The School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) is the largest and most comprehensive school at Rutgers University, a premier, public land grant institution. Our mission has much in common with comparable schools at peer institutions. Therefore, the general goals should be similar: Advancing research, fostering student success (in part by offering a broad, liberal arts education), and promoting community engagement. Here, we have developed the language and details of goals and initiatives that are specific to our School and its alignment with those of Rutgers University, its New Brunswick campus, and the State of New Jersey.
This plan articulates a clear purpose and set of strategies that advance the Academic Master Plan of Rutgers-New Brunswick and align with the three signature Presidential hallmarks of Rutgers University (Academic Excellence, Building Community, and Common Good). It is designed to provide a roadmap of guiding principles with the flexibility to adapt to the changing environment in which we work and to facilitate responses to opportunities as they arise.
BACKGROUND
The School of Arts and Sciences is made up of four divisions: The divisions of Humanities, Life Sciences (DLS), Math and Physical Sciences (MPS), and Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS). Across these four divisions, there are 751 tenure system faculty (T/TT), 294 full-time nontenure-track faculty (NTT), and 370 lecturers. Across SAS, 231 administrative staff work within in SAS departments, centers, and institutes and 202 provide support from SAS central offices, which include the discipline-related divisions and offices such as Information Technology, Communications and Marketing, and Undergraduate Education (reported as of February 2024). Of the central SAS staff, 95 of the positions are in the Office of Undergraduate Education and provide advising, honors programming and resources, and other academic services as well as support for the administration of scholarships; 44 of the positions serve IT and data management functions across the School.
SAS was launched in 2007, bringing together the talent, traditions, and energy of four colleges on the New Brunswick campus: Douglass, Livingston, Rutgers, and University Colleges. Since that time, the School has evolved toward unifying its identity and operations. This plan identifies a shared mission, vision, and set of values to complete the transformation into One SAS. We seek to integrate the breadth of perspectives and multiple definitions of success that stem from our diverse origins while looking to a future grounded in a common set of values along with shared priorities and goals.
The values of diversity, equity, and inclusion must be infused into all that we do. Within SAS, a strategic plan for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was completed during the 2022-23 academic year.
This plan identified five priorities:
- Recruit, Retain, and Develop a Diverse Community
- Promote Inclusive Scholarship and Teaching
- Define Sustainable and Substantive Community Engagement
- Build the Capacity of Leaders to Create Inclusive Climates
- Develop an Institutional Infrastructure to Drive Change
The first recommendation of this plan was to create a position in the SAS Dean’s Office to advance DEI efforts. Near the end of the 2024 spring semester, our inaugural Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion position was filled. The priorities of the DEI strategic plan are represented in the goals and strategies outlined below. The new Vice Dean position will be instrumental in facilitating change across the priorities.
As a School, our work is strongest when it integrates across our missions and goals. While items are organized below within goals for simplicity in description and future reporting on progress, many of the ideas bridge opportunities. Many of the recommendations provided by the committees involve partnerships and collaborations across the New Brunswick campus and beyond, some of which are already underway. In some cases, these connections are specifically noted below. Even when they are not, we should keep in mind the possibilities for when and where bridges might be built. While highlighting the importance of enhancing all of these types of connections, this SAS planning process has also made clear that we need to do more to increase awareness of the shared efforts as well as existing opportunities within SAS offices, and to clarify the levels at which some initiatives and decision-making may exist in this extraordinarily complex institution of Rutgers.
Financial pressures on the School and funding constraints were highlighted at several points during the development of this strategic plan. A number of the strategies are relevant both to increasing revenue (e.g., through tuition and grants as academic programs and research move forward) and decreasing expenses (e.g., by simplifying procedures and clarifying expectations). The attention of the Executive Dean will be focused on increasing resources for the School through a range of mechanisms, including fundraising and advocacy to the leadership of Rutgers-New Brunswick and the University more broadly.
