Academic Master Plan:
Assessing Our Impact

The Chancellor Challenge emerged to advance high-priority areas of excellence and impact, including climate change, data science and cyber infrastructure, behavioral health and equity, and seed funding for emerging ideas. Through periodic campus-wide calls for proposals, Rutgers–New Brunswick is investing $15 million in transformational, interdisciplinary projects that align with the university’s Academic Master Plan. 

Impact Highlights: Since its launch in 2022, the Chancellor Challenge has catalyzed innovation and produced impactful outcomes, including support for initiatives such as the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute (RCEI) and its Wind Energy Test (W.E.T.) Center Project, the Cluster on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CDSAI), and the RU Engaged Service-Learning Byrne Seminars with Integrated Alternative Spring Breaks

The Task Force for the Institute for Teaching, Learning, and Inclusive Pedagogy was convened in Fall 2022 to identify ways to strengthen support for effective and inclusive teaching at Rutgers–New Brunswick. The task force developed a final report, leading to the creation of the Institute for Teaching, Innovation, and Inclusive Pedagogy (TIIP). TIIP serves as a hub for instructors by providing programs, services, and resources that support innovative and inclusive pedagogy.

Impact Highlights: Since its launch, the Institute for Teaching, Innovation, and Inclusive Pedagogy has expanded opportunities for instructor development and collaboration through initiatives such as the Student Pedagogical Partner Fellowship, the Course Design Institute, and teaching communities and networks, helping to strengthen teaching and learning across the Rutgers–New Brunswick community. 

Established in Fall 2023, the Center for Faculty Success supports faculty across the full span of their careers with opportunities for development, advancement, leadership, and recognition.

Impact Highlights: Since its launch, it has promoted faculty success, leadership, and excellence through a variety of inclusive professional development support and works in conjunction with campus, university, and external partners to support the growth and development of faculty. The Center for Faculty Success’ signature programs include the Lecturer Welcome and Orientation, Department Leaders Program series, Pathways to New Faculty Success, Provost Leadership Fellows for Faculty Advancement, and the Faculty Excellence Awards. 

The inaugural Associate Vice Chancellor for Data Strategy role was established in the Chancellor's Office in 2025. The Associate Vice Chancellor for Data Strategy enhances data-informed decision-making efforts, provides strategic vision for future initiatives, serves as the principal liaison and point of contact between the Central data offices and Rutgers–New Brunswick, and gathers and coordinates emerging data needs from the schools and units. 

The Chancellor Signature Initiatives reflect a coordinated effort to advance interdisciplinary research and deepen collaboration across the university and with external partners. Together, they connect faculty, students, and collaborators around shared strengths and enhance Rutgers–New Brunswick’s capacity to address complex societal challenges.

• Life Sciences Alliance: The Life Sciences Alliance supports interdisciplinary “grand challenge” research teams, large-scale grant development, expanded research training opportunities, and stronger partnerships with industry, government, and external research organizations. The alliance also supports growth in shared research infrastructure, including Platforms for Education and Research Cores (PERCs), designed to expand access to advanced scientific research resources and strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration across the university’s broader life sciences ecosystem.
• Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute (RCEI): RCEI brings together scholars from science, policy, engineering, and the arts to foster collaborative solutions for a sustainable future. Through interdisciplinary grants, student fellowships, and cross-sector partnerships, RCEI is expanding Rutgers–New Brunswick’s capacity for climate-focused research.
• Rutgers Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Collaboratory (RAD Collaboratory): The RAD Collaboratory is helping position Rutgers–New Brunswick as a leading interdisciplinary center for AI and data science research. Its work supports emerging initiatives in areas such as AI for society, quantitative biomedicine, and large-scale computational research, while strengthening collaboration across the university’s broader AI ecosystem.

In Fall 2022, the ScarletWell Task Force was convened to assess Rutgers–New Brunswick’s wellness initiatives and identify opportunities for stronger coordination and support. The Task Force’s final report informed the establishment of ScarletWell and the appointment of a Chief Wellness Officer and Director of ScarletWell.

Impact Highlights: ScarletWell provides programs, resources, and initiatives that support the wellness of the Rutgers–New Brunswick community. Since its launch, ScarletWell has helped to foster a vibrant community for all, facilitate a sense of connection and belonging, and ensure that Rutgers serves as a national model for an educational and work environment that prioritizes mental health and wellness.

The Working Group to Enhance Experiential Learning for Undergraduate Students at Rutgers–New Brunswick was convened in Fall 2021 as part of the Academic Master Plan planning process. The group’s final report provided recommendations that led to the creation of the role of Vice Provost for Experiential Learning (VPEL). The Vice Provost for Experiential Learning collaborates with universitywide partners to develop, expand, and broaden participation in experiential learning initiatives.

