 Mordechai Kaplan also joined the faculty during this period and became professor of homiletics (upon Joseph Mayor Asher's death) and also the first principal of a new school within JTS known as The Teachers Institute (TI), which opened in 1909.A majority of TI students were women, both because teaching was seen as a women's profession and because the Teachers Institute was one of the only institutions where women could obtain an advanced education in Jewish studies.The Teachers Institute offered both undergraduate and graduate degrees.