PROCESS
This strategic plan was developed through a series of committees, comprised of approximately 70 SAS faculty and staff from across our units, who worked sequentially from October 2023 to May 2024 to generate the information and ideas. An Advisory Committee with New Brunswick campus, University, and alumni representatives provided feedback. Please see the list of participants; we are grateful for their work.
Visioning
This committee developed statements of Mission (what we are here to do), Vision (what we intend to become), and Values (how we should do our work).
Data Collection and Analysis
This committee gathered quantitative and qualitative data needed to assess our current situation and to provide potential baselines for evaluating the success of components of the strategic plan. This work included analyzing the School’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, and identifying the gaps between where we are now and our vision for five years into the future.
Planning, Implementation, and Metrics
This group operated in two phases. Phase 1 involved the development of specific SAS-level goals and strategies, as well as a set of academic themes spanning our disciplines. The themes reflect areas of strength that provide opportunities for synergy and significant advancement for research, education, and community engagement across SAS and the campus more broadly. While we will continue to support the core disciplines in which the themes are grounded, these cross-cutting areas are priorities for investment. Phase 2 developed recommendations for implementation and definitions of what success may look like (sample metrics).
The Executive Dean and Director of Communications and Marketing synthesized the committees’ final reports and posted a draft for comment by faculty and staff before finalizing the text. At each step, information was gathered broadly to obtain diverse input to be used in an inclusive process. Each working group had access to the report of the prior committee(s). Input from undergraduate and graduate students was solicited in early summer 2024. Feedback from these groups, as well as members of the senior staff of the Executive Dean’s Office, was incorporated as the final version was completed. The original posted version included the first three goals presented here. The fourth goal was added based on the feedback received before the final version was completed.
The first recommendation of this plan was to create a position in the SAS Dean’s Office to advance DEI efforts. Near the end of the 2024 spring semester, our inaugural Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion position was filled. The priorities of the DEI strategic plan are represented in the goals and strategies outlined below. The new Vice Dean position will be instrumental in facilitating change across the priorities.
MISSION, VISION, AND VALUES
Mission
The School of Arts and Sciences is the core of the research and teaching missions of Rutgers–New Brunswick providing a foundational liberal arts education to students from all backgrounds. Our world-class faculty generates and shares knowledge from the subatomic to the social to the cosmological, inspiring our students’ intellectual growth and curiosity while preparing them to become informed and engaged leaders ready for the challenges of our quickly evolving world. All of this is achieved with the dedicated support of our outstanding staff who advise our students and work to ensure the smooth and effective functioning of the school.
Vision
The School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers–New Brunswick will expand its excellence by advancing innovative teaching and research strategies that lay the foundation for a lifetime of success for scholars and students while enriching our communities and society more broadly.
Values
The School of Arts and Sciences is a collaborative community of students, faculty, and staff dedicated to confronting the defining challenges of our time and anticipating new ones. We aim to become stewards and leaders who can nimbly respond to a world that is being remade by forces such as environmental crises, escalating political polarization, and powerful new digital technologies.
We will achieve our goals in line with the following values:
- Diversity and inclusion: We embrace and learn from our richly diverse backgrounds, which reflect the multi-cultural environment of New Jersey and beyond
- Transparency and accountability: We value and promote a culture of openness and collective responsibility
- Respect: We seek to maintain an environment free from discrimination and harassment and strive to make all stakeholders feel valued and appreciated
- Open-ended inquiry and interdisciplinary collaboration: We work within and across academic fields to explore questions that advance knowledge from foundational to applied
- Community: We are committed to engagement and collaboration with partners from local to global
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
The Data Collection and Analysis Committee pulled together a range of quantitative and qualitative information with the purpose of both describing the current state of SAS and creating an analysis to guide the path forward. Their work included a survey of all faculty and staff with high rates of participation and engagement (383 faculty and 200 staff members responded). The survey assessed satisfaction levels among faculty and staff with various aspects of their work environment. In the spring of 2019, Rutgers University-New Brunswick partnered with the Harvard Graduate School of Education Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) on a faculty job satisfaction survey. Information from the original survey is available through The COACHE Survey on Faculty Job Satisfaction page on the Office of the Chancellor’s website. Analogous questions were administered through the survey administered during this planning process.
