From Book Editor to Lawyer, a Gamble Pays Off
Judith McCarthy graduates from Rutgers School of Law-Newark with a position at a national firm....
Full Story
Rutgers Computer Scientists Receive Google Grant to Develop Personalized Data Search System
Computer scientists Amelie Marian and Thu D. Nguyen received a grant from Google to develop a personal data search system that draws from social media pages, personal calendars, bank account information, email, Skype conversations and work documents, among other things.
Full Story
CATEGORIES:
- University News
2012: A Year in Review at Rutgers
December 13, 2012
As the year draws to a close, Rutgers Today takes a look back at milestones, achievements and big stories of 2012. It has been a year of great change at Rutgers – a new president, a new athletic conference, a new strategic plan, and medical and health sciences integration.
We can take pride in the strength of students like Walter Fortson, who was once a prison inmate and is now a Truman Scholar, and Wislande Guillaume, who returned to Rutgers just months after a life-threatening brain aneurysm to conduct research in Haiti and be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. We continue to distinguish ourselves as a community with local and global reach; the university's faculty generated leading research on autism and suicide bombers, and discovered a new species . . . and a galaxy.
As forecasts for 2013 emerge, the following stories and videos are not intended to be comprehensive and all-inclusive, but to bring back memories and remind all of us that Rutgers is a vibrant and diverse place to live, work and study.
|
||
 |
Robert L. Barchi Named Rutgers' 20th President Dr. Barchi – a renowned neuroscientist, respected educator and academic innovator – became president of Rutgers on Sept. 1. He previously served as president of Thomas Jefferson University and as provost of the University of Pennsylvania. |
|
 |
Rutgers Joins Big Ten Conference After receiving unanimous approval from the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors, Rutgers has become the 14th member of the prestigious Big Ten athletic conference. |
|
 |
Rutgers University Boards Approve Integration with UMDNJ This summer – a year after Gov. Chris Christie signed sweeping higher education reform legislation – a new Rutgers University will be born with the integration of most of the schools and institutes that make up the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. |
|
 |
While Rutgers University was spared serious damage from Superstorm Sandy, more than 800 people evacuated from Atlantic County to emergency shelters set up at Rutgers’ Busch and Livingston campuses in Piscataway.
|
|
| |
STUDENT EXCELLENCE
|
|
 |
From Prison Inmate, to Rutgers Honors Student, to Truman Scholar The award recognizes Walter Fortson's exceptional leadership potential and commitment to public service and provides him with a financial scholarship to research and understand nutrition and obesity in the prison population. |
|
 |
Rutgers Senior One of 15 Students Worldwide to Receive Ertegun Scholarship to Oxford Kevin Tobia is off to the University of Oxford in England after being named one of only 15 students in the world to receive a full two-year graduate school scholarship bequeathed in the name of the founder of Atlantic Records and his wife. |
|
 |
Beating the Odds, Rutgers Student Comes Back Strong After Brain Aneurysm While aneurysms can lead to death or disability, Wislande Guillaume would conduct research in Haiti, become a Leadership Scholar with the Institute for Women’s Leadership, and be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa months after the life-threatening hemorrhage. |
|
 |
Two Rutgers Students Win Prestigious Goldwater Scholarships Devinn Lambert, a biotechnology major, and Kelvin Mei, a physics major, are among 282 undergraduates selected by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation for excellence in mathematics, science and engineering. |
|
 |
Rutgers' Student-Run Organic Garden Blooms Healthier Habits on Campus The Garden of Eden empowers students to make informed decisions about the food they eat. Organic produce, including arugula, chard, radishes, and other vegetables, is planted, cultivated and harvested by students and served at Neilson Dining Hall. |
|
 |
Rutgers Student Tests Peers' Knowledge of Asian Food Symbolism Amy Tran knows that sometimes, a dumpling is not just a dumpling. For the past several months, the cell biology and neuroscience major has interviewed students to see if they know the meaning behind various dishes in China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. |
|
 |
Rutgers Ph.D. student teaches course on Beyoncé Kevin Allred uses Beyoncé's music and career as lenses to explore American race, gender, and sexual politics. His course, "Politicizing Beyoncé," pairs the performer's music videos and lyrics with readings from the Black feminist canon, including the writings of bell hooks, Alice Walker, and even abolitionist Sojourner Truth. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
FACULTY AND TEACHING
|
|
 |
