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:

• Belonging: We embrace and learn from our backgrounds, which reflect the rich 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

Academic Themes: Arts and Sciences in a Complex and Changing World

The following areas were identified as the most promising for building on existing strengths across the diverse range of disciplines and fields of inquiry in SAS. 

• 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

We are at our best when our work is integrated across our goals. As with the original strategic plan and August 2025 progress report, the text is divided into sections to facilitate understanding and ease of reading. However, many of the articulated goals and strategies overlap with and complement one another. A critical overarching theme across all four of the goals is bringing people together in new ways. Enhancing connections and communication is fundamental to advancing our progress in concrete ways while also making our work more meaningful and enjoyable. The updates below are organized around the sample metrics identified when the strategic plan was developed and include initiatives from the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years, as well as examples of some ongoing programs with earlier origins.

The report is not intended to document every detail of our large and complex organization, but instead to highlight key areas of progress. While we have made significant advances, improvements are still needed in developing strategies to share information more effectively. In particular, we need to expand awareness of the exceptional work being done throughout the school that advances our mission and supports the goals of this plan. The more we know about this work, the better we can highlight our strengths and advocate for the critical needs of the school.

Mentoring and Alumni Connections

Opportunities for students to connect with alumni, faculty, and other mentors are important components of SAS’s efforts to support student success.

SAS First Together was developed during the 2024–25 academic year and piloted during the Spring 2025 semester. A structured, extended mentoring experience, the program brings together groups of current first-generation SAS undergraduate students with alumni who were first-generation students during their time in SAS or one of its four legacy colleges. In the 2025-26 academic year, the program brought together 21 students and 13 alumni and introduced a one-credit, pass/no-credit course, SAS First Together (01:090:209), to support goal setting, small group engagement, and internship preparation. All participating students applied for at least one internship, scholarship, or graduate program; among the 12 students who reported outcomes, 10 received at least one opportunity, including six internships.

In Spring 2026, the SAS First Together Endowed Fund was established to ensure support for first-generation SAS undergraduate students through mentoring, engagement, experiential learning, and financial assistance. After learning about the success of the SAS First Together program and the growing needs of future cohorts, a donor made a blended gift, providing both immediate resources for current students and a permanent endowment to sustain the program for years to come, totaling $250K.

SAS continued the Interdisciplinary Research Team Fellowship (IRT), a donor-funded program that supports interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary projects that expand traditional notions of research through collaborative work. The program supports teams of two to five rising sophomores and juniors working on semester- or year-long projects. In 2024–25, the IRT program supported five research projects involving faculty from all four SAS divisions. In 2025–26, it supported four projects involving faculty from Geology, English, and Political Science.

Courses and Curricular Development

Faculty and departments continued their ongoing efforts to develop meaningful course-based experiential learning opportunities. Some examples from the 2024-25 academic year included approval for: (A) a new internship-based course in which students get firsthand experience in the criminal justice system while working in conjunction with the Governor’s office (01:790:486, New Jersey Clemency Project); (B) a new course designed to develop the instructional and mentoring skills of undergraduates in a biological laboratory setting (01:694:450, Instructional Internship); and (C) a reimagined course that introduces students to the theory and practice of event and program management in public arts and humanities fields (01:050:350, Event and Program Management in the Arts & Humanities, formerly titled Festival Curation Seminar).

Of the 25 new courses approved in SAS during 2025-26, six were identified as supporting experiential learning and two as advancing community engagement. Examples include Capstone in Anthropology (01:070:310), which focuses on communication, professional development, and career planning; Environmental Studies Honors Thesis (01:381:495/496), which guides students through an independent research project and public presentation of findings; and Japanese Martial Arts: The Art of Peace through History, Philosophy, and Practice (01:565:330), which incorporates hands-on engagement through a partnership with the Rutgers Aikido Club.

