Announcing the Chancellor-Provost Challenge: Toward the Common Good

November 9, 2022

Dear Rutgers–New Brunswick Community:

In September, when President Holloway and I launched the implementation of Rutgers–New Brunswick’s Academic Master Plan (AMP), which is detailed below, we called upon you—our faculty, staff, and students—to take an active role in shaping our future of academic excellence.

Today I announce the inaugural Chancellor-Provost Challenge: Toward the Common Good, which invites members of our community to propose transformational, campus-wide initiatives that will help fulfill the goals of the AMP. We seek innovative ideas that will catalyze exploration, collaboration, concept-testing, and risk-taking; represent the efforts of cross-disciplinary teams from multiple Rutgers–New Brunswick units; and focus the power of our research on the grand challenges of science and society.

The Chancellor-Provost Challenge seeks proposals for the Excellence Scholar Collaborative, an initiative supporting the AMP’s Innovative Research and Scholarly Leadership pillars. Over the next five years, the Chancellor-Provost Office will invest $15 million to build interdisciplinary scholarly communities and seed interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary research serving the common good. The areas of focus for this year are challenges such as climate and sustainability, cyberinfrastructure, data science, and artificial intelligence. The Chancellor-Provost Office will fund chosen proposals with grants ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 in support of new interdisciplinary cohorts of faculty hires and collaborative research projects, and will provide personnel funding for departments collaborating on new degree programs.

Proposals are due February 1, 2023; my office will announce selections, based on the review committee’s recommendations, on March 15, 2023, and the chosen initiatives will begin their implementation on July 1, 2023. Details on how to submit a proposal are found on the Chancellor-Provost Challenge website, and proposals may be submitted via this link which is featured on the site.

Successful proposals will articulate a clear path toward external funding or develop new transdisciplinary academic programs that prepare our students for success. The Chancellor-Provost Office will use this opportunity to advance our community’s best talent, creativity, and initiatives. We will support the chosen teams in preparing their projects for scale and making them sustainable to achieve lasting change.

About the Academic Master Plan

As I announced earlier this semester, Rutgers–New Brunswick is embarking on a comprehensive mission to drive equitable student success through Access to Academic Excellence; attend to the well-being of our Beloved Community; and deepen research, community, and economic engagement to benefit the Common Good.

The Academic Master Plan, our roadmap to excellence, embodies values expressed by the campus community through multiple town halls, surveys that yielded more than 4,000 responses, and stakeholder meetings that included undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

We will implement the AMP through a suite of ambitious, transformational programs listed on the Chancellor-Provost Strategic Priorities and Initiatives site.

I invite our faculty, staff, and students to participate in the AMP implementation:

1. Visit the Chancellor-Provost Strategic Priorities and Initiatives website to learn more about the New Brunswick campus-wide AMP initiatives. Contact the Chancellor-Provost Office to express your interest in joining the implementation teams. This office will also accept nominations from the deans and divisional leadership.
2. Respond to the Chancellor-Provost Challenge calls, which will seek proposals for campus-wide initiatives to fulfill the goals of the AMP. Great ideas can come from any member of our campus community, and we look forward to your proposals.
3. Watch for calls to support the development of strategic initiatives within your school and divisional units. Such proposals must be reviewed and endorsed by divisional leadership before being considered by the Chancellor-Provost Office.

This is an exciting time for Rutgers–New Brunswick as we build on our existing traditions of excellence to realize our full potential as a national and worldwide leader of excellence in education, research, and public service.

It is my great honor to invite you to help us achieve that future together.

Sincerely,

Francine Conway, Ph.D.
Chancellor-Provost, Rutgers University–New Brunswick