Rutgers Math Professor Wins Abel Prize The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters recognized Endre Szemeredi with the unofficial Nobel Prize in mathematics and $1 million award. In 1975, he proved that arithmetical progressions can be found in any positive sequence of integers - a discovery that has inspired a generation of mathematicians. |
|
 |
Rutgers Human Ecologist Elected to National Academy of Sciences Bonnie McCay, a Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, studies economic, biological and human aspects of marine fisheries and coastal communities. She was recognized for her continued achievements in original research. |
|
 |
Tayari Jones Receives Lifetime Achievement in the Fine Arts Award from Congressional Black Caucus Jones, who teaches graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program on Rutgers' Newark campus, was recognized for her "brilliant literary contributions." |
|
 |
Was the Lindbergh Kidnapping an Inside Job? Eight decades after the crime that transfixed the world, Lloyd C. Gardner, professor of history emeritus, has found evidence that Charles Lindbergh may have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of his 20-month-old son. |
|
 |
President Obama Selects Altan-Bonnet for Prestigious Science and Engineering Award Nihal Altan-Bonnet, a cell biologist at Rutgers-Newark, received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for her research of viral replication in infected cells. |
|
 |
Budding Meteorologists Hit the Road to Chase Gathering Storms A new course, “Severe Weather Field Trip,” was designed to help students better understand the dynamics and thermodynamics that lead to some of the most beautiful yet complex atmospheric circulations on Earth. |
|
 |
Rutgers Professor Tackles Stereotypes of Women Suicide Bombers An operative for the Palestinian group Hamas is one of dozens of female suicide bombers portrayed in a new book,Women Suicide Bombers: Narratives of Violence by Julie Rajan. The book is the first to challenge the way female suicide bombers are represented in the media. |
|
 |
Rutgers Dean Honored for Contributions to U.S.-Japanese Relations William Holzemer, dean of the College of Nursing at Rutgers-Newark, was honored with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. He has taught at St. Luke's College in Tokyo for 25 years. |
|
 |
Rutgers-Camden Students Study Apocalyptic Thinking According to the ancient Mayan calendar, the end of the world is fast approaching. Stuart Charme, a professor of religion, teaches a course titled "The End of the World," in which students analyze apocalyptic beliefs throughout history. |
|
 |
Rutgers Faculty and Staff Ambassadors Leverage Travel Abroad The university's new Faculty and Staff Ambassadors Program, administered by the Centers for Global Advancement and International Affairs (GAIA), provides supplemental funds for Rutgers faculty and staff members to visit and strengthen relations with the university's international partners. |
|
 |
Thomas Edison's First Wife May Have Died of a Morphine Overdose Online sources helped Louis Carlat and his colleagues uncover new information about Edison’s personal and professional life, including the intriguing possibility that his first wife, Mary Edison, died from a morphine overdose. |
|
 |
Rutgers-Camden Law Scholar Wins Berger Memorial Prize Kimberly Kessler-Ferzan was honored by the American Philosophical Association with its prestigious Berger Memorial Prize for her article, "Beyond Crime and Commitment: Justifying Liberty Deprivations of the Dangerous and Responsible." |
|
| |
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS | |
 |
Rutgers Scientist Discovers New Frog Species in New York, New Jersey While discovering new species in remote rainforests is common, finding this one in the ponds and marshes of Staten Island, mainland New York, and New Jersey was a big surprise to the scientists from Rutgers University, UCLA, UC Davis, and the University of Alabama. |
|
 |
Rutgers-led Study Finds Largest Galaxy Cluster in Early Universe Officially known as ACT-CL J0102-4915, the galaxy cluster has been nicknamed "El Gordo" ("the big one" or "the fat one" in Spanish) by the researchers who discovered it. The name describes just one of the remarkable qualities of the cluster, which is located more than 7 billion light years from Earth. |
|
 |
Rutgers Engineers Design Mobile App to Reduce Distracted Driving Rutgers engineers and colleagues at Stevens Institute of Technology have designed a smart phone application that pinpoints where a cell phone user is sitting: on the driver’s side or the passenger’s side. |
|
 |
Rutgers-Camden Researchers Receive $4 Million Grant to Study Underserved Families in South Jersey Robin Stevens, an assistant professor of childhood studies, leads an interdisciplinary effort to improve the lives of working poor families in Atlantic, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties. |
|
 |
Rutgers Physicists Contribute to Worldwide Search for the Higgs Boson Rutgers particle physicists got an early start to their July 4 holiday by watching a 3 a.m. webcast from Switzerland that unveiled a discovery they contributed to: a subatomic particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson. |
|
 |