Preparing students for post-graduation success remains a key priority for SAS and Rutgers–New Brunswick. In the 2025–26 academic year, the SAS Career Explorations in Arts and Sciences staff partnered with several departments to develop or revise courses with career-related content, including Career and Professional Development for Life Science Majors (01:119:206) and Careers in Speech and Hearing Sciences (01:615:290). In addition, units such as Cognitive Science and Political Science offer customized versions of Career Explorations in Arts and Sciences (01:090:210). Altogether, 1,075 students enrolled in 44 sections of this course during 2025-26.

SAS also continues to support instructional innovation through targeted curricular development programs. The Strategic Curriculum Development Program provides funding and instructional design support for the development and redesign of online courses, with a particular focus on serving non-traditional and returning students. Seven course redevelopment projects were supported in Summer 2025 and four in 2026. The more recent program included substantial updates addressing the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on asynchronous teaching and learning.

In Spring 2025, SAS initiated a new program for the development of multi-disciplinary courses, providing up to $30,000 for faculty teams to create large, lower-level classes that span at least two SAS departments and align with the academic themes in the SAS strategic plan. Five applications were received from faculty teams representing 11 departments and all four SAS divisions. Two proposals were funded: (A) Pills, Plants, and Power from Anthropology and Sociology; and (B) From Playground to Purpose: Building Blocks of a Fulfilling Life from Psychology and Kinesiology & Health. While the first is still under development, the latter course received curriculum approval during the 2025-26 academic year.

Beginning in Fall 2025, departments and programs were asked to identify the SAS academic themes represented in new and revised courses submitted for Curriculum Committee review. A baseline review of new courses approved in 2024–25 found that nearly all aligned with at least one of the four themes, a pattern that continued in 2025–26, when 23 of 25 newly approved courses were self-reported by departments/programs as supporting at least one theme (see distribution below). Departments also identified 15 of the 25 newly approved courses as advancing the SAS strategic plan's emphasis on interdisciplinarity. Examples include Before Moneyball: A History of Data in Sports (01:512:327) and Green Civilization: Environment and Imagination in the Middle East (01:013:389).

In addition to developing new courses, SAS invested considerable effort in strengthening existing courses and improving the systems that support instruction. For example, providing accessible course materials is an important way to support students' academic success. Throughout the 2025-26 academic year, faculty across SAS worked to align course materials with the new federal Title II accessibility requirements, supported by the SAS Teaching and Learning Team through 112 consultations, 16 departmental workshops, and a 10-day accessibility challenge email series that reached more than 200 individuals across SAS and other New Brunswick units.

Departments also continued work on predictable course offering plans, started in the 2024-25 academic year, with the goals of improving students’ ability to plan their academic pathways, reducing the administrative burden associated with annual course scheduling, and better aligning course offerings with student needs. In the coming year, the SAS division deans, Office of Undergraduate Education, and communications team will continue working with departments to finalize these plans and publish student-facing versions on department and program websites.

Modifications to Degree Programs 

Several interdisciplinary undergraduate programs revised their requirements during the 2024–25 academic year: Data Science eliminated the mini-capstone requirement for the certificate and minor and reduced the number of courses required to declare the major, with the goals of ensuring timely graduation and supporting student success; the American Studies major was restructured to include four thematic concentrations, providing students with more guided pathways through the major; and the course requirements for the minor in Organizational Leadership were revised to provide a more structured and consistent experience for students. Two new minors spanning multiple New Brunswick schools (administered by SEBS) were developed in the 2024-25 academic year and are now available to SAS students: Health Equity and Holistic Wellness.

In 2025-26, Environmental Studies transitioned from being offered only as a second major to also being available as a primary major for SAS students. The Latino and Caribbean Studies major was revised to provide greater flexibility in meeting major requirements and to strengthen the career-development focus of its methods course. The Astrobiology minor, Biomathematics major, and Critical Intelligence Studies minor were also updated to expand course options, increase flexibility, and better support student progress through their programs. In addition, the Department of Nutritional Sciences in SEBS and the Department of Kinesiology and Health in SAS collaborated to create a new minor in Sports Nutrition. A new 3-1-1 Pathway Program was established between Rutgers University's School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy (EJB). The program allows qualified Data Science or Computer Science undergraduate students with at least a 3.6 GPA to complete both a Bachelor of Data Science (BA/BS) and a Master of Public Informatics (MPI) degree in five years instead of five and a half.

