2010: A Year in Review at Rutgers

Date

December 16, 2010

As 2010 comes to a close, the university reflects upon a year filled with, at its best, stellar achievements, and at its worst, deep tragedy.

The university recognizes the outstanding accomplishments of the students, faculty, and administrators. And, because of the challenges the Rutgers community has experienced, the university continues to go through a process of introspection and examination.

Below is a sample of events that can inspire the university as Rutgers moves forward and strives for a better new year.

See highlights on the Newark and Camden campuses.

SCARLET, THE COLOR OF FAITH AND COURAGE

The Rutgers Division of Intercollegiate Athletics announced the establishment of the “Eric LeGrand Believe Fund” to support Eric LeGrand and his family. LeGrand, a junior defensive tackle for the Scarlet Knights, suffered a spinal cord injury Oct. 16 vs. Army. LeGrand has recently experienced stimulation in his hands and was named the winner of the 2010 Discover Orange Bowl-FWAA Courage Award.

Of all the athletes of the Rutgers Dance Team who bounded onto the field for Rutgers’ opening football game with Norfolk State on September 2, it’s a safe bet that few had to overcome the same obstacles along the way as first-year student Emily Amador. Despite being diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma last year, she fulfilled her dream of joining the Rutgers Dance team.

MOURNING AND REAFFIRMATION OF VALUES

The Rutgers University community mourned the death of first-year student Tyler Clementi. The tragedy and the events surrounding it served as a catalyst to re-examine the university's campus climate as well as cling to its core values of diversity and tolerance.

THE STUDENT AND PARENT EXPERIENCE

Kyle Loh was reading advanced science textbooks in first grade. At 13 he was off to community college. While at Rutgers, he discovered a passion for stem cell research. Now Loh is on his way to a doctoral program at Stanford University.

There are 596 Rutgers students who self-identify as veterans. They are nontraditional students who, unlike many of their classmates, often have to juggle work, family responsibilities, and military obligations along with their academics. National Guard and reserve units may be activated and deployed at any time. The new director of the veterans office at Rutgers started implementing his vision to enhance services for students.

The School of Arts and Sciences Dean's Emergency Assistance Fund, which is more than a decade old, got a timely boost in the fall of 2008 when Douglas Greenberg, executive dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, joined Rutgers just as the economy teetered on the brink of catastrophe. Undergraduates who have exhausted all other avenues, including financial aid, can seek help for small, education-related expenses.

The Rutgers football team has achieved the nation’s number one ranking in Academic Progress Rate according to the latest multi-year APR figures released by the NCAA. The historic accomplishment continues a trend for the Rutgers football program of success both in the classroom and on the playing field.

Twice weekly during the summer, the Busch Campus Center served as a hub for moms and dads who had delivered their now-young adults to the Livingston Campus for two days of student orientation and were eager to hear what Rutgers has in store for them at their own version of orientation.

RUTGERS LEADERSHIP AND FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

Ralph Izzo, chair, president and chief executive officer of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) in Newark, was elected to a one-year term as chair of the Board of Governors of Rutgers. His term runs through 2014.

Professor Jacquelyn Litt, an award-winning sociologist and the founding chair of women’s and gender studies at the University of Missouri, was appointed the new dean of Douglass Residential College and the Douglass Campus at Rutgers University.

Scott Glenn, who led a team of faculty, students and staff in a successful effort to send the first submersible robot glider across an ocean, has been named the 2010 New Jersey Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

UNIVERSITY INITIATIVES

NJ.com, the online home of 12 New Jersey newspapers, including The Star-Ledger, launched a new web portal devoted exclusively to news about Rutgers. The website highlights news and information about the university. It is the first such alliance NJ.com has established with a university.

Rutgers launched a seven-year campaign, "Our Rutgers, Our Future," to raise $1 billion to support and enhance the many ways the university serves students and beyond. The historic campaign will sustain Rutgers in its work of education, research and service and help secure its place among the nation’s most highly respected public research universities.

