Margaret Marsh
Dean

September 14, 2004

Roger Dennis, Esq.
Provost

Dear Provost Dennis,

I am very happy to provide you with the Annual Report for the College of Arts and Sciences, University College, and the Graduate School for 2003-2004. In it you'll notice a number of highlights and milestones - student and faculty accomplishments, the development of new programs and the enhancement of existing ones, and the activities of our centers. As you do so, you might not give much thought to what isn't in here: There's no discussion of the long and exciting - although ultimately unfulfilled - planning process to restructure the state's three research universities. But even though restructuring may have failed, its impact permeates this document; that process helped us to crystalize our vision for the development of Arts and Sciences on this campus over the coming decade. As we move forward, we intend to preserve and enhance our strengths in undergraduate education while providing for significant expansion in graduate education. The transformation of Rutgers-Camden as an institution will benefit our own students as well as dramatically enrich higher education overall in Southern New Jersey.

Some of the prerequisites for that transformation are already in place, beginning with the faculty - excellent scholars with a passion for teaching and research. Last September we welcomed nine new colleagues in seven departments. During 2003-2004 we hired eight additional faculty in six departments for the upcoming academic year. These new appointments bring to a total of forty-seven the number of new faculty hired since I became dean, made possible by retirements and your willingness to reallocate lines to Arts and Sciences. These numbers include several distinguished senior faculty members as well as a cadre of exceptional recently-trained scholars and teachers.

In the graduate school our recently inaugurated professional programs are demonstrating early success. The innovative interdisciplinary program in Criminal Justice, which combines courses in public management, law, and administration with criminal justice theory and practice, completed its first successful year, as has a new concentration in Educational Policy and Leadership in the M.P.A. program, already making a significant contribution to educational policy and administrative leadership in our host city. Over the next two to three years we anticipate not only increasing our offerings at the Master's level but also developing selected Ph.D. programs - beginning with Childhood Studies, Public Affairs, and Computational Biology. Faculty committees have prepared preliminary documents in each of these areas that we expect will lead to the presentation of formal proposals in the fall of 2004. We are in the process of developing proposals for new master's degree programs in psychology and computer science, and we expect to begin the process of transforming the Master's of Physical Therapy Program (a joint program with UMDNJ) into a doctoral program in order to keep that program competitive in the region.

Several of our undergraduate departments also unveiled new programs and initiatives last year. For its creative approach to the teaching of composition (courses taken by all first-year students), the English Department received a University-wide Human Dignity Award. President McCormick, in making the award, commended the department for its "commitment, passion and tireless efforts" to promote "a diverse and cultural enriching environment" at Rutgers through these courses. Additional examples of new programs include Spanish for the Professions, designed to appeal to students interested in developing their ability to use Spanish in their careers; a newly revitalized interdisciplinary program in Latin American Studies; a joint B.A./D.O. program with UMDNJ-SOM; and a concentration in Applied and Computational mathematics. Our pilot Freshman Seminar Program was so successful that the faculty has now approved it as an ongoing part of the curriculum; we also have a revised general education curriculum with new emphases in diversity and global studies in addition to competencies in the natural and social sciences, language acquisition, and the humanities and arts.

As one aspect of their dedication to excellence in teaching, the faculty take pride in the involvement of undergraduate students in research. This year three seniors were honored with the Dean's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, and many more were able to conduct original research under the direction of a faculty member. Our undergraduates presented papers and poster sessions at regional and national conferences, completed independent research projects in faculty laboratories, and participated in the annual on-campus research day sponsored by the departments of psychology and sociology, anthropology, and criminal justice. Others from a varied group of majors participated in the Camden On-Line Poetry Project, where they have the opportunity to participate in the editing and publishing of two electronic journals housed in Arts and Sciences, The Mickle Street Review and the Painted Bride Quarterly. I am also happy to note that among our award-winning juniors and seniors, twenty, including twelve who graduated in May 2004, were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. In all of these areas, the Honors College played a significant role in attracting, retaining, and challenging students of high academic achievement.

We also encourage students to participate in the campus's commitment to our host city and region. Our students volunteered in the city of Camden; participated in applied research and service projects for the Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs, expanding their theoretical knowledge through interesting and relevant real world applications; and served internships at institutions ranging from hospitals to professional sports teams, from public television to the state police, from the county prosecutor's office to New Jersey Water Watch. Our undergraduate students also had the exciting opportunity to take part in study tours to Germany, Spain, Egypt, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Italy.

