At the Board: June 2018
The Board of Governors fills chairs, names university professor, approves renovations at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine and establishes new master’s programs
The Board of Governors named Peter D. Cole, a world-renowned leader in pediatric oncology research, as the first holder of the Embrace Kids Foundation Chair in Pediatric Hematology Oncology. The university established the chair with a gift from the Embrace Kids Foundation and a matching gift by an anonymous donor. The New Brunswick-based organization supports families whose children are facing cancer, sickle cell and other serious health challenges. Cole, recently named chief of pediatric hematology/oncology at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, will play an important role in helping the university advance precision medicine and other cutting-edge research to better inform treatment decisions for the youngest of patients.
The board appointed Suhayl Dhib-Jalbut, professor and joint chair of the Departments of Neurology at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, to the Ruth Dunietz Kushner and Michael Jay Serwitz Chair in Multiple Sclerosis. Dhib-Jalbut is internationally known for his scholarly contributions and leadership in multiple sclerosis. He serves on the editorial boards of several top-tier journals, and is a member of the editorial board and past associate editor of the Multiple Sclerosis Journal. He also directs the RWJ Center for Multiple Sclerosis and is past president of the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in MS.
The Board of Governors named John Kuo Wei Tchen, one of the nation’s leading public humanists, as the first holder of the Clement A. Price Chair in Public History and the Humanities. The chair was established in 2016 with a gift of $2 million by the Mellon Foundation to honor the legacy and life’s work of Clement A. Price, a beloved professor of U.S. history and African-American studies at Rutgers University-Newark who died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2014. The funds were supplemented with additional gifts totaling $1 million from corporations, foundations, alumni and friends of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences-Newark. Tchen has played a leading role in shaping public history in the United States, having co-founded the Museum of the Chinese in America in New York City, where he currently serves as senior historian.
The Board of Governors appointed Ronald K. Chen, a member of the faculty since 1987 and co-dean of the Rutgers Law School, as a university professor. Chen, the former public advocate for the State of New Jersey, has worked with the Camden co-dean and the law faculty to formulate and deliver a unified comprehensive curriculum that provides exceptional breadth and depth in theory, practice and interdisciplinary courses and that utilizes state-of-the-art, immersive distance-learning technology to bring together faculty and students at in Newark and Camden.
The board approved up to $7.4 million for renovations to one of the clinics at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine’s 110 Bergen Street Pavilion in Newark, which opened in 1976. The project includes the renovation of 80 operatories, two X-ray rooms and a dispensary for a total of 11,700 square feet. About half of the school’s 120 Doctor of Dental Medicine students spend their third and fourth years in clinical training treating patients in this facility.
Rutgers Establishes Two New Master’s Programs
The Board of Governors approved a Master of Science in Forensic Science program at the Graduate School-Camden. The new degree program will prepare students for careers in forensic chemistry and forensic biology, fields that involve examining and analyzing evidence provided by investigators to help law enforcement agencies. The board also approved the establishment of a Master of Fine Arts in Design program at the Mason Gross School of the Arts. The program will prepare students for careers in the rapidly expanding field of design.