WASHINGTON (JTA) – Joseph Lieberman, the former U.S. senator from Connecticut, will teach this academic year at Yeshiva University in a position named for him.

Lieberman was appointed the Joseph Lieberman chair in public policy and public service and will teach one undergraduate course. The 2000 Democratic vice presidential candidate also will give three public lectures, two concerning Judaism and the Middle East.

“I am excited about working with the students at Y.U. to engage and inform their interest in public policy and public service,” Lieberman said in a statement distributed Thursday by the university.

The Lieberman chair was established through a gift from Ira and Ingeborg Rennert, benefactors of the university in New York.

Lieberman, the first Orthodox Jew to serve in the Senate, said in the statement that he was “surprised” to be the chair’s initial occupant.

The university’s president, Richard Joel, noted that Lieberman was the first Jewish candidate on a major national ticket and said he has become an iconic figure.

“But Joe Lieberman is much more than that,” Joel said. “He’s a passionate Jew, a statesman and a man of integrity.”

Lieberman, a senator from 1989 to 2012 — his last six-year term as an Independent who caucused with Democrats — holds an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University.