Enrollment in Interdisciplinary Degree Programs

SAS has long valued interdisciplinary education and scholarship, and offers numerous programs that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. To support consistent measurement and tracking, this report defines an ‘interdisciplinary program’ as one in which the faculty represent multiple academic fields traditionally housed in different departments or schools at Rutgers and/or the curriculum includes courses from other departments or schools. (Note: STEM programs are not considered interdisciplinary solely because they require mathematics or introductory courses from multiple departments.)

Using this definition, SAS offered 23 interdisciplinary majors in 2025–26, with 1,923 unique students declared in one of these majors, up from 1,613 in 2024–25 and 1,267 in 2023–24. SAS also hosts 34 interdisciplinary minors, with 1,820 unique students declared in one of the minors in 2025–26, compared with 1,843 the previous year. In addition, SAS contributes to five inter-school minors, which enrolled 188 unique students in 2025–26, up from 175 in 2024–25.

Connecting Across Disciplines to Enhance Student Success

In 2024-25, the SAS Office of Undergraduate Education advanced many opportunities for faculty to discover shared interests across disciplines. These included an Interdisciplinary Teaching Conversation featuring a panel discussion and networking reception to promote interdisciplinary teaching, foster cross-disciplinary connections, and encourage applications to the Multi-Disciplinary Course Program (see above). “Teaching with AI” book clubs involved three groups that met monthly, with faculty participants representing 19 departments across all four SAS divisions. Four Tea and Teaching events were hosted in a casual (Zoom) space for discussion and Q&A with guests about teaching and learning-related topics.

Throughout the 2024-25 and 2025–26 academic years, the SAS Teaching and Learning team and the SAS TRIAD Coalition collaborated to facilitate the convening of a group of course coordinators in the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. This program brought together course coordinators for large, foundational, multi-section courses along with academic leaders. Participants discussed challenges and opportunities, shared strategies and best practices, and worked collaboratively on initiatives to improve their courses. In Spring 2026, the group developed a Best Practices for STEM Departments with Course Coordinators document that was shared with the Executive Dean in the spring semester. Additional meetings also expanded participation in a growing community of practice for course coordinators across departments.

In 2025-26, the SAS Teaching and Learning team and the SAS TRIAD Coalition also partnered with the Rutgers–New Brunswick Teaching Institute for Inclusive Pedagogy (TIIP) and other Rutgers offices to support university-wide initiatives that foster cross-disciplinary collaboration around teaching. These included the TIIP Course Design Institute, which brought faculty together to redesign courses in ways that increase student choice and engagement; SEISMIC 2.0, which supported faculty in adopting equity-oriented assessment practices in large introductory STEM courses; and The Student Experience Project, a faculty community of practice focused on increasing students’ sense of belonging and inclusion as a pathway to academic success.

Cross-disciplinary collaboration also informed efforts to better understand student engagement and identify strategies for supporting student success. An ad hoc group of faculty members across SAS divisions, both tenure and non-tenure system, co-led by Brittney Cooper (Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Africana Studies) and Gary Heiman (Genetics) began meeting in Spring 2025 and worked through the 2025-26 academic year to gather data and develop recommendations. Among other sources, the group surveyed resources at peer institutions and what is currently available at Rutgers—New Brunswick and held focus groups to hear directly from SAS students. The report from the group highlighted several areas for improvement in the future and a set of strategies in areas including social connectedness; undergraduate advising; relationship-building pedagogy; and increased student interactions with school-level decision makers. Implementation will begin in the 2026-27 academic year.