The survey associated with this plan also measured the extent to which respondents agree with the core SAS values as originally developed by the Visioning Committee, both the importance of the values and how well the School is achieving them. Respondents overwhelmingly expressed support for the values but felt that SAS falls short in living up to them to varying degrees. Finally, it included open-ended reflections on the School’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
More information is provided in the full version of the plan. The material presented here highlights key factors considered for moving forward.
While the responses cannot be considered representative for many reasons, the concerns are real, prevalent, and sometimes stark. The time and energy that faculty and staff put into lengthy responses reflect employees who care about SAS, its mission, and its direction, with some expressions of hope in the new leadership and strategic plan.
The committee discovered a considerable lack of systematic and coordinated data collection across units of the University. They encountered many obstacles in gathering these data and learned that almost no measure is clearly and straightforwardly defined. Data depend on the systems through which they are collected, how queries are defined, how data are cleaned, and how values are presented; and the measures that attempt to capture the same concept are inconsistent. This situation points to a real opportunity for SAS and the University. Clear communication, collaboration, and systematization of information systems would enhance our abilities to invest resources wisely, improve transparency, and build trust. SAS should continue to advance its efforts concerning the collection and use of data and metrics (Note: increasing the availability of clear, reliable data is included in Goal 4).
Due to the constraints noted above, we present some basic numbers to describe the size, breadth, and complexity of SAS in general terms.
Rutgers is ranked 40th among National Universities (up from 55th in 2022 and 63rd in 2021) and 15th among Top Public Schools according to US News and World Report. Several SAS graduate programs across our disciplines are ranked among the top programs by US News, and Rutgers is ranked among the best global universities for several subjects taught by SAS departments. More details can be found on the Rutgers Rankings website.
SAS educates a large and diverse group of students, both undergraduate and graduate, from New Jersey and around the world, many of whom are first-generation college students. The School offers foundational courses that are taken by nearly all undergraduates enrolled at the New Brunswick Campus and emphasizes exposing students to a breadth of liberal arts subjects including the growing proportion of students pursuing degrees in scientific and other applied disciplines. Each year, approximately 72% of New Brunswick’s more than 43,000 undergraduate students take at least one SAS course; over 20,000 of them are SAS matriculants.
SAS attracts a diverse student body. In terms of race and ethnicity, as reported by the Rutgers University Office of Institutional Research and Academic Planning, about two-thirds of enrolled SAS full-time students are non-white. According to the reported data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the distribution of students by sex is fairly even, with slightly more women (51.9%) than men (48.1%). The majority of undergraduate students are from New Jersey (84.8%) and almost 10% are international students. Close to one-third of undergraduates are first-generation students (31.8%).
SAS offers more than 100 undergraduate majors and minors spanning 34 departments and more than 10 programs within the School.
SAS also houses 32 master’s programs and 30 PhD programs and graduated 412 PhD students, 167 master’s students, and 5,117 undergraduate students in the 2022-23 Academic Year.
SAS provides a rich array of other programming and initiatives that reflect many of the School’s values. Twenty-seven interdisciplinary research centers and institutes are housed within the School and showcase the breadth and diversity of the Arts and Sciences.
The School’s faculty conducts world-class research and secured $88 million in fiscal year 2023 from federal and state agencies and prestigious foundations (as reported by the Rutgers Office for Research).
There is broad agreement among both faculty (42.3%) and staff (34.8%) that the top strength of SAS is its people, whose dedication, generosity, collaborative spirit, and brilliance compensate for many of the School’s challenges and shortcomings. There is a strongly shared sense that SAS faculty and staff care deeply about the success of our students and each other. We work together to find creative solutions to the challenges of broken systems and time-consuming bureaucracies.
