The Rising of Rutgers University In Newark: A Growing Reputation For Excellence

Rutgers University in Newark is a rising star. From a "Best kept secret" in academia, Rutgers-Newark is now increasingly well known as a top environment for scholars, as a nationally ranked institution in a number of disciplines, and as a national example for some of the best practices in promoting diversity and community engagement. Here are some recent highlights.

The Rankings
Rutgers-Newark's growing reputation for academic excellence, civic engagement, diversity and accessibility is confirmed by recent rankings from U.S. News & World Report. The publication lists Rutgers-Newark among the Best National Universities, ranks R-N as the nation's Most Diverse national university for the 14th consecutive year, and in a new category, lists R-N as one of the A-Plus Colleges for B Students among national universities.

Washington Monthly's recent college assessments take a different slant, with rankings of institutions based on their "contributions to public good." Rutgers-Newark came out in this recently as #18 among national universities.

Programs in business, law, criminal justice, nursing, public administration and psychology continue to receive high rankings, along with the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, which was recently cited by Poets & Writers magazine among the top 50 MFA programs in the nation.

Enrollment Growth
Fall 2010 enrollment figures are the highest since the Newark campus of Rutgers University was established in 1946. This semester's total of 11,798 undergraduates and graduate students broke the previous record of 11,500 set just last fall, a 21% increase in the last 10 years.

Energizing Scholarship
This academic year's 52 new faculty appointments are bringing energizing scholarship to the campus, often with significant impacts on the university's long-standing tradition of civic engagement. School of Criminal Justice faculty hired in the last year, notes Dean Todd Clear, were chosen because they are nationally recognized scholars in their particular fields as well as urban specialists eager to work in Newark and conduct research here.

High-quality appointees "dramatically impact the reputation of the campus," says College of Nursing (CON) Dean William Holzemer, and also affect a school's culture. He notes that CON has brought in new faculty whose research is widely published and disseminated and who have received support through prestigious sources such as the National Institutes of Health.

At the same time, says Faculty of Arts and Sciences-Newark (FAS-N) Dean Philip Yeagle, new appointees are attracted "by the strong scholarly communities in their fields, the strength of the Rutgers name, and the incredible diversity of our community." These observations are echoed by one new assistant professor, Aldo Civico, sociology and anthropology, a regular blogger on The Huffington Post, and a frequently cited media expert in the topic of terrorism, insurgency and counter-insurgency. Rutgers is "a very exciting and attractive place" for a scholar, he explains, but Newark itself is "a city with a very interesting and innovative political leadership... this is something very attractive to me also as a scholar interested in civic participation and in strategies to deal with youth violence."

Rutgers-Newark As A Role Model
The Fall 2010 issue of The Presidency magazine, published by the American Council on Education (ACE), featured an article by Chancellor Steve Diner, describing the experience of having Rutgers-Newark used as a "learning lab." ACE recently completed a two-year case study of R-N by representatives of the nation's higher learning institutions through its Fellows Program - the first time ACE Fellows studied an actual higher education institution, in a non-hypothetical leadership experience.