A significant focus during the 2025–26 academic year was helping instructors navigate the rapidly evolving role of AI in higher education. To encourage dialogue and knowledge-sharing across disciplines, the SAS Teaching and Learning team offered several programs. In addition to four Tea and Teaching conversations focused on AI, the sessions included:

• SAS Teaching Conversation: Writing Assignments in the Age of AI, an interdisciplinary panel discussion featuring faculty from Kinesiology & Health, Chemistry, Political Science, and English, as well as an instructional designer in the SAS Office of Undergraduate Education.
• SAS Teaching Conversation: AI Statements in the Syllabus and Beyond, an interdisciplinary panel discussion featuring faculty from Genetics, Latino & Caribbean Studies, Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, and Jewish Studies.
• Assessment Redesign Workshop: Writing Assignments and AI, a workshop supporting SAS faculty in discussing and working on no-AI, low-AI, and high-AI redesigns of their course assignments.
• Scaling Active Learning in the AI Era, a panel discussion at the Rutgers Active Learning Symposium facilitated by SAS Teaching and Learning staff and featuring faculty from Asian Languages & Cultures, Linguistics, Psychology, Public Health, and Library & Information Sciences discussing their approaches to active learning in the context of AI.

Learning Goals Focused on Students’ Future Success

Program learning goals articulate the key skills and competencies students are expected to develop by the end of their course of study. Of SAS's 46 departments and programs offering undergraduate degrees, 15 (spanning all four divisions) have learning goals that explicitly reference students' future success, often by highlighting preparation for graduate study and/or professional careers. Many others address future success more indirectly. In the 2024–25 academic year, one department updated its learning goals to incorporate clear linkages between the program and students’ potential career paths. At the end of 2025–26, four departments reported plans to revise their learning goals. Moving forward, the SAS Assessment Committee and the SAS Office of Undergraduate Education plan to work with these and additional departments to encourage consideration of how their learning goals communicate the connections between students’ academic experiences and future success.

Experiential Learning

SAS continues to advance its commitment to undergraduate research and experiential learning. Examples exist across all four SAS divisions and are available throughout the academic year and during the summer.

One example is the SEED2S+X (Student Excellence, Experiential Learning, and Development in Data Science plus Partner X, Campus and External) program, which helps cultivate technical proficiency and career readiness by bridging the gap between classroom theory and real-world application. In AY 2025–26, 20 students successfully completed experiential learning projects for campus and external partners, strengthening their professional competencies. Project themes included Critical Minerals and International Trade, State Health Policy using Medicare and Medicaid data, Precision Medicine, Prescriptions for Children and Youth, Athletic Performance, and Aging & Auditory Processing.

To support opportunities for students to pursue summer internships, the SAS Career Explorations in Arts and Sciences team partnered with departments offering summer internship courses to launch a new application for the SAS Summer Experiential Learning Stipend Program. The program uses donor funds to provide $500 in tuition reimbursement, awarded by lottery, to qualified students enrolled in an SAS internship course while completing a summer internship. Twenty students received awards in Summer 2026.

A new donor-funded opportunity, Wading In: SAS Summer Research Mentoring Program, was developed in 2025–26 to foster new mentoring relationships between SAS faculty and undergraduate students through collaborative summer research projects. The program aims to support students who might not otherwise have the financial resources needed to devote substantial time to research while building lasting mentor-mentee relationships. Students received a $4,000 stipend, and faculty mentors received $1,000 to support project-related expenses or mentoring-focused professional development. The program has received $53,250 in donor support to date. Through an open application process, 10 faculty-student pairs representing all four SAS divisions were selected for Summer 2026, with faculty mentors spanning academic ranks in both the tenure and non-tenure streams.

Connecting Scholars Across Disciplines

SAS hosted two Research Conversations in each semester of the 2024-25 academic year, with the topics of the four academic themes identified in the strategic plan. All SAS faculty were invited. In each case, a panel of faculty spanning the school’s four divisions presented their work in the field, a question-and-answer session followed, along with a discussion of bridges that might be built to advance in new directions. The events closed with a reception to facilitate conversation among smaller groups of faculty. Across the events, more than 100 faculty attended.