Among faculty, research excellence (24.2%) and teaching excellence (20.5%) ranked as the next most important strengths, as befits a university of Rutgers’ size and reputation. Several faculty members noted that this excellence can be measured in the positive impact Rutgers has both in the community and the world.
The size of SAS is recognized as an important strength. Among faculty (17.7%), this size is essential to our ability to provide a comprehensive liberal arts education that is diverse in size and scope. Faculty valued that we offer expertise in many disciplines and specialization areas. For staff (29.2%), size offers the ability to address complicated issues by drawing on diverse areas of expertise: “we are able to see issues quick[ly] and pivot to problem solve due to the vast viewpoints, knowledge, and skill sets contained in our academic and administrative areas.”
Staff pride themselves on the efficiency with which they deliver excellence (19.1%). There is a powerful sense of teamwork, inclusion, and ownership. Problem-solving in the face of obstacles is a theme that emerged repeatedly.
Diversity, both as an ideal and as represented in the breadth and inclusivity of the School’s faculty, staff, and student bodies, is considered a strength of SAS (faculty 16.3%, staff 21.3%).
The high quality of the student body is a theme that runs through many of these categories. Students are variously recognized as being “diverse, smart and ambitious,” “interesting,” and “earnest.” Staff and faculty reported being dedicated to students and envision SAS to be a “student-centered” institution. As one staff member wrote, “It is wonderful to work in a place where people at every level of the organization take pride in assisting students!”
Other strengths registering with some regularity included interdisciplinarity, collaboration, responsive leadership at the dean and departmental levels, opportunities for advancement, national reputation, and geographical location.
Significant overlap was identified in the weaknesses of and threats to SAS identified by faculty and staff. Thus, the two are presented together.
Survey respondents agreed that by far the most significant threat to the School is a lack of resources. Approximately 60% of the respondents identified a lack of resources in general and/or in specific instances. Respondents consistently mentioned that budget conditions have weakened the ability of departments to deliver on their missions of undergraduate and graduate teaching and scholarship. Austerity has also hit the staff hard, making it difficult and sometimes impossible for staff to support faculty, students, and administrators as they wish.
Given the current funding situation for higher education, it is perhaps more useful to look at what could be improved within our budget constraints. Here, too, faculty and staff had much to say. Many respondents see the current budget model (RCM) as one that encourages competition among units instead of cooperation. This competition is both inefficient and harmful to morale, cohesion, and teamwork within the School. Both faculty and staff believe that the effects of budget limitations are worsened by public and administrative failure to understand the value of a liberal arts education and cutting-edge research (12% specifically mention the value of a liberal arts education). Many see the scarcity of resources as, at least in part, a result of bloated administration at both SAS and the University levels and resent increasing amounts of their time spent on ineffective bureaucracy with little accountability.
There is a sense that the Central Administration prioritizes top-down initiatives and software fixes (which are often not fixes at all) over understanding what faculty and staff actually confront daily: Inadequately maintained (sometimes actually crumbling) infrastructure for research and teaching; poor communication from all levels of administration; increased scrutiny of bureaucratic minutia at the expense of the big picture; and students who need more support. Some departments have more students than they can teach; others have very few students. In both cases, the SAS response seemed ad hoc and based primarily on immediate budget concerns rather than on thoughtful, informed decisions that balance student needs and curricular priorities. If decisions are based on more than short-term budgetary considerations, that fact is not communicated adequately. About 10% of faculty respondents commented on employee retention as a threat to the School amidst these challenges.
Some faculty (about 15% of respondents) and several staff members commented on threats the School faces from external sources, including infringement on academic freedom and limits to free speech (from both the left and right), Artificial Intelligence, and interference in university affairs from outside forces. Both faculty and staff also identified low morale and campus climate as another threat facing the School. Finally, the concern that SAS is too big and too siloed was mentioned. A common theme that emerged is that more collaboration across divisions is needed, although that sentiment is not universal.