National Science Foundation Awards Rutgers $1.4 Million to Create Ways to Analyze ‘Big Data’ Rutgers researchers Martin Farach-Colton and Paul Kantor have been awarded nearly $1.4 million as part of an initiative to extract useful information from so-called “big data” – massive collections of data from scientific instruments, digital images, social media streams and business transactions. |
|
 |
Rutgers Receives $2.2 Million to Research Genetics of Autism Rutgers' Human Genetics Institute has received $2.2 million to continue researching the genetics of autism spectrum disorder. Linda Brzustowicz and her research team have been studying the genetic influences of autism on families for the past eight years. |
|
 |
Bilingual Education Can Start Preschoolers on Path to Success The new infant-through-preschool center on Rutgers' Camden Campus offers dual and bilingual education to students soon after birth. Classes at the John S. and James L. Knight Early Learning Research Academy are taught three days a week in Spanish and two days a week in English. |
|
 |
Rutgers-Camden Biophysicist Innovates Drug Design through Virtual Interactions Grace Brannigan, an assistant professor of physics, is working toward the design of new drugs not through the tradition of unintended consequences, but through figuring out the actual interactions between drugs and proteins. |
|
| UNIVERSITY EXPANSION AND ENHANCEMENT |
||
 |
Rutgers to Join Committee on Institutional Cooperation The university has accepted an invitation to join the nation’s premier higher education consortium of top-tier research institutions. The 13-member consortium includes the University of Chicago as well as Big Ten Conference members, including the University of Illinois, Northwestern, the University of Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State and Purdue. |
|
 |
President Barchi Launches Universitywide Strategic Planning Initiative The university’s first strategic planning initiative in more than 15 years, which will seek input from all Rutgers stakeholders, will lead to a plan that “clearly outlines an ambitious but realistic vision and a strategy” to enhance the university’s standing as a top research university. |
|
 |
Rutgers-Newark Ranked No. 1 in Ethnic Diversity by U.S. News and World Report Rutgers-Newark has been ranked first in the U.S. in the "Ethnic Diversity" category for the 15th year in a row. The largest ethnic group at Rutgers-Newark is Asian American, representing 24% of the school's student population. |
|
 |
New Student Housing in Piscataway To meet the growing demand for on-campus housing, Rutgers opened a 1,500-bed apartment style complex for graduate and undergraduate students on Livingston Campus. |
|
 |
Barnes & Noble Opens College Avenue Campus Superstore The three-story, 48,000-square-foot facility in The Gateway Village at College Avenue and Somerset Street provides the university and the city of New Brunswick a world-class, full-service bookstore and cultural hub adjacent to the New Jersey Transit train station. |
|
 |
Rutgers Named Among Top Military-Friendly Universities Rutgers ranks third among approximately 300 traditional, four-year institutions in Military Times magazine's annual Best For Vets survey for the second consecutive year. The ranking takes into account academic flexibility, campus culture, financial assistance and support services. |
|
 |
Engineering Living-Learning Community Fortifies Women's College Environment The new Douglass Women in Engineering Living-Learning Community, located in one wing of the fourth floor of Barr Hall, provides a close-knit living environment with academic mentoring and group activities for students in a common field of study. |
|
 |
Rutgers Fundraising Campaign Sets New Record Our Rutgers, Our Future has raised more than $626 million in private donations so far. A total of $615 million was raised during the university’s last campaign, conducted from 1998 to 2004. The campaign is well on pace to surpass its $1 billion fundraising goal. |
|
 |
Rutgers' Kirkpatrick Chapel Restoration a Work of Art Renovations and restorations of Kirkpatrick Chapel are well under way. Without a doubt the most eye catching work is being done on the windows - two windows that even the stain glass experts call enormous, and three Tiffany windows they say are priceless. |
|
| |
|
|
| ALUMNI | ||
 |
Rutgers School of Law-Newark Alumni Menendez, Warren Elected to U.S. Senate Robert Menendez, a member of the U.S. Senate form New Jersey since 2006, graduated in 1979. Senator-elect for the state of Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren graduated in 1976. |
|
 |
Rutgers Graduate Youngest Regional CEO in the American Red Cross Mathieu Nelessen, a 1999 Rutgers graduate, would not be happy in a behind-the-desk kind of job or working for an organization that wasn't making a tangible impact on people's lives. |
|
 |
Rutgers salutes its own Tuskegee Airmen as "Red Tails" Movie Debuts Before becoming one of the first African-American faculty members at Rutgers, William Neal Brown served during World War II among the famous Tuskegee Airmen that are celebrated in the George Lucas film. |
|
 |
SouperVan: Small Kitchen, Big Mission The SouperVan’s co-founders ensure that each meal purchased by the food truck's customers helps defray the cost of meals for the less fortunate. The SouperVan operates under the umbrella of Rutgers Against Hunger.