In the 2025-26 academic year, we offered four such Research Conversations. The first was on a topic proposed by faculty in the Humanities Division and Mathematics and Physical Sciences Division during an open competition, entitled “Beyond Alignment in an Intelligent World: New Research Frontiers in Education, Technology, and Society” (October). Our Office of Workplace Culture and Professional Excellence hosted three more (December, February, and April) on Vaccines, Tariffs, and Immigration.

Multidisciplinary Research Funding From SAS

SAS issued two calls for proposals to provide seed funding for research (link is to most recent call) in the areas of the four academic themes. Funding was available to individuals who are conducting research at a novel intersection of disciplines, or to groups of faculty members working together to advance research stemming from a unique junction of their individual programs of scholarship. The first deadline was in March 2025. We received 28 proposals from across all SAS divisions, representing 22 departments plus several units outside of the school (a total of $1.7M was requested). Seven proposals were funded for just over $393K for work to occur through December 2026.

• Genetics and Anthropology – “Genomics in the Rainforest: Field deployment of nanopore sequencers for comparative primate malaria ecology”
• Spanish & Portuguese and Anthropology (also Biochemistry & Molecular Biology in SEBS) – “For Healthier Hosts: Expanding the Ethical Agenda of Human Microbiota Conservation”
• Computer Science; English; German, Russian & East European Languages & Literatures; Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies; and Latino & Caribbean Studies – “Community-led Language Technology for NJ: A Design Justice Approach”
• Political Science and Sociology – “Harnessing Large Language Models for Causal Inference in the Social Sciences”
• Genetics and Mathematics – “Modeling of Gene Regulatory Networks for Cellular Reprogramming and Systems-Level Health Insights”
• Computer Science – “Generative Learning and Agent-Based Simulation for Synthesis of Large-Scale Multi-Agent Datasets”
• Spanish & Portuguese and Kinesiology & Health – “Language Effects on the Perception of Chronic Pain”

The second call for proposals was issued with a deadline of December 1, 2025, and funds were available from January 2026 through June 2027. In this round, 13 proposals were received from across the four divisions; 12 departments in SAS plus three in other schools. A total of $887K was requested, and four proposals were funded for a total of $280K.

• Kinesiology & Health and Computer Science – “Toward a True Brain Age: Integrating Proteomics and Machine Learning to Measure Brain Health”
• Computer Science and Statistics (also Civil & Environmental Engineering) – “Detecting AI-Generated Content via Rewriting: A Statistical Principled Approach to Information Integrity”
• Computer Science and Genetics – “AI and Robotics for Automating Scientific Experimentation”
• Geography and Computer Science – “AI-Geoscience Collaborations for a Changing Arctic”

External Funding

We are proud of the wide range of outstanding research and scholarship conducted by SAS faculty and their success in receiving external funding for this work. In fiscal year (FY)2025 (July 1, 2024- June 30, 2025), $43.7M in direct research expenditures were credited to contracts and grants submitted through SAS (increased from $37.3M in FY2024). The associated F&A cost was $16.7M. FY2026 grants and contracts direct expenditures equaled $38.5M, with $15.0M in associated F&A (numbers as of 7/24/26). While these expenses include contracts and grants from many sources, such as federal, state, municipal, corporate, and foundation entities, we believe the decrease from FY2025 is primarily due to the widespread challenges associated with federal funding.

Faculty across SAS divisions are successful in obtaining external funding to support their research. Of particular note is the Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Award that Natasha O’Brown (Cell Biology and Neuroscience) received in 2025 from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). This very prestigious award provides up to $8.6M over ten years to support early-career faculty who demonstrate exceptional promise. Professor O’Brown is the only current HHMI Scholar at Rutgers University and the first Rutgers faculty member to receive HHMI support in over a decade. Her research group investigates the blood-brain barrier in normal development and disease.

