President Richard L. McCormick has announced the appointment of the distinguished Australian public official and criminal justice scholar Adam Graycar as dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers-Newark. The appointment is effective July 1, 2007.

Leslie Kennedy, who served as dean of the school for nine years, will continue at Rutgers as a member of the faculty.

“We look forward to welcoming Adam Graycar to lead the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers-Newark,” said R-N Provost Steven J. Diner. “Graycar will bring a unique and exciting new perspective and provide exceptional leadership to one of Rutgers’ most renowned schools.”

Since 2003 Graycar has served as Head of the Cabinet Office for the Government of South Australia, a civil service post which oversees the whole of government policies and activities and advises on broad-ranging topics of government policy, development and implementation. He also leads his state’s activities in federal and state negotiations.

Prior to assuming the Cabinet Office position, Graycar held a variety of posts in public service and academia. These have included director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, a federal government statutory authority (1994-2003); CEO of the Ministry of Higher Education; and executive director of the Department of Employment, Training and Further Education for the Government of South Australia (1990-1994); Australian Commissioner for the Aging (1985-1990).  His academic posts were in the fields of social policy and political science at universities in Adelaide and Sydney, Australia.

Graycar is a widely published expert on many aspects of criminal justice and social issues, with a record of numerous books, book chapters and journal articles. He is also the recipient of many awards and honors, including election in 1998 as a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

He received a bachelor’s degree with honors in political science from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and went on to complete a Ph.D. in Public Policy and a D. Litt (Doctor of Letters) in Social Policy from the same institution. Over the years he has been a member or chair of many boards and committees, government and nongovernment, in Australia and internationally. For the past four years he has served as a member of the board of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia's national census and statistics agency.

Having spent his entire career in Australia, with frequent study trips abroad, Graycar will be taking on a new career role as dean at an American university. “The Northeastern U.S. is just about as far from Adelaide, Australia, that one can get and still be on the planet,” he said. “Taking on the deanship of the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice is a wonderful opportunity to share ideas and educational endeavors across international borders, and offer leadership in a field rich in local as well as global issues.”

Graycar said that technological change has emphasized that crime knows no boundaries. “Growth areas of global concern include identity fraud, cyber and other high-tech crimes, new forms of money laundering, crime related to environmental challenges, and new criminal opportunities that are created with widespread demographic change,” he said. “I look forward immensely to working in the academic environment in which we can explore and learn in-depth about the underlying causes of criminal behavior and the solutions to persistent as well as new challenges in criminal justice.”

The Rutgers School of Criminal Justice (RSCJ) was established at Rutgers University in 1972 by the New Jersey State Legislature, which recognized the need for a formal<> program of study dedicated to preparing students to be leaders in research, teaching and public policy to better address criminal justice issues. More than three decades later, the impact and influence of the school are respected internationally, and RSCJ is ranked as one of the top criminal justice schools in the nation.

The school offers a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice (in partnership with the College of Arts and Sciences), as well as master’s and doctoral degrees. The doctoral program in criminology is ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools.