Dean's Letter

October 8, 2002

Roger Dennis, Esq.
Provost
Rutgers University - Campus at Camden

Dear Provost Dennis,

I am very pleased to present you with the annual report for the Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The report provides an overview of the impressive accomplishments of the faculty, staff, and students in the 2001-2002 academic year.

As you know, the goals of the C-FAS are focused research, engaged teaching, and informed service.

The faculty's research and scholarship was presented in a dozen books and more than one hundred articles and chapters published in 2001-2002. The publication information is presented in each department's section of the report; as you will see when you read these sections, the faculty's articles are appearing in the very best journals and collections, and the books bear the imprint of the finest publishers in the world. Our faculty is contributing to scientific knowledge, to transformations in the understanding of cultures, and to the thoughtful discussion of the country's and the world's most pressing social problems. A number of our faculty members have received special recognition for their contributions, including Tyler Hoffman who received the Board of Trustees Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence and John Worrall, who was awarded the 2001 Robert Mehr Award from the American Risk and Insurance Association.

We have three reasons to believe that the faculty's research contributions, remarkable as they already are, will grow in future years. First, we have been fortunate in recruiting fifteen talented new scholars to join our faculty. Our new colleagues contribute to the vitality of the research mission, as they bring fresh ideas and novel ways of thinking to share with their colleagues.

Second, the faculty has had substantial success in the past year in attracting the grant support that is so important for research and scholarship along some lines of inquiry. Georgia Arbuckle-Keil, John Dighton, Joseph Martin, and Alex Roche have grants from the National Science Foundation, while Myra Bluebond-Langner, Sharon Gramby-Sobukwe, Liqin Tan, and Alan Tarr received significant support from private foundations for their research.

Third, the C-FAS's effort to build strength in interdisciplinary areas of strength is beginning to pay dividends. The Rutgers University Center for Children and Childhood Studies (RUCCS), directed by Myra Bluebond-Langner and Jesse W. Whitlow, has become the intellectual home for much of the research on campus focused on children. In its first two years of operation, RUCCCS has attracted two million dollars in support for its portfolio of research, service, and educational activities. More importantly, the Center has created the intellectual community for researchers on campus and in the region that leads to the exchange of new ideas, the formation of new research collaborations, and a deepening of commitment to addressing the challenges facing youth today. Finally, the success of the Center was instrumental in attracting several new researchers to our faculty.

Our other Centers and Initiatives are also serving to organize the research efforts of the faculty. The Center for State Constitutional Studies, directed by Alan Tarr and Robert Williams (C-Law), received a second large grant from the Ford Foundation to support interdisciplinary research and to serve as a resource to national and international political bodies. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH), a collaboration with Temple University and headed on our campus by Howard Gillette, has already had considerable success in focusing the educational and research efforts of regional humanities institutions, even as the Center seeks to finalize funding for the match to the challenge grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Both the Hybrid Materials and Information Processing in Complex Biological Systems groups have successfully competed for grants to buy high quality scientific equipment for research and teaching. We have good reason to be optimistic about the future of research and scholarship on the campus.

The 2001-2002 year was also marked by student achievements and new educational programs. As you know, May 2002 was the first time that students from Camden were honored with induction into Phi Beta Kappa. The range of accomplishments of students recognized with Phi Beta Kappa membership is truly impressive, and reminds students and faculty alike of the transforming potential of undergraduate education. Six students received awards for their research projects, conducted in collaboration with faculty members, in five disciplines: American studies, biology, chemistry, English, and history. A number of other students received recognition for their research and academic achievement at the annual honors convocation. The achievements of the graduate students were equally impressive. For example, Ken Hiltner, a 2002 graduate of the Masters in Liberal Studies program, has had a number of scholarly articles published, and a top publisher is considering his book manuscript, which grew out of a class project, for publication.

Our students benefit enormously from the opportunity to study with a talented faculty. The benefit is largest when students discuss important issues in class, receive critical commentary on their writing, work closely with their professors in studios, archives, and laboratories, and apply academic knowledge to real life problems in the context of structured community service and internships. We continue to work hard to increase these opportunities. The freshman seminar program, directed by Stuart Charmé, is our newest program in this effort. In the fall of 2001, nearly 200 first-year students enrolled in freshman seminars, small enrollment (20 or fewer students) classes taught by senior faculty. These seminars provided students with opportunities to become engaged in intellectual discussion and pursuits, as well as to develop relationships with faculty members. To the best of our knowledge, we are unique in the Rutgers system in providing all new students with the opportunity for a small enrollment class in order to foster engaged learning.

We have also developed new programs. Nancy Rosoff, Assistant Dean, led the successful effort to develop a joint B.A./J.D. program that will help us attract ambitious students and will provide to the law school well-prepared students. Drew Humphries and Associate Dean Marie Cornelia ushered the Masters Program in Criminal Justice through the labyrinthine process of program approval, and a dozen students were admitted in the spring of 2002 to begin classes in the fall of 2002. Several other programs are in development, and will be reported next year. The C-FAS provides students with a truly excellent education.

The C-FAS continues to make substantial contributions to public welfare. We aim to provide informed service-service that reflects the distinctive strengths of a research university-to the local, national, and international communities. Both the Center for Strategic Urban Leadership, directed by Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, and the Center for Children and Childhood Studies, directed by Myra Bluebond-Langner and Bill Whitlow, have been hugely successful in obtaining grant support for educational initiatives serving youth in Camden. Richard Harris, director of the Rand Institute, is leading the campus' contribution to the regional policy debate on land use in southern New Jersey, an effort for which the Rand Institute has received external funding. Finally, the Center for State Constitutional Studies is providing invaluable consultation to states in our country and around the world.

The accomplishments of 200 faculty and staff members and nearly 3500 students cannot be condensed in three pages. I have provided only a sampling of the remarkable achievements of the C-FAS in 2001-2002; I invite you to read through the pages that follow to explore each department's, and each faculty member's, activities and accomplishments in our most recently completed academic year.

Sincerely,

Daniel Hart
Acting Dean