Another award of particular note is the Kavli Prize in nanoscience, which was awarded to Eva Andrei (Physics and Astronomy) in June 2026. This highly prestigious scientific honor is awarded every two years by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Kavli Foundation, and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. It recognizes scientists whose discoveries have fundamentally transformed the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. Professor Andrei is the first recipient of the Kavli Prize from Rutgers.

Many of our faculty members submit grants through institutes that report to the New Brunswick Chancellor, in particular the Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey (HGINJ), the Waksman Institute, and the (former) Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine (IQB). In FY2025, 30 SAS faculty members had grants that ran through these institutes rather than SAS, with more than $22M in direct research expenditures and $7.1M in associated F&A, for a total of $29.2M. In FY2026, 26 faculty members generated $16.3M in direct costs and $6.8M in associated F&A, for a total of $23.1M.

In addition, SAS faculty, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, receive support for their scholarship that is not processed through the Rutgers Office for Research. While likely an underestimate because we do not have access to records in some cases, the Rutgers Competitive Fellowship Leave Program allows us to capture some of this information. In FY2025, 18 SAS faculty members received these fellowships, which ranged from $32,000-$121,500 and in total amounted to more than $1M received. In FY2026, 5 faculty members received them, ranging from $60,000 to $100,000; $368,296 in total. As of mid-summer 2026, 10 faculty members had plans for Competitive Fellowship Leaves in FY2027, totaling $492,966.

While we did not have access to the information for 2024-25, the School of Graduate Studies shared information for 2025-26 on external fellowships received by SAS graduate students. Their records indicate that 43 of our students from 17 departments (across all four SAS divisions) received these fellowships. In total, nearly $1.4M was awarded to cover stipends for these students. Many of these awards include additional funds for items such as tuition, health insurance, and/or research expenses. Thus, this value is likely a significant underestimate of the funds provided through external graduate student fellowships.

Clarifying Criteria for SAS Centers and Institutes

An ad hoc committee of faculty experienced in running centers and/or institutes met during Fall 2024 to develop necessary and suggested criteria for school-level centers and institutes. These were adopted as a component of the process for these units that are reviewed on a regular basis by the SAS Office of Research and Graduate Education. As a result, the status of several centers was modified following their reviews in spring 2025.

SAS offered many undergraduate courses designated as ‘Community Engaged’: 145 in 2024-25 (54 in Fall 2024, 50 in Spring 2025, and 14 in Summer 2025) and 124 in 2025-26 (52 in Fall 2025, 61 in Spring 2026, and 11 in Summer 2026). Many, but not all, are internship courses.

SAS continues to deepen its connection with surrounding communities through innovative, student-centered initiatives. One example highlights students who are applying their language skills to support nonprofits serving vulnerable populations. Another involves young students arriving on campus during the summer to participate in Math Corps, a program offering a nurturing approach to teaching math alongside life lessons in kindness, community service, and resilience.

The new Political Science course, created in partnership with the New Jersey Office of the Governor (New Jersey Clemency Project, see above), had approximately 45 undergraduate students participate in the associated internship program in 2025-26, reading applications and writing brief summaries to assist in the intake and assessment of applications and to support advocacy on behalf of individuals seeking clemency.

SAS is well positioned to advance community engagement with the creation of a new Office of Student Engagement and Community Partnerships in the SAS Office of Undergraduate Education. As described under Goal 4, beginning in July 2026 this office will serve as a hub for community engagement and experiential learning opportunities across SAS.

Examples of progress during the 2024-25 academic year include reorganization of the SAS Offices of Human Resources and Finance & Budget Planning. Our Events and Alumni Engagement team has joined the Communications and Marketing team to form the SAS Office of Communications, Events, and Alumni Engagement, which is designed to better serve the needs of the school in these intersecting areas. The Data Analytics team moved to report to the Vice Dean for Administration rather than working as a component of the Office of Information Technology, so that they are better positioned to develop strategies and dashboards to facilitate analyses critical to advancing our missions related to education and research. The complexities of curating, synthesizing, and interpreting data at Rutgers was again highlighted as information was pulled together for this updated report. While we do not yet have easy access to all the types of information we would like, we continue to make significant progress.