In news from our Centers and Institutes, we are happy to report that the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities (MARCH), directed by Professor Howard Gillette of the History Department, succeeded in qualifying for its Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Center now enjoys the distinction of being the first research center on this campus to be endowed. With funding from the Ford Foundation, MARCH also brought to the campus as its first regional fellow the highly acclaimed urban photographer Camilo Vergara. A MacArthur Fellow, Vergara has been photographing inner city areas, Camden among them, for more than a quarter of a century.

Our other centers continue to thrive as well. The Center for State Constitutional Studies, directed by Professor II of Political Science Alan Tarr, continued its Ford Foundation-funded project on State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, which is designed to chart directions for the reform of American state constitutions. SUNY Press will publish three volumes emanating from the project in 2005. The Center also expanded its international activities, including its ongoing "Global Dialogue on Federalism." With funding from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the Center hosted a conference on "Federalism and Subnational Constitutions" in Bellagio, Italy. The Conference led to the formation of the International Association of Subnational Constitutional Law, organized by Professor Tarr.

The Center for Children and Childhood Studies, directed by Myra Bluebond Langner, Professor II of Anthropology, celebrated its fourth birthday in March. In addition to the research activities of faculty associates, the Center has an ongoing book series, a thriving seminar program that brings senior and junior scholars from along the New York-Washington metropolitan corridor together with our own scholars, and a successful minor in Childhood Studies. The Center's signature outreach project, the Camden Campaign for Children's Literacy, has touched the lives of more than forty thousand children and adults in its three years of operation. The Center serves as the college's hub for interdisciplinary research in childhood studies, an emergent field in which our faculty have significant strength. We have begun taking steps to bring this excellence in teaching and scholarship to the next level by developing an M.A. and Ph.D. program in Childhood Studies. Childhood Studies as a field is new; our intent is to develop a scholarly agenda that focuses on childhood as a distinctive area of academic study in order to transform scholarly inquiry itself in a host of areas, from sociology, history, psychology, and religion, to business, medicine, and law.

The Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs and the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership, both of which report to the provost and serve the campus as a whole, are directed by Arts and Sciences faculty, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Richard Harris and Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor Gloria Bonilla Santiago, respectively. The Rand Institute continued to expand its research and public service activities in the areas of regional and community development, government capacity building, and non-profit technical assistance, receiving approximately 1.6 million dollars in grants and contracts. Professor Santiago took the lead in securing the $1.2 million grant for the new concentration in Educational Policy and Leadership in the graduate program in Public Administration, in addition to leading a broad array of service and outreach programs, including the LEAP Academy Charter School and High School.

Over the last few years the college and graduate school have been attracting more - and more highly qualified - students. At the end of last year, we recruited B. Christopher Dougherty, an expert in student assessment and adult learning, as Associate Dean and Director of EOF, to lead us in enhancing the EOF Program; overseeing The Learning Resource Center; and transforming the mission of University College so that it can better meet the needs of adult learners in the 21st century.

We are very proud of our programs, centers, new general curriculum, and excellent new faculty who join the outstanding scholars already here. During 2003-2004, our core group of just over 140 tenured and tenure-track faculty received $4.4 million in grants and produced approximately two hundred books, articles, presentations, poems, short stories, musical recordings, and exhibits. They have written on topics ranging from home health care to adolescent eating disorders; from computer modeling of the molecular structures of hormones through parallel algorithm design; from the history of jet and rocket engines to the process of the selection of state supreme court justices; from the moral development of children to the political development of our region. Our performing artists have made appearances as close as New York's Carnegie Hall and as far away as Istanbul, Turkey. Our faculty have testified before the U.S. Senate, been seen on television and heard on the radio. They have lectured and presented their work around the world, including Japan, Israel, Italy, Germany, and Canada, as well as across the United States.

Arts and Sciences has also generated new excitement among and growing financial support from alumni and friends, as indicated by our considerable success in the recently concluded Capital Campaign. Under the leadership of Director of Development Sharon Beales, Arts and Sciences far exceeded its capital campaign goal of $2.7 million, more than doubling that figure to $5.44 million over the life of the campaign. Our total for 2003-2004 was more than $1.2 million for scholarships and programs from individuals, corporations, and foundations.

Arts and Sciences and this campus as a whole have now reached a critical juncture and are ready to move in new and exciting directions. In order to maintain our successful ongoing programs, while creating the new initiatives that will take the campus, and higher education in South Jersey, to the next level of success, we will need significant additional support, including funding for physical and human capital, from our key constituents -- from the university to the State of New Jersey, from federal agencies to foundations, from corporations to our graduates and friends. Along with Associate Deans Cornelia, Dougherty, Hart, and Rosoff, I am looking forward to working on this exciting challenge with you as well as the president, members of the central administration, and my fellow deans in Law and Business.

Sincerely,

Margaret Marsh
Dean