In addition to these concerns, which characterize both faculty and staff responses, staff also reported a lack of adequate training for new systems, a shortage of staff (so that those who remain are swamped), a general feeling of isolation, inadequate paths to promotion, and a lack of respect from their superiors and faculty. In this last concern, they were joined by NTT faculty, who also see disrespect from TT faculty and inadequate paths to promotion as major weaknesses in SAS.
For both faculty and staff members, opportunities related to hiring, harnessing our talent, and research are most frequently mentioned (faculty 42%, staff 26%). Several comments mentioned the impressive faculty breadth of talent and expertise, but not enough financial, administrative, and mentoring support for new and ongoing valuable research.
Both faculty (30%) and staff (18%) commented on interdisciplinarity, noting opportunities to remove siloes and reduce barriers to collaborations in research, teaching, as well as initiatives that involve staff.
Many faculty (30%) commented on teaching, learning, research, and pedagogy, noting that there could be more training for higher-quality pedagogy, and development of, and resources for, more problem- and experiential-based curricula and programs. Several faculty members commented on opportunities to improve the administrative structure and reduce administrative burdens.
The 24% of faculty who mentioned interdisciplinarity (collaboration across departments and Schools, including with the medical school) emphasized the need to break down silos and barriers to collaboration, promote cross-departmental projects, and nurture interdisciplinary research and teaching. They mentioned the potential for partnerships with other institutions, both locally and globally, to enhance interdisciplinary work, and reflect a desire for increased support, resources, and administrative backing to support a culture of interdisciplinarity and collaboration.
Some staff (23%) felt there were opportunities for SAS to improve by showing that staff are valued, appreciated, included, respected, and supported. Several staff asked for improved professional development opportunities, including enhanced ability to become trained for internal promotion. Staff felt they would benefit from more opportunities to collaborate with colleagues in other units and there are opportunities for increased inclusion. Staff also commented there are opportunities to improve professional development, including making it easier for staff to learn how they can acquire skills needed specifically to advance within Rutgers. Staff also expressed opportunities to improve inclusiveness.
A few respondents reported that there were limited if any opportunities for them at the School.
The survey results revealed that morale among SAS faculty and staff is low. Faculty and staff felt especially under siege from top university leaders. Many reported feeling under-resourced, under-appreciated, and insufficiently supported, with little to no power to influence the direction of the School and University. Some of the stressors identified were external to Rutgers (e.g., threats to academic freedom, declining trust in higher education, and advances in artificial intelligence), but some are under Rutgers’ control. A notable sentiment that emerged from the narratives is that Rutgers gets in the way – of being creative, following through on big ideas, and collaborating across disciplines – so much so that some faculty and staff appeared to have stopped trying something different (or new or exciting) and reported disaffection. This represents a serious threat to SAS at a time when there is more external pressure than ever to make ourselves relevant. Many SAS members find the rules and procedures to be overly intrusive and get in the way of completing their work. Although rules and procedures play an important role at the School, they become an issue when SAS members don't bother pursuing something exciting because the rules feel like too much of an uphill battle.
The relatively high level of engagement in the survey and the detailed narratives offered by respondents suggest that faculty and staff remain committed to SAS and want to engage with the problem. Faculty and staff expressed pride in the research and teaching excellence exhibited by the School, the diversity of its students, and the people who work here. But many fear that without more resources and support, our excellence will be lost. Several narratives expressed hope for a new SAS Dean and appreciation for Dean Wade’s approach to the strategic planning process and the attempt to develop a vision for the School. These expressions must not be ignored – they represent a critical opportunity for SAS to identify a path forward.
ACADEMIC THEMES
Arts and Sciences in a Complex and Changing World. The following areas were identified by the Planning, Implementation, and Metrics Committee as the most promising areas in which to build on existing strengths across the diverse range of disciplines and fields of inquiry in SAS. These themes support the Discovery Advantage (New Brunswick Chancellor’s Office) goal to prepare students to learn and work in diverse and disciplinary-spanning communities to positively impact the world. They are closely aligned with the recommendations for the Discovery Advantage learning goals of (1) developing intellectual and communication skills, (2) understanding human behavior, society, and the natural environment, and (3) taking individual responsibility in society. More information is provided in the full version of the plan (PDF available from a link at the bottom of this website).
