Search for Vice President for Student Affairs

September 23, 2003

To the Rutgers University Community:

Dr. Emmet Dennis, who has served the University so ably for over three years as vice president for student affairs and dean of University College–New Brunswick, has expressed to me his desire to focus on his duties as dean of University College, and on the opportunities to increase Rutgers’ services to our non-traditional undergraduates. In addition to fulfilling his responsibilities as dean, Dr. Dennis will continue to serve as a professor of the life sciences and to pursue his active research in the field of parasitology. Given all of his other duties, Rutgers is fortunate that Dr. Dennis has been willing to lead student affairs for as long as he has, and we are grateful for the strides he and his staff have made in the student services areas during his tenure in that position.

Dr. Dennis has agreed to stay on as vice president for student affairs while we conduct a national search for his replacement. Under Dr. Philip Furmanski, executive vice president for Academic affairs, the student affairs area on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus will be expanded to include more aspects of student affairs, plus enrollment management. In addition, the interface with our academic units will be strengthened, so that we may provide even better service to our undergraduate and graduate students, and so that student life at Rutgers becomes truly integrated with a student’s academic and intellectual life.

Within the next several weeks, I will be appointing a search committee to conduct a national search for the position of vice president for student affairs at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. I hope you and your colleagues will recommend to the members of that committee the best internal and external candidates to lead student services at Rutgers to the next level of excellence.

Thank you.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey