A Message from the Acting Dean

The past academic year was one of challenges for Rutgers University, which sustained the largest cut in state funding in the school’s history. However, Rutgers and the Graduate School-New Brunswick continued to strengthen our efforts and began new initiatives. In particular, President Richard L. McCormick joins me in welcoming 10 new Presidential Fellows to the University this fall. These fellowships, with very competitive stipends and full tuition and fee remission, are offered to exceptional doctoral candidates in programs across the University. Seven fellows in the inaugural class entered New Brunswick programs in Biomedical Engineering, Education, Literatures in English, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Philosophy, Political Science, and Psychology. As examples of how we are strengthening our curriculum, the Graduate School will be offering the Master of Arts for Teachers degree in Chinese and a completely new degree, the Master’s in Engineering.

Every year in March I have the pleasure of welcoming back to campus 6 distinguished alumni/ae of the Graduate School. This past year we recognized the accomplishments of alumni/ae in Art History, Botany, Chemistry, Psychology, and Zoology. You are invited to nominate an alumnus or an alumna who is distinguished in their field, has made great strides during the first ten years since earning their Ph.D., or is worthy of the lifetime achievement award. More information may be found here, or feel free to contact us by telephone, 732-932-7275, or email. The deadline is October 1, 2007, for the 2008 awards.

In April I was delighted to recognize excellence in research and teaching by our graduate students, teaching by our faculty members, and service by our graduate program administrative assistants. These were only a few of the recognitions and awards our students have received. Through the efforts of our Chaser Center, which facilitates the success of graduate students in obtaining external funding, our students bring in over $1 million each year to support themselves and their studies and research. Much of that success can be attributed to the pre-dissertation and special study awards made possible by generous contributions to the School’s Academic Excellence Fund. The recipients of the Bevier and University Dissertation Fellowships are another example of the research accomplishments of our graduate students. We are able to sustain the stipends of these fellowships at a competitive level through generous contributions to the School’s Fellowship Fund. You may learn more about our awardees by visiting our awards page. The Graduate School is in the process of rebuilding its archives and would like to hear from past Bevier Fellows on how this fellowship made a difference in their educational experience at Rutgers. If you were a previous recipient of a Bevier Fellowship, we would like to hear from you and would appreciate it if you could please update your contact information.

This year brings promise of another successful academic year in graduate education in New Brunswick. In September, as I traveled around the campus welcoming the new students, I was impressed with their backgrounds and their commitment to graduate studies. Many of them have already begun to work with our Chaser Center to develop competitive proposals for external funding to support themselves and their studies and research. Others participated in the orientation for new Teaching Assistants, the first opportunity to benefit from almost 20 years of experience in helping graduate students become the most effective instructors in undergraduate classrooms and laboratories. This is an especially exciting year to be teaching in New Brunswick. Following the reorganization of undergraduate education, the first-year class in the arts and sciences is entering as one cohort, with the full range of opportunities of specialized and inter-disciplinary studies available to them.

We are proud of our graduate students and alumni/ae, and of their contributions to research, teaching, and service to New Jersey and the world. However, recruiting and supporting students has become more difficult, and we now find that the competition among leading universities for the best graduate students is as intense as the battle for the best faculty members. More is required, therefore, to realize the ambitious goal of being recognized as one of the top-ten public graduate schools in the nation. Above all, the School must significantly increase funds available for fellowships and other student support to compete for the finest graduate students. The Graduate School’s highest priority in fundraising is to increase support for graduate education that serves students and their research and professional development in programs across the campus:

• Offering competitive fellowships to foster inter-disciplinary studies, to enhance the diversity of our student population, and to foster timely completion of the degree via dissertation fellowships;
• Supporting our students and their research with travel grants to develop dissertation projects, to take advantage of summer institutes, and to present their work at scholarly meetings;
• Recognizing excellence in graduate student teaching and research;
• Providing training through our professional workshops and programs such as the Teaching Assistant Project and Chaser – the Resource Center for Graduate Student External Support

Supporting the Graduate School-New Brunswick

• Find out about the different Ways to Give
• To donate to the Graduate School-New Brunswick online, go to the Online Donation Page and select either the "Graduate School Fellowship Fund" or the "Graduate School Academic Excellence Fund." Your contributions will be used to:
  • Raise fellowship stipends to competitive levels and to increase the number of fellowships offered.
  • Enable graduate students to travel for research and presentations at conferences.
  • Recognize excellence in graduate student research and teaching.
  • Recruit talented graduate students from diverse backgrounds.

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