- An Ethical World: Knowledge, Power, and Justice
- A Healthy and Sustainable World: Health, Well-Being, and Environment
- An Intelligent World: Artificial Intelligence in Education, Technology, and Society
- A Shared World: Expanding and Communicating the Frontiers of Human Knowledge
GOALS
GOAL 1: Advance the success of our students while they are at Rutgers and into their futures
A. Adapt to changes in how students learn and prepare for their futures
Maximizing student and alumni success requires focusing on pedagogy as well as access to professionalization resources such as internship opportunities, career guidance, and alumni networks to facilitate negotiation of professional paths and lifelong learning. SAS major and minor programs must adapt to the new realities of shifting demographics, job markets, and technologies.
Strategies
- Support students in discovering their purpose and defining how they see success in their professional careers by fostering the development of durable and critical thinking skills. Expand existing course opportunities (including those in partnership with campus-level offices) and student-led mentoring; and update program-level learning goals to include these skills.
- Expand experiential learning through internships and related mechanisms. As one means of doing this, increase connections of alumni with undergraduates. Facilitate and develop a mechanism for tracking contacts between alumni and current or recently graduated students, as well as internship and/or professional placements that resulted from these connections.
- Expand incentives and resources and offer increased support for faculty and instructors to enhance their pedagogy, in coordination with the SAS Teaching and Learning Team and New Brunswick and University offices and institutes. Create clearer pathways for communication/collaboration between the SAS team and related offices at the campus and University levels.
- Implement innovative, effective, and inclusive pedagogy for course development or redevelopment within academic themes identified in this plan and provide support for these efforts. Additionally, assess how well introductory courses engage interest and accessibility for undergraduates from groups traditionally underrepresented in these fields.
- Develop material on best practices for graders and course assistants and for assessments of pedagogical practices implemented in classrooms.
Sample Metrics
- Changes in offerings for experiential courses and co-curricular activities
- Updated learning goals documents
- Internship and/or professional placements resulting from alumni/student interactions
- Number and types of incentives offered and their use on pedagogical/instructional improvements
- Courses developed/redeveloped in each SAS academic theme
- Assessment of enrollments and grades in introductory courses as related to student demographics
B. Foster inter-and cross-disciplinary teaching and programs
Provide opportunities for students to study pressing issues from multiple perspectives across departments and divisions within SAS. Focus on overcoming the siloing of knowledge and separation of scholars, disciplines, and divisions within SAS and across Rutgers–New Brunswick by striving to create opportunities for faculty with overlapping interests to collaborate as educators.
Strategies
- Promote cross-disciplinary interactions among SAS faculty to create opportunities to share pedagogical interests growing out of their scholarly research agendas. Such collaborations might bring together the critical perspectives of humanists, social scientists, life scientists, and mathematical and physical scientists whose paths otherwise rarely cross at Rutgers.
- Promote recognition, cross-pollination, communication, coordination, and community-building across the departments and instructional teams to offer inter- and cross-disciplinary gateway courses.
- Support innovative cross-disciplinary programs, including concentrations, certificates, minors, majors, and/or master’s programs that make it possible for students to augment traditional majors in a discipline/department with a specialized cross-disciplinary course of study. To facilitate the generation of new programs, incentivize and enable curricular cooperation spanning departments and divisions within SAS, as well as potentially across the schools of Rutgers–New Brunswick. Identify and eliminate logistical, governance, and budgetary obstacles to sustained faculty investment in inter- and cross-disciplinary teaching and programs.
- Design and implement cross-disciplinary teaching in ways that underscore the mandate to create an inclusive learning environment and classroom culture in terms of content and pedagogy.
- Add resources where appropriate based on student demand for inter- and cross-disciplinary courses and programs.
