Welcome to the 2011–12 Academic Year at Rutgers

September 1, 2011

Dear Students:

Hello and welcome, or welcome back, to the Camden Campus of Rutgers! We hope that those of you from the East Coast and your families are coping well with the effects of Hurricane Irene.

To our newest students, we are delighted that you have chosen Rutgers. I encourage you to take advantage of the myriad resources available at the university, starting with our superb faculty, to ensure that you will have a deeply rewarding Rutgers experience.

Let me point out a few changes at Rutgers–Camden that have taken place over the summer:

  • Dr. Kriste Lindenmeyer has begun her tenure as the dean of the Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Dean Lindenmeyer has joined us from the University of Maryland Baltimore County with an outstanding reputation as a research scholar and proponent of innovations in teaching.
  • With the Rutgers Board of Governors’ formal approval in June, the former Department of Nursing within the Camden College of Arts and Sciences has become the comprehensive, degree-granting Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden, led by acting dean Joanne Robinson. This answers a critical need throughout New Jersey for high-caliber nursing education that combines a research-based curriculum with invaluable clinical experiences.
  • New housing for graduate students is under construction on the southern 300 block of Cooper Street, and we expect the 350-bed facility to be open by next fall.

Many of our efforts this summer were focused on working with Governor Christie’s advisory committee on medical education to advance the possibility that several elements of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, including the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, will be integrated into Rutgers. Such a step, which we hope will be recommended by the committee this month, would add critically important capabilities that will enhance Rutgers' profile as one of America's leading research universities and will enable us to better serve the people of New Jersey.

This initiative is one of several urgent goals for the university in the year ahead, including further advancement toward the billion-dollar target of our fundraising campaign. To hear more about our plans, please attend my Annual Address to the University Community, which will take place Friday, September 16, at 1:10 p.m. at the University Senate meeting in the Rutgers Student Center on College Avenue in New Brunswick. If you cannot attend, the address will be webcast at http://www.president.rutgers.edu/address11.shtml.

I hope this is a year of discovery, excitement, and joy. For those who will be earning a degree this year, I hope it will be particularly rewarding and memorable. Welcome to all of you!

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