Impact Highlights: The Vice Provost for Experiential Learning has advanced a more coordinated institutional approach to experiential learning, helping to broaden opportunities for students while improving the university’s ability to measure and enhance the impact of these experiences on student success. 

The Committee on Transfer Policies and Practices was convened in Fall 2022 as part of Rutgers–New Brunswick’s efforts to better meet the evolving needs of its transfer student population. The committee’s final report outlined recommendations and strategies to improve transfer persistence, retention, graduation, and students’ connection to the Rutgers community.

Impact Highlights: In Fall 2024, the Dual Admission program, a partnership between Rutgers–New Brunswick and Middlesex College, was developed. Through this program, students begin at Middlesex College and, upon successful completion of their associate’s degree, are guaranteed admission to Rutgers–New Brunswick, creating a clearer and more supportive pathway to a Rutgers degree.

The Honors Integration Committee was convened in Spring 2024 to develop recommendations for integrating the Honors College and school-based honors programs into a unified honors experience. Bringing together the Honors College, the Engineering Honors Academy, and honors programs in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences creates a more cohesive and enriching experience for high-achieving students while preserving the legacy and strengths of each program.

Impact Highlights: Launched in Summer 2025, the new Honors College represents a significant step toward strengthening collaboration across honors communities and expanding opportunities for academic engagement, leadership, and student success.

Discovery Advantage emerged from the coordinated work of Rutgers–New Brunswick task forces and working groups. The Discovery Advantage Steering Committee, convened in Fall 2022, was comprised of nearly 200 Rutgers–New Brunswick faculty, staff, and students. The committee's 2024 final report outlines a comprehensive set of recommendations to transform the undergraduate student experience and strengthen outcomes from entry through graduation.

Impact Highlights: Through aligned investments in academic support, mentoring, well-being, belonging, career preparedness, experiential learning, and integrated student success systems, Rutgers–New Brunswick is building a more unified and responsive student support ecosystem that continues to evolve to meet student needs.

A Student Success Dashboards Working Group was formed to implement recommendations from the Discovery Advantage Steering Committee’s report, including the development of data dashboards that identify actionable opportunities to support student progress and success.

Impact Highlights: Since its creation, the group has developed a suite of retention and graduation dashboards, expanded the university’s approach to retention analysis by tracking student progress semester by semester, and is building real-time dashboards that will help measure and strengthen efforts to improve student outcomes.

A campus-wide effort was launched during the 2025–26 academic year to onboard all advising offices from admitting schools onto a single academic advising platform, Navigate360.

Impact Highlights: Since the launch of the campus-wide initiative, all advising offices from admitting schools have been integrated into the platform, and significant system enhancements have expanded reporting capabilities, laying the foundation for a broader student success ecosystem that will provide a comprehensive, 360-degree view of students across advising and support units.

The RCommunity engagement portal, hosted on the GivePulse platform, was launched in 2024 to provide Rutgers–New Brunswick students, faculty, and staff with a centralized platform to find, organize, and promote engagement on- and off-campus.

Impact Highlights: Since its implementation, RCommunity has strengthened the university’s ability to capture and showcase the breadth of its community engagement impact.

The Publicly- and Community-Engaged Scholarship and Research Task Force was convened in Spring 2023 to clarify and strengthen our collective understanding of publicly/community-engaged scholarship and to provide recommendations on how to document publicly-engaged activities in tenure and promotion packets.

Impact Highlights: The task force’s final report provided a framework for defining and assessing publicly-engaged scholarship, outlined recommendations for tenure and promotion review practices, and emphasized the importance of community-engaged research as part of Rutgers’ mission and Academic Master Plan. University tenure and promotion review practices now include guidelines for evaluating publicly- and community-engaged scholarship.

ScarletWell, an initiative based on public health and prevention-focused approaches to mental health and wellness, was created for students, faculty, and staff. A Holistic Wellness Minor, the first of its kind in the country, integrates wellness principles into any career path and reinforces wellness as a transferable competency.

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The Arts in Health Initiative is a collaboration between Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers Health, and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, which connects scholarship in the arts, health, and community well-being. The Arts in Health Research Lab conducts research and nurtures pedagogy and programming that explores the ways in which the arts contribute to measurable improvements in physical, social, and mental well-being. 

Rutgers Business School organized 17 national conferences in 2025 alone, attracting more than 2,300 scholarly and executive participants from around the world. Its flagship Innovations in Undergraduate and Graduate Business Education (IUGBE) conference convened deans from institutions including the University of California, Berkeley; Northwestern University; the University of Pennsylvania; and Cornell University to explore the future of business education. 

