Welcome to a New Academic Year

September 2, 2008
 

Dear Rutgers Faculty and Staff:

Welcome to a new academic year at Rutgers! I hope your summer has been rewarding and enjoyable.

We have had much to celebrate over the past few months. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education gave Rutgers high praise and sound advice in making official our reaccreditation. This summer on all three campuses, we greeted very enthusiastic groups of rising eighth graders from our host cities—200 boys and girls altogether—who are the first participants in our Rutgers Future Scholars program. As I announced last week, we set a new record high in annual private giving with more than $121 million raised in 2007-08. And last month in China, two Rutgers graduates won Olympic gold: Cappie Pondexter in women’s basketball and Carli Lloyd in women’s soccer, where she scored the game–winner in the gold medal game.

The 2008–09 year brings exciting changes across our campuses.

  • In Newark, we launch our undergraduate major in public service in the School of Public Affairs and Administration. Our new Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and new Department of Supply Chain Management in the Rutgers Business School mark their first full year. We also welcome Mark Winston as assistant chancellor and director of the Dana Library; Simon Reich as Director of the Division of Global Affairs; and Sherri-Anne Butterfield as the first faculty fellow in the Office of the Chancellor.
     
  • In Camden, our new School of Law facility matches the excellence of our faculty, students, staff, and alumni. We welcome the first students into our new MFA program in creative writing, offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the inaugural class for the four-year undergraduate program at the School of Business.
     
  • In New Brunswick, we are preparing to host a national conference on diversity in higher education in early December. We welcome Doug Greenberg and Jorge Schement back to Rutgers as they begin their deanships of the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and the School of Communications, Information and Library Studies. And the SAS Office of International Programs has planned a yearlong series of events on human rights for all three campuses to mark the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Let me take this opportunity to invite you to attend my sixth Annual Address to the University Community on Friday, September 19, at 1:10 p.m. in the Rutgers Student Center on College Avenue on the New Brunswick Campus. Following the address, I will take questions from the audience and asked by email. You may also see the webcast via my website.

As we face new challenges—and welcome an incoming class that gives the university its largest-ever enrollment—I reiterate my thanks and admiration for all that you do for Rutgers and wish you every success in the new academic year.

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