- Facilitate collaborative teaching by reducing obstacles to cross-listing courses and teaching across units. Identify programs and initiatives that have successfully overcome such obstacles within SAS and throughout Rutgers–New Brunswick and detail how they have done so to create a record of internal best practices re: communicating curricular innovation and procedures across departments, divisions, and schools.
Sample Metrics
- Changes in and numbers of interdisciplinary certificate and degree programs (majors, minors, accelerated and stand-alone masters)
- Changes in and numbers of cross-unit gateway courses
- Opportunities/events for faculty to discover shared interests across disciplines
- Assessment of student interest (enrollment) in existing interdisciplinary programs, as well as new ones that are developed
GOAL 2: Build connections to foster the sharing of ideas and resources leading to multidisciplinary research and scholarship
Creating new knowledge is critical in its own right and because it builds a scaffold for next-generation disciplinary and interdisciplinary research that facilitates solving the world’s most pressing challenges. We need to continue to support rigor, creativity, and excellence in our core disciplines to advance intrinsic and instrumental knowledge. We also must reduce silos and facilitate multidisciplinary teams of scholars who are dedicated to integrating works of literature and methods from different disciplines to create new paradigms that reflect emergent properties of integrated knowledge. In parallel, methods are needed to chart benchmarks of progress within these new discovery-oriented collaborative frameworks. We also need to showcase the value of individual faculty, and SAS, to Rutgers and New Jersey through active public scholarship and engagement.
Strategies
- Continue to support our core disciplines while reducing roadblocks to cross-disciplinary research collaboration by identifying and reducing administrative obstacles (such as barriers to budgeting across Schools) and increasing administrative support for faculty-led interdisciplinary initiatives.
- Increase cross-disciplinary conversations and connections among diverse groups of faculty members and facilitate conversations to build bridges across all divisions and disciplines.
- Incentivize interdisciplinary and discipline-connecting research and translation through support for highly effective existing units, while providing new funding opportunities tied to the academic themes identified in this plan.
- Encourage departments to recognize the value of interdisciplinary work in tenure and promotion evaluations.
- Develop and expand inclusive cluster hiring strategies for faculty and staff across divisions, especially in thematic research priority areas, and incentivize research collaborations within the clusters.
- Foster hands-on interdisciplinary research training for undergraduate and graduate students by providing funding for faculty to create experiential learning opportunities for students and offering incentives to faculty to mentor students working on interdisciplinary projects and programs. These initiatives should interface with and complement ongoing components of interdisciplinary research training at Rutgers–New Brunswick and prioritize the academic themes in this plan.
Sample Metrics
- Initiatives to fund research related to the academic themes
- Number of external collaborative grant applications and other collaborative research
- Hires of faculty in interdisciplinary thematic cluster hiring initiatives
- Number of and revenue from new externally funded projects with faculty researchers across more than one SAS department and/or division
- Changes in SAS interdisciplinary centers
- New collaborations established (including through multidisciplinary working groups, workshops, journal clubs, and other programming), one measure might include publications among members of these groups
GOAL 3: Advance engagement with the community beyond Rutgers
Through its work as the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers engages various stakeholders, including national and international audiences, scholarly publics belonging to different disciplines, and the local communities within which it is immediately situated, in New Brunswick, Middlesex County, and New Jersey more broadly. The strategies below focus on bringing these communities into more dialogue with Rutgers research and pedagogy, as well as advancing “public-facing” scholarship (e.g., public dissemination of University-produced knowledge and communication strategies for engaging the legislature or media).
Many of our recommendations include work that is already in progress or in the planning stages at the New Brunswick Chancellor’s Office. SAS will work directly with them in these areas using their processes where appropriate.
Strategies
- Create an inventory of community-based initiatives that engage community partners as co-producers of knowledge and learning environments, across SAS divisions and, more broadly, Rutgers–New Brunswick. This inventory should assess what is done by existing units within SAS that is working well as well as areas of possible improvement and by what measures.