In collaboration with the School of Public Health, the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology developed a 12-credit online certificate program in Suicide Prevention, Practice, and Policy. The interdisciplinary program integrates clinical, organizational, workplace, public health, and policy approaches to suicide prevention and is taught by leading scholars in the field.

Students examine the economic, political, commercial, and social factors that shape suicide risk while preparing to support prevention efforts across health care, education, criminal justice, organizational settings, and media.

Through the recently established Graduate Certificate on Workers' Rights, students learn about their own rights and the rights of other working people, including how rights have been expanded historically. They discuss how efforts to reduce rights today might be countered, or how to expand existing rights to more groups of employees. The program focuses on workers' rights in the U.S., while allowing opportunities to learn from international perspectives to inform change. 

COSMOS3 is an NSF-funded expansion of the COSMOS smart-city wireless research testbed, enabling experimental research on next-generation 6G networks. Hosted at WINLAB, the platform connects Rutgers–New Brunswick’s Busch Campus with Columbia University’s New York City testbed while integrating smart-city sensing capabilities. COSMOS3 expands Rutgers’ leadership in wireless networking and smart-city infrastructure research by supporting large-scale experimentation on emerging 6G technologies.

The Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program, led through collaborations with the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the School of Engineering, reflects the university’s growing leadership in applied sustainability research. The program explores how agricultural production and solar energy generation can coexist on the same land, advancing research at the intersection of food systems, renewable energy, land use, and environmental resilience. By integrating engineering, environmental science, agriculture, and policy expertise, the initiative supports new approaches to sustainable energy development while preserving agricultural productivity.

The USDA NIFA NEXTGEN Animal Science Discovery Program is a summer experiential learning, career development, and scholarship initiative connecting LaGuardia Community College and Rutgers–New Brunswick. Through the program, students transfer to Rutgers–New Brunswick to pursue academic and career pathways in food, agriculture, veterinary medicine, and biomedical research at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The New Jersey Healthy Corner Store Initiative is a food security research program led by the New Jersey Healthy Communities Network at Rutgers Cooperative Extension in collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Health, NJ SNAP-Ed, and community partners. The initiative supports local corner stores in low-income communities with resources and technical assistance to increase access to fresh, affordable food.

The Grow@SEBS program is a student engagement platform that helps School of Environmental and Biological Sciences undergraduates explore the G. H. Cook campus and connect with the community through co-curricular and extracurricular activities. As students earn Grow Points, they develop competencies that enrich their educational experience and strengthen their preparation for employment, scholarships, and continued academic study.

To improve collaboration in student advising and support, the Annual Student Success Conference brings together faculty and staff from Student Affairs and Enrollment Management to share strategies and align student-focused efforts. 

The School of Engineering’s First-Year Integration Programs support incoming students through two complementary, peer-led initiatives that support incoming engineering students through the transition from high school to university-level engineering study. First-Year Transition Leaders (FTYLs) engage with new students before their first semester, providing guidance on academics and campus resources, while the Engineering Peer Advisor (EPA) program operates during the academic year, pairing trained upperclassmen with first-year students. Together, these competitive volunteer programs foster student success, confidence, and community from the summer before enrollment through the first year.

Scarlet Hope for Autism: The Road to Excellence in Education (SHARE), is an innovative workforce development program to provide job-embedded, research-based applied behavior analysis (ABA) training and intervention for supporting the learning and life success of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in New Jersey. SHARE launched in Newark Public Schools, the largest school district in New Jersey.

The Governor’s School of New Jersey in Engineering and Technology introduces high-achieving high school students to advanced STEM learning and research experiences while strengthening pathways into higher education and scientific careers. During the program, students have the opportunity to collaborate on a novel research project, which is showcased during a culminating research symposium. The program also includes workshops, site visits to local corporations, and activities with professors, professionals, and peers from throughout the state.

The Zimmerli Art Museum presents a wide range of public programs that are free and open to the public, serving more than 15,200 people during fiscal year 2025. As a public-facing institution committed to community engagement, the museum welcomes more than 45,000 visitors annually, including many from the Rutgers community.

Through exhibitions, programs, and educational initiatives, the Zimmerli uses the visual arts to foster learning and connection among Rutgers students, faculty, and visitors from across the region.
 

Departments within the Mason Gross School of the Arts partnered with New Brunswick nonprofit organizations to create arts experiences and collaborative projects for community participants. These arts-based collaborations gave students the opportunity to better understand community needs while developing creative projects designed to support local organizations and their constituents.

Integrated into coursework, the projects combined academic learning, research, and community engagement while preparing Mason Gross students to build artistically grounded, research-informed partnerships with community organizations.