After nearly a year of vacancy, we hired Mike Kiledjian as Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Education (as of July 1, 2025), and Chris Scherer has moved into that office (rather than reporting to the Executive Vice Dean) to create greater opportunities for advancing external engagement related to research and graduate education, as well as advancing entrepreneurial master’s programs.

Christina Pasley, formerly reporting to the Executive Vice Dean, moved into a new position in the Executive Dean’s Office – Director of Strategic Initiatives. The role is designed to enhance transparency, connections, and communications among the divisions and other SAS central offices in ways that advance the goals of this strategic plan. While officially starting mid-summer 2025, during the 2024-25 academic year Christina played a significant role in coordinating among these central teams to streamline processes and clarify roles and responsibilities.

The role of Executive Vice Dean ended as of June 30, 2026, and the SAS centers reporting to that office transitioned to management by either the Division of Humanities or the Division of Social & Behavioral Sciences. The majority of the centers moved to the latter, and a new administrative structure was created for the division during the 2025-26 academic year that provides increased support and opportunities for staff advancement.

Financial and budgeting practices have been updated to provide more transparency, consistency, and accountability. Significant progress has been made over the last two years, and we are now providing departments and other units within SAS with clear budgets, as well as opportunities to share in revenue that is generated in ways that both incentivize school-level priorities and give departments some resources to invest in their own.

Within the SAS Executive Dean’s Office, regular meetings are now scheduled at a range of levels, across sub-offices, all designed to increase communication and collaboration, minimize duplication, and ensure we are all working together as effectively as possible to provide service, solve problems, and take advantage of opportunities.

Following a pilot in 2024-25, we rolled out a new annual planning process in 2025-26. Late in the fall semester, all departments shared information on opportunities, challenges, priorities, and successes; SAS shared data (now largely accessible via new dashboards) on a range of metrics related to students, finances, and personnel. In the first half of the Spring 2026 semester, the SAS senior leadership team met with the leaders and administrative staff of half (17) of our departments for positive, collaborative conversations on goals and plans. We will meet with the other half of the departments next year, so that going forward each department engages in a conversation every other year. All departments receive feedback on the materials they submit, and we welcome more information discussions at any time.

The 2025–2026 academic year was a period of significant transition and strategic reorganization for the SAS Office of Undergraduate Education (SAS-OUE). After many years of distinguished service as Vice Dean of Undergraduate Education, Susan Lawrence returned to the faculty in the Department of Political Science in Fall 2025. Sharon Bzostek, previously Senior Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education, served as Interim Vice Dean during the fall semester and was appointed Vice Dean in January 2026 following an internal search.

During Winter and Spring 2026, SAS-OUE undertook a comprehensive review of its structure, functions, and priorities in light of evolving undergraduate education needs within SAS, Rutgers–New Brunswick, and higher education more broadly. The review reinforced many of the office's existing strengths while identifying opportunities to enhance student and instructor support, improve operational clarity and coordination, and continue innovating in undergraduate education and experiential learning.

Several organizational and leadership changes were implemented at the beginning of FY2027. Following internal searches open to both tenure stream and non-tenure stream faculty, Sangya Varma was appointed Associate Dean of Student Engagement and Community Partnerships, and Lauren Adamo was appointed Associate Dean of Curriculum and Academic Planning, effective July 1, 2026. Jenevieve DeLosSantos, a longtime member of SAS-OUE, transitioned into the newly created role of Associate Dean of Undergraduate Academic Standards.

In addition to these leadership changes, the reorganization created two new offices designed to strengthen support for teaching, learning, student engagement, and experiential education across SAS. The SAS Teaching & Learning Team and the SAS TRIAD Coalition (see above) were combined to form the SAS Office of Teaching and Learning, led by David Goldman. The office provides sustained, outcome-driven support for teaching across SAS, helping instructors, departments, and instructional teams address specific challenges in teaching and learning. It brings together instructors from across disciplines and divisions, connects them with resources throughout Rutgers, and bridges research and practice in pedagogy, assessment, instructional design, and organizational development. The office also strengthens connections among instructors, department leadership, and school leadership in support of student success.

