Yakov Glicksman Named Valedictorian of Lander College of Arts & Sciences in Flatbush School for Men
Gabe Kahn
212-463-0400 x5404
gabriel.kahn@touro.edu
New York, N.Y. – Yakov Glicksman from Beachwood, OH has been named the valedictorian of The Lander College of Arts and Sciences – Flatbush (LAS) School for Men.
“Yakov is a shining exemplar of a ben Torah who has also excelled in his pre-medical studies at the Lander College in Flatbush, where he has also been involved in many extra-curricular activities,” said Robert Goldschmidt, the dean of students at LAS and Touro’s Vice President for Planning and Assessment. “We are confident that Yakov will become a caring and compassionate physician of whom all of us at Touro will be very proud.”
Glicksman, a biology major, is graduating summa cum laude with a 3.96 grade point average. He was the editor-in-chief of, the official student newspaper of LAS, and an associate editor of The Science Journal at Lander College of Arts and Sciences-Flatbush.
For the past two years, Glicksman has assisted Dr. Nathalia Holtzman, professor of developmental biology at Queens College, with her cardiovascular research focusing on the prevention of congenital heart defects. Together they compared healthy and diseased cardiovascular functioning in the Zebrafish with the goal of applying her government-funded research to the prevention of congenital heart defects during pregnancy.
While at LAS, Glicksman has been involved in community service. For the past three years, he has served as a volunteer at Tomche Shabbos, a non-profit organization that prepares food for needy families for the Sabbath, delivering food packages to the elderly in the Far Rockaway and the Five Towns area and volunteered as a tutor at LAS for science and all undergraduate subjects.
He also volunteered in the emergency room at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway for a year and a half. He had a wide-array of responsibilities at the hospital, from helping doctors and nurses with procedures to restocking supplies to transferring patients.
He has interviewed at several medical schools and has already been accepted to New York Medical College, the oldest medical school in the state of New York and an affiliate of the Touro College and University System.
“I was always interested in how the body works,” he said. “The body is an amazing instrument with so many different elements that all work together. But all that we know about it is just a drop in the bucket.”
Glicksman, the youngest of six siblings, attended the Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland for high school. He dorms and studies Talmud at the Sh’Or Yoshuv Institute in Lawrence during the day while attending classes at night at LAS. He has lived in Lawrence for the past five years.
The Lander College of Arts and Sciences in Flatbush, with separate divisions for men and women, is located at Avenue J and East 16th Street in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. More than 1,000 students are enrolled each semester at the campus. Encompassing more than 90,000 square feet, the campus was inaugurated in the spring of 1995. In September 1997, the New York State Education Department officially designated this site as The Flatbush Branch Campus of Touro College.
