Information
for New Jersey's Policy Leaders
February 2007
Campus News |
Service to the State |
People in the Know
CAMPUS
NEWS
Newark campus ranked 12th nationwide for research
A new national ranking of scholarly productivity ranked the Newark campus 12th in the nation among Small Research Universities, as published in the
Chronicle of Higher Education’s Jan. 12, 2007 issue. Rutgers–Newark tied for 12th place with Clark University in the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, produced by American Analytics, which ranked 61 universities with fewer than 15 doctoral programs, as part of its inaugural evaluation of nearly 7,300 doctoral programs nationwide. Other universities ranked in the top 20 include DePaul, Bryn Mawr, San Diego State and the College of William and Mary.
Students in World Finals of International Programming Contest
Three Rutgers students will compete in the world finals of the annual International Collegiate Programming Contest, described as the world’s oldest, largest and most prestigious programming contest, with roots extending back to 1970. The IBM-sponsored event will be hosted in Japan in March and has grown to encompass more than 6,000 teams from 1,756 universities around the world. The Rutgers team qualified for the world finals by winning first place in last October’s New York regional competition, besting teams from Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Princeton, RPI, SUNY-Stony Brook and Yale.
Rutgers professor helps immigrant community
Janice Fine, assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations, has developed a program that issues stored value cards through community institutions like work centers to low-wage, immigrant workers who have not capitalized on similar stored-value cards offered by businesses and banks. The cards, called “SiGo” (joining the Spanish word for “yes” and the English word “go”), are similar to debit cards that can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted but don’t require their holders to open a checking account through a bank. Instead, SiGo users can have employers deposit their paychecks directly to the card account or load them with cash deposits at designated businesses. SiGo was rolled out at eight pilot sites nationwide last year, starting in September with New Labor, a New Brunswick center that serves immigrant workers. The pilot project has proved so successful it is now being expanded to centers on Long Island and in Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.
Jazz Master Morgenstern Wins 7th Grammy Award
Dan Morgenstern, longtime director of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers Newark, won his seventh Grammy award, for Best Album Notes, for “If You Got to Ask, You Ain't Got It!" (Fats Waller). Last month, Morgenstern who is a renowned jazz historian, writer, and educator, was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, receiving the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. The award included a one-time fellowship of $25,000. The New York Times calls the “Jazz Master” designation “the nation’s highest jazz honor.” The Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies, the world’s most extensive jazz archives, is part of the Rutgers University Libraries.
Rutgers Trenton Public Policy Seminar
Rutgers Trenton Seminar Series continues on March 22, in Committee Room 1, State House Annex, from 9:30 am to 10:30am. Dr. Anthony Broccoli, Director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences will discuss
“THE CLIMATE AHEAD: Global Changes and Local Impacts.”
SERVICE
TO THE STATE
Local Public Finance Database
Two units of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers: the Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR) and the Center of Government Services (CGS) have collaborated to compile a Local Public Finance Database to help New Jersey residents better understand the relationship between the value of their homes, the property taxes they pay and the services they receive from local municipalities, school districts and counties. To view the public database, click on the link:
http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/reports/.
Spinach Recall survey
Researchers at the Food Policy Institute (FPI) at Rutgers took the opportunity of the widespread media attention and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recall of E.coli-contaminated spinach to study the U.S. food recall system and to investigate the public’s reactions to this incident. The results of the nationwide telephone survey describe the level of consumer awareness and knowledge of the recall and food borne illness. They also provide insight into consumer behavior during the recall and likely future behavior in response to the recall. The results of this study are published on the Institute’s web site at
http://foodpolicyinstitute.org/.
PEOPLE IN THE KNOW
If you'd like to know more about:
Global warming and climate Change:
In response to the recent release of an executive summary from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), several Rutgers faculty and researchers are available for comment on various aspects of global warming and climate change:
ANTHONY J. BROCCOLI is associate professor of environmental sciences at Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS), the renamed Cook College. Contact Broccoli at 732-932-9817 or at
broccoli@envsci.rutgers.edu.
DAVID ROBINSON is chair of the Department of Geography in Rutgers’ School of Arts and Sciences and the New Jersey State Climatologist. Contact Robinson at 732-445-4741 or at
drobins@rci.rutgers.edu.
JENNIFER FRANCIS is associate research professor in Rutgers’ Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. Francis works at the James J. Howard Marine Laboratory at Sandy Hook and can be reached at 732-708-1217 or at
francis@imcs.rutgers.edu.
DALE HAIDVOGEL is professor of marine science at Rutgers’ Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. Contact Haidvogel at 732-932-6555, ext. 256, or at
dale@imcs.marine.rutgers.edu.
JAMES MILLER is professor of marine science at Rutgers’ Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. Contact Miller at 732-932-6555, ext. 545.
ALAN ROBOCK is professor of environmental science at Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Contact Robock at 732-881-1610 or at
robock@envsci.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