Rutgers opened its New Brunswick and Piscataway campuses and classrooms to the public for the second annual Rutgers Day last spring. The event offered an eclectic mix of more than 500 free programs, something for every age and interest.

In poll after poll, Americans have voiced concern over the deterioration of civility in every corner of life, from angry discourse in the halls of Congress to cell phone use at the local movie theater. Rutgers launched a two-year, university-wide dialogue on civility, covering topics such as bullying, rude behavior, personal privacy, road rage, use of technology and other daily evidence of incivility.

ACADEMIC HIGHLIGHTS

Each student who enrolled in the new Mini-MBA: Digital Marketing Executive Certificate Program launched at Rutgers last summer received an iPad, but it wasn't intended to be a shiny, new toy offered as a gift just for participating. Rather, the iPads were an integral part of the 12-session program, customized with Apple's help to provide a new dimension to executive education in a field being fueled by technology.

Rutgers is one of a handful of universities to have direct access to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education archives, which contains interviews with thousands of Holocaust survivors across the globe.

Rutgers' Africana Studies department recognized its 40 anniversary with a yearlong celebration that included NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous. The department was established through the black protest movement that took place on campus.

CAMPUS ENHANCEMENTS

Rutgers unveiled a three-dimensional rendering of the vision for the Livingston Campus through Second Life, an online virtual world where anyone can interact with others. Users could see the anticipated dining hall, dorms and business school, as well as the other facilities that are expected to remain, such as the Janice H. Levin Building, Beck Hall and the Kilmer Library. Currently, the virtual exteriors are fully functional.

The university approved the construction of a new facility for the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway. It will be the centerpiece of the long-term plan to redevelop the Livingston Campus into a center for business and professional studies.

The new Catholic Center at Rutgers University opened at 94 Somerset St. in New Brunswick in the beginning of the year. The facility provides lots of meeting and activity space for the growing organization.

When students returned to the College Avenue Campus in September, they noticed significant renovations to Campbell Hall, is one of three residential halls overlooking the Raritan River. Each hall is part of larger renovation project Hardenberg is the next residential hall of the group that is expected to be completed, possibly next fall.

RESEARCH MILESTONES & INNOVATION

Two Rutgers professors, aided by a team of graduate and undergraduate student assistants, are working on an intriguing solution to the parking woes that plague metropolitan America. ParkNet, a system still in development, will help drivers to electronically pinpoint the location of available street parking.

A project at Rutgers to build one of the most advanced electron microscopes in the world was praised by the White House in September as an example of a federal stimulus project that is helping to transform the nation.

Engineers at Rutgers have modified a popular home video game system to help teenagers with cerebral palsy improve hand functions. In a pilot trial with three participants, the system improved the teens’ abilities to perform a range of daily personal and household activities.

Despite the continuing, crippling effects of a nationwide recession, a genetics research laboratory on the Busch Campus is experiencing an economic boom. And the continued success of the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is not only raising the university’s profile as a world leader in human disease and genome studies, but is also bringing in millions of dollars in federal and foundation grants that benefit the economy throughout the region.

Rutgers researchers are developing methods that can accurately assess the severity of prostate cancer by analyzing magnetic resonance images (MRIs) and spectra of a patient’s prostate gland. This may help physicians decide more confidently which patients need aggressive treatment and which are better served by “watchful waiting,” and could even postpone or eliminate invasive biopsies in patients with low-grade tumors.

According to researchers at Rutgers, new wireless technologies in cars may compromise a driver’s privacy and pose a security threat. Modern automobiles are increasingly equipped with wireless sensors and devices. Rutgers researchers have shown that these wireless signals can be intercepted 120 feet away from the car using a simple receiver despite the shielding provided by the metal car body.

A Rutgers-developed structural “lumber” made from recycled plastic is once again flexing its muscle – this time in two bridges that carry freight trains, in some cases weighing as much as 120 tons, over streams at the U.S. Army’s Fort Eustis installation in Newport News, Virginia.

Media Contact: Nicole Pride
732-932-7084
E-mail: npride@ur.rutgers.edu

2010: A Year in Review at Rutgers

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