshman-year me that I’d be running student leadership meetings and organizing Jewish life on campus, I don’t think I would have believed you.
Hunter is a commuter school, and that comes with its own challenges. You go to class, maybe grab a coffee, and then you’re back on the subway heading home. It’s easy to feel disconnected. But then there was Hillel. And suddenly, I found myself staying just a little bit longer. Then a lot longer. Then I wasn’t just showing up—I was creating the kind of space I wanted other students to walk into.
That’s what leadership has meant to me. It’s not about titles or running meetings—it’s about making sure that no student walks in feeling like an outsider. That they see someone—maybe me—who says, You belong here. Stay a while.
There are moments that stick with me. Seeing students linger after an event, deep in conversation. Watching a first-year student who came in alone laughing with new friends. Hearing someone say, I didn’t know I needed this community until I found it.
This is my last year at Hunter, and I feel it—this bittersweet awareness that soon, I won’t be the one holding open the door for the next generation of students. But the good thing about building something real is that it lasts. The friendships, the traditions, the feeling of home—it doesn’t leave with me. It stays.
And that’s what matters.
– Stephanie Pincus, Student President, Class of 2025