Information for New Jersey's Policy Leaders
April 2007
Campus News |
Service to the State |
People in the Know
CAMPUS NEWS
Researcher Awarded $1.5 Million NIH Grant
Charalampos Kalodimos, assistant professor of chemistry at Rutgers Newark, has been awarded a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research in the motor protein, known as SecA, which is linked to heart failure and stroke. By gaining greater understanding of how SecA functions, the anticipation is for more effective drug therapies with fewer side effects, thus lowering the incidence of heart disease and stroke, which are among the top three killers in the United States. Kalodimos’ proposal was awarded the highest priority by the peer-review team during the NIH’s grant review process. The NIH is among the nation’s leading grant funding organizations and the primary federal agency responsible for biomedical research.
$1.5 Million EDA Award to Support Bio/Tech Business Growth
Efforts to promote economic growth through bioscience and technology in southern New Jersey received a significant boost with a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) to support a new Biotech-Life Science Business Incubator at the Rutgers-Camden Technology Campus. The grant will be used to construct wet lab space for 18 laboratories in the new Business Incubator and will create 255 jobs and generate more than $17 million in private investment, according to the EDA. The Rutgers-Camden Technology Campus offers client companies a complete portfolio of general and targeted business advice, services, and skills training in addition to office, laboratory, and light manufacturing space in a sub-market cost environment.
Rutgers Buildings go Green
A new institute supported by the university’s Academic Excellence Fund is working with Rutgers officials to promote sustainable construction on campus and nationwide. The Center for Green Building, launched in June 2006 with a $100,000 award from Rutgers’ Academic Excellence Fund, is a multidisciplinary institute whose activities are dedicated to fostering more green building nationally. The center already has had two major reports published making recommendations on industrial and residential green building management in the Meadowlands region and is working on a third study on affordable green housing.
SERVICE TO THE STATE
Report on NJ Sunshine Law
Suzanne J. Piotrowski, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Administration and Erin Borry, Master of Public Administration candidate wrote a report on the state of open meetings policy and practice in New Jersey. The Report,
Partly Cloudy: A Report on the New Jersey Sunshine Law, was prepared for the New Jersey Foundation of Open Government and supported by a grant from the National Freedom of Information Coalition. The Report was released during Government in the Sunshine Week 2007, the second week in March. The New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act, passed in 1975, is the foremost law promoting transparent practices with regard to meetings in the State of New Jersey. Also called the Sunshine Law, it was passed during the administration of Governor Brendan T. Byrne, in line with his “Government Under Glass” initiative. For a copy of the report, click on
http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~spiotrow/PartlyCloudyReport2007.pdf. For the media coverage of the report, visit
http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~spiotrow/recent.htm.
Law Program to Help At-Risk Teens
Rutgers-Camden law school this spring launched its Street Law program in which future attorneys are taking it to the streets to help at-risk youth in Camden and southern New Jersey. The program, supported by a $40,000 grant from the New Jersey State Bar Association, involves over 30 students who meet with Camden children and teens to advise them about legal matters that impact their everyday lives. Each week, Rutgers-Camden law students discuss such varied topics as lease agreements, tenants’ rights, criminal law, workplace discrimination, and citizen advocacy. The Rutgers-Camden School of Law offers a wide portfolio of pro bono and clinical programs in such topics as domestic violence, taxation, immigration, community dispute resolution, and children’s justice.
Greater New Jersey
Greater New Jersey, a new book by Dennis Gale, a Rutgers Professor of Public Administration and Political Science, probes challenges posed to the identity of New Jersey by the New York-centered mass media, professional sports, and organized crime families, while examining pressures internal to the state itself, including extraordinary social diversity, high population, fragmented governments, extensive political corruption, and diminishing land and natural resources. Greater New Jersey sets itself apart from other works about the state by virtue of the scope of its inquiry. While contemporary in outlook, the book underscores the role of history in shedding light on the Manhattan and New Jersey of today. Read more at
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14276.html.
PEOPLE IN THE KNOW
If you'd like to know more about:
New Jersey’s nonprofit sector and its future, contact MELISSA SMITH of The Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Leadership at Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick. She can discuss the results of the first Nonprofit Leadership Index 2007, a statewide survey of New Jersey’s nonprofit leaders that examines and measures the leaders’ confidence in the future of the sector and the overall ability for nonprofits to fulfill their charitable mission. Contact SMITH at (973) 353-1134 or by email at
leadership@business.rutgers.edu.
Looking for Rutgers expertise on a particular topic? Browse the
Rutgers Speakers Bureau:
http://ur.rutgers.edu/speakers/
For additional information and news, click on the following links:
Questions and comments, please contact
staterel@oldqueens.rutgers.edu