The Office of Student Engagement and Community Partnerships, led by Sangya Varma, brings together existing programs such as Career Explorations in Arts and Sciences, the Math and Science Learning Center, SAS First Together, and the SEED2S program. The office will serve as a hub for building connections with alumni and others to expand opportunities in SAS for undergraduates to receive mentoring, and engage in research, internships, community-engaged learning, and global education.

For employees, SAS provided an opportunity for faculty (tenure system and non-tenure track) and staff to receive funding to support inclusive engagement and community building within and across our units and their members. We received seven proposals from across the four divisions and funded four for a total of $25,000 to be used between March 1, 2025, and June 1, 2026.

New programming in two additional areas advanced our focus on optimizing our working environment and building connections and community. Zaire Dinzey-Flores, Vice Dean for Workplace Culture and Professional Excellence (WCaPE), hosted a range of programs throughout the 2025-26 academic year. These included a monthly roundtable series on topics including the higher education landscape, mentoring and networking, and effective communication, among others. She also held monthly virtual office hours open to all faculty and staff.

Recognizing the importance of excellent leadership and the critical roles that department chairs play, in early Fall 2025 SAS organized an orientation for our new chairs, featuring sessions with the directors of our administrative units, the deans and vice deans, as well as some experienced department chairs. A second session with the Executive Dean and a panel of different experienced chairs was organized to discuss issues critical to transitioning into the role of department chair. The Executive Dean also hosted workshops throughout the 2025-26 academic year, open to all leaders and emerging leaders in SAS on topics such as promotion and tenure, faculty hiring and retention, day-to-day management, and strategies for difficult conversations. Based on feedback, these sessions will be refined for the 2026-27 academic year.

SAS established a Leadership Fellows program to begin in Fall 2026. Applications were solicited and the first cohort of fellows was selected near the end of the Spring 2026 semester. Open to faculty (both tenure and non-tenure system) at least at the rank of Associate Professor, this initiative is designed to provide mid-career faculty with exposure to academic administration to learn about operations, opportunities, and challenges, as well as more general aspects of leadership. SAS Leadership Fellows will gain information, receive mentoring, and work on effecting change in an area of priority for the school. Through this experience, they will ideally be able to reflect on their own characteristics and career goals to consider whether they might pursue an administrative or another type of leadership role.

Finally, we aligned the work of the Dean’s Advisory Council (a group of alumni from SAS and its four legacy colleges) to better meet the goals of the SAS strategic plan in (A) building external relationships to increase opportunities for students and research, and (B) making connections to increase philanthropy to SAS. During 2025-26, this initiative resulted in the referral of 27 new connections with an interest in engaging with SAS. Cultivation of these new relationships is ongoing and includes developing internships and experiential education opportunities through the businesses or employers of alumni, opportunities to speak on campus or be highlighted in alumni interviews, connecting with departments and programs, supporting SAS events, partnering with student organizations, investigating opportunities to support SAS philanthropically, and participating in the SAS First Together program (see above).

Overall, the SAS Development team, in partnership with SAS leadership, faculty, and Rutgers Foundation colleagues, raised $24.9M in new gifts and commitments from individuals, corporations, and foundations in FY26. This value represents a 96% increase over FY25 ($12.7M) and includes a few large gifts that involved years of work.

Summary and Looking to the Future

We are proud of the progress that has been made during the first two years of implementing the SAS strategic plan. The document has provided grounding and a clear framework from which to advance our missions, especially amid ongoing challenges and uncertainty in higher education.

Our success so far and what we will achieve in the coming years is due to the care, dedication, and creativity of our extraordinary faculty and staff. While there remains much to do, we are optimistic about what we can accomplish together in the coming years as One SAS.