- Develop information on and invest in best practices at Rutgers for faculty-led collective training and support around community-based learning programs.
- Encourage and support the development of undergraduate coursework in community engagement, as new courses or by enhancing existing courses with the addition of co-curricular modules.
- Incentivize work on community-based research programs, as well as public-facing scholarship; work toward recognition of community-based or -partnered courses as forms of pedagogy and research that produce knowledge (examples might include course release/credit, stipends, grants, and consideration in appointment, reappointment, and promotion).
- Build networks for community-engaged research and teaching, for example through faculty focus groups, workshops, and/or symposia.
Sample Metrics
- Inventories created, assessed, and disseminated on community-based initiatives and programming that engage community partners as co-producers of knowledge and learning environment
- Addition and/or modification of community-based courses and co-curricular learning opportunities
- Updated guidelines and practices on teaching and scholarship that involve (1) community-engaged work, and (2) public-facing scholarship
GOAL 4: Assess, clarify, and improve School operations and procedures to increase transparency and equity and provide better service in a more positive work environment
The SWOT analysis conducted as part of the strategic planning process, along with observations of the Executive Dean during her first year at Rutgers, suggest a need to increase inclusion, respect, collaboration, and communication across the School and among the teams within the Dean’s Office. This includes creating more streamlined processes and clearly defined roles that empower our staff to do their best work in an enjoyable and impactful way. Additionally, transitioning our finances and operations to be more visible and consistent across our divisions and offices is critical to both reducing unnecessary work and moving toward our vision of One SAS.
Several strategies will involve changes done collectively, in collaborations between the departments and other units that report to SAS and the School-level offices. Others will occur across the offices of the Executive Dean, including the administration of our four divisions and School-level units such as Finance and Budget Planning, Human Resources, Information Technology, Space Planning and Facilities Management, Undergraduate Education, Alumni Relations and Events, and Communications and Marketing.
Strategies
At the School-level and in partnership with departments, programs, centers, and institutes reporting to the School
- Develop and share consistent guidelines and procedures for common functions and needs.
- Clarify expectations for all offices and job positions.
- Develop and implement plans for more comprehensive communication between units, divisions, and offices within SAS.
- Provide staff training as needed so that individuals can reliably perform their duties.
- Provide opportunities and pathways for staff career advancement.
- Develop a single chart of accounts to be consistently used for budgeting and tracking expenses.
- Create budgets for each SAS department, center, program and institute, as well as the offices, divisions and units within the Office of the Executive Dean.
- Create opportunities for departments and other units within SAS to generate revenue to move their priorities forward.
Within the offices of the Executive Dean
- Identify inconsistencies, duplications, and gaps in our operations
- Identify how/where we can become more efficient, what our processes should be, and what backups are needed, including for when positions are vacant in the short or longer term
- Assess the flow of information and articulate expectations for communication among positions and offices, as well as where and how materials are electronically stored
- Increase the availability of the data needed to inform our operations and decision-making, and to support advocacy for resources
- Reorganize offices/teams as appropriate
Sample Metrics
Success for this goal, particularly in the early years, will largely be defined by the completion of the items listed as strategies. Some of these steps will undoubtedly require adjustment and refinement as they are implemented. Surveys over time should show increased satisfaction with the services provided by the School and more favorable impressions of the experiences of employees at all levels within SAS.
CONCLUSION
This plan serves as a guide to the priorities of the School of Arts and Sciences for the next five years. Details for implementation will be developed by the Executive Dean’s Office and its multiple components in consultation and collaboration with the departments and the other units reporting to the School. Specific strategies and opportunities will begin to roll out during the 2024-25 academic year. We will report on progress annually, beginning in Fall 2025. Our plans will continue to evolve as we determine which strategies are and are not successful, and as new opportunities and challenges arise in the coming years. Again, we are grateful for the work of the committee members and the comments and feedback from our SAS community. We look forward to advancing collectively as One SAS.