|
|
 |
Mason Gross Alum's Film Lights Up Times Square Andre Constantini's short film Universal Pulse was the first to be created specifically for use on the Times Square screens. It also marks the largest coordinated effort in history by sign operators to display synchronized creative content. |
|
| ON CAMPUS | ||
 |
Rutgers Welcomes 250th Anniversary Class Approximately 7,500 first-year students over all three major campuses will help make the student body at Rutgers the largest in the university’s 246-year history. More than 58,000 degree seekers in Newark, New Brunswick and Camden comprise the record-setting population. |
|
 |
Gov. Christie Signs Higher Ed Restructuring Legislation Rutgers officials welcomed Gov. Chris Christie and Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney for a historic signing of the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act. |
|
 |
CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° Bullying: It Stops Here Wins Emmy Award AC360° chose to host the forum at Rutgers following the suicide of student Tyler Clementi in September 2010 and the increased national attention on bullying-related teen suicides that followed. |
|
 |
New Rutgers Initiative to Focus on Women and Media Dismayed by a lack of women’s voices at many levels of the media industry – producing, directing, writing and appearing as leading characters – the Institute for Women’s Leadership at Rutgers and the School of Communication and Information team to even the odds. |
|
 |
Bestseller Sparks Campuswide Dialogue on Medical Ethics and Morality Not only was Rebecca Skloot 's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks the primary text for the School of Arts and Sciences honors program and first-year students at Douglass Residential College, but the bestselling author visited campus to discuss science, medicine, bioethics and race. |
|
 |
Celebrating 40 Years of Coeducation at Rutgers
In its 1972 edition, a few short months before the first women students officially moved onto College Avenue, the Rutgers yearbook Scarlet Letter wondered, “Coeds: Will they change anything?” A better question might have been: Would anything remain the same? |
|
 |
Dancing with the Deans at Rutgers Deans and administrators donned tuxedos and gowns and showed off their swing, tango, salsa and waltz skills. to raise money for a special emergency fund that helps students buy basic necessities. |
|
 |
Rutgers Run for Warriors Raises Funds, Touches Hearts Fifth annual 5K race raised more than $30,000 for wounded warriors and their families through Hope for Warriors, a nonprofit that helps veterans, particularly wounded veterans, return to civilian life. |
|
| PARTNERSHIPS AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES |
||
 |
Rutgers Opens Academic Center at Atlantic Cape Community College The academic and administrative center on the Mays Landing campus allows Rutgers to expand academic opportunities for students from Atlantic, Cape May and surrounding counties who hold associate degrees and wish to earn Rutgers degrees close to where they live or work. |
|
 |
Rutgers Law Students, Deans Help Draw New Congressional Districts The constitutional requirement that House district boundaries be redrawn once every 10 years to reflect the results of the national census can raise difficult legal issues. And when population shifts mean the gain or loss of congressional seats, as happened in New Jersey, the political interest is particularly keen. |
|
 |
Latest Cohort of Rutgers Future Scholars Brings Total Number of Participants to 1,000 The program embraced its fifth and latest cohort of seventh-graders from Newark, Camden, New Brunswick and Piscataway to take advantage of a program offering mentoring, educational enrichment and support. |
|
 |
Rutgers Helps Local Officials Adapt to Climate Change The state’s municipalities must make changes in planning, emergency management and land-use policies to adjust to the new reality. Rutgers professor Ken Miller supports municipal and county officials as they prepare local communities for the effects of climate change. |
|
 |
Rutgers Teams with IBM to Build High Performance Computing Center Rutgers formally launched a High-Performance Computing (HPC) center at the university today focused on the application of “Big Data” analytics in life sciences, finance, and other industries. |
|
 |
CLASP Bonds Rutgers Students with Surrounding Communities The merger of academic interests with hands-on community involvement for such a rewarding summer internship experience is exactly what program director and doctoral student Cynthia Gorman had in mind when she created the Community Leadership, Action and Service Program. |
|
 |
Rutgers’ Chabad Partners with Medical Center Student volunteers from the Les Turchin Chabad House at Rutgers fan out to local hospitals and nursing homes every Friday afternoon before the sun sets, bearing flowers, cards and loaves of challah to help the ailing and the elderly observe the Sabbath. |
Media Contact: Amber E. Hopkins-Jenkins
(732) 932-7084, ext. 601
E-mail: aehopkinsjenkins@ur.rutgers.edu
Your Source for University News
Contact: Webmaster, Office of Media Relations, Alexander
Johnston Hall, 101 Somerset St. New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1281, 732-932-7084
Copyright © 2007, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Log in
RSS
|
Subscribe to Rutgers RSS Feeds
Copyright © 2007, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Log in
RSS
|
Subscribe to Rutgers RSS Feeds