Douglas Greenberg doesn’t mind shaking up the status quo

Entering his second year as executive dean of the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, Greenberg's  ability to spur effective institutional change is one of the signature skills he brings to the monumental job of transforming undergraduate education at Rutgers University.

“Everywhere I've gone, I have tried to be a change agent – it's in my nature,” Greenberg said in a recent interview. “When I was first recruited for this job, I said [to the recruiter] ‘Look we need to understand each other; if they are interested in my candidacy, then they have to be interested in someone who is going to change things, because I am not a babysitter.’ ” 

Three years ago, Rutgers began an unprecedented transformation of undergraduate education by creating the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) as the unified academic program while gradually phasing out four undergraduate colleges. With 800 faculty members and 20,000 students, SAS is now the largest academic unit at Rutgers and serves as the university’s flagship liberal arts school.

Greenberg’s mission is immense: steering what is essentially a brand-new school to greatness while endowing it with the sense of tradition and unity that alumni have come to expect from their undergraduate colleges.

“No other university has had to cope with this sort of transformation,” Greenberg said. “Our goal is to create something that will secure the unique role of the School of Arts and Sciences in American higher education while honoring the traditions of the university.”

Greenberg has wasted little time putting his stamp on the school. This year he engineered the introduction of several thought-provoking signature courses aimed at helping students confront larger questions about humankind.

Read the profile of Douglas Greenberg in Rutgers Magazine

Meanwhile, a new core curriculum that reflects and defines the meaning of undergraduate education at New Jersey’s only comprehensive, public research university – the product of hard work by the SAS faculty – will go into effect in 2011.

In a 30-minute interview, Greenberg described his vision for SAS as one in which students acquire not just knowledge but, as he put it, “literacy” to help them succeed as citizens and human beings in an increasingly complex, diverse, and rapidly changing society.

“To me, literacy doesn't simply mean the capacity to put letters together and make or read words, but rather it is the capacity to read the world you live in and respond to it,” Greenberg said. “And the world is full of all kinds of languages, some of them on pieces of paper, some of them spoken, some of them in molecules and atoms, some in letters, and some in numbers. Our students have to be capable of understanding those languages, and the new curriculum is designed very much to do that."

Greenberg said the new curriculum has two principal aims: to foster cultural literacy and promote scientific literacy.

"Our students are going to need the capacity to live in and adapt to cultures other than their own, and they also need to leave us with a full understanding of their own culture," he said. “We want students to be culturally adaptable; I think that is a prerequisite for 21st-century living."

Greenberg also stressed the need for every student to have an understanding of science and technology.

"Every public-policy question that we're going to face in the 21st century will require citizens to know something about technology and science," he said.

Meanwhile, with the introduction of the signature classes, SAS students will have the opportunity to ponder the perennial questions of humanity as they study topics like extinction, war, and the environment.

"In the old days we used to think that if everyone took a course on Western civilization, they would come up against almost every important question that human beings had ever addressed," Greenberg said. "This is a different, more universal, and therefore more valid entry to the same set of questions. What does it mean to be human? What is beauty? What is truth? How should power be exercised? How should it be limited? We're going to come at the questions from a less ethnocentric and more self-critical perspective."

Greenberg, a New Jersey native and a 1969 graduate of Rutgers College, returned to Rutgers in 2008 after a scholarly, eclectic career that included academic positions at several prestigious universities as well as top administrative posts at prominent organizations like the Chicago Historical Society, and the USC Shoah Foundation Institute in Los Angeles.  He recently won a prestigious award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Each experience taught him something new, whether it was writing about and teaching history, managing a budget, dealing with the public, or mastering a new technology.

“I would like to think that every experience I’ve had in my life has prepared me for this terrific job,” he said.

As he oversees the shaping of the SAS academic program, Greenberg is also focusing on keeping alumni closely connected to Rutgers. He regularly meets with alumni groups around the country, reminding them that he, too, is a graduate of the old undergraduate system.

 “I think I have some credibility with alums because I am one!” he said.