Spotlight on Rutgers offers chance to tout all-around excellence
Story updated January 11, 2007
New Jersey and the nation continue to bask in the scarlet glow of the Rutgers
football team, which was ranked No. 12 in both the
final Associated Press Top 25 and the USA Today/Coaches Top 25 rankings
released January 9. On the same day, Governor Jon S. Corzine praised the team and coach Greg Schiano during his State of the State address.
But Rutgers football is hardly the first of the university’s programs to earn national and worldwide distinction. Academic programs from history to practical mathematics at The State University of New Jersey have long been outstanding in many fields – and that would not be the gridiron.
“We are proud of the hard work and determination of the players, coaches, and staff who have turned Rutgers football into one of the nation’s top teams. We are equally proud of the achievements of the faculty and students in our outstanding academic programs,” said Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick. “Our peers throughout higher education have ranked many Rutgers programs among the finest in their fields. Rutgers’ success on the football field has prompted many people to take a closer look at the university.”
The Scarlet Knights finished the season 11-2 overall,
including the school's first bowl championship with a 37-10 victory
over Kansas State in the inaugural Texas Bowl. The team was ranked as high as No. 6 during the regular season.
The final ranking is the highest in school history in the final season rankings, eclipsing the No. 15 ranking Rutgers earned in the final Associated Press poll in 1961.
Still, Rutgers ranks high in more than just athletics. Rutgers’ philosophy faculty are ranked No. 2 in the English-speaking world in the latest edition of the Philosophical Gourmet Report, a ranking of philosophy departments based primarily on the quality of their faculty, using opinion surveys of philosophers.
The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy recently was ranked No. 8 in the nation among graduate schools in urban planning, based on an independent survey of professionals, educators, and students commissioned by Planetizen, a Los Angeles-based planning and development network.
Winning spirit is infectious
Richard White, director of Career Services, said that his family is bubbling with enthusiasm about Rutgers. His daughter, who just transferred to Rutgers from Lehigh University, told him she loves Rutgers and is excited by the fresh sense of community among students.
“Successful football programs do much more than just add up victories for a football team. They create a visibility, a buzz, an interest,” White said. “Seeing Rutgers in The Star-Ledger, The New York Times, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and other national media may be an entry point of awareness and recognition for the university. We can do both academics and athletics. Schools like the University of Michigan and the University of California-Berkeley – that’s the echelon Rutgers is in.”
If awareness counts, then Rutgers has an advantage over other schools. A poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton before and after the Rutgers-Louisville game – in which the Scarlet Knights notched a historic 28-25 victory – showed that 22 percent of more than 1,000 poll respondents across the nation had heard of Rutgers approximately one week before the bout.
In the days following Rutgers’ win over the University of Louisville, that number went up 12 points to 34 percent. Duke University’s awareness increased 9 percent, Emory University’s increased 4 percent, and Penn State awareness increased 3 percent during the same period.
In the world of recruitment and admission, awareness counts for a lot, and senior admissions counselor Shalonda Tanner has noticed the difference. “It seems as if we’re getting a lot more buy-in to the Rutgers brand, and as a marketer of the university trying to attract quality candidates for admission, it is helping us. We couldn’t even pay for the publicity that we’re getting,” Tanner said.
Rutgers College Dean Carl Kirschner said he sees enthusiasm
in faculty and alumni alike. “The overwhelming majority of faculty with whom I
speak are excited about the success of the football team,” Kirschner said. “And
I have had a larger number of phone calls this year from alumni who tell me
that their son or daughter is interested in Rutgers.”
More New Jersey students are showing an interest in Rutgers, Tanner said, and keeping the best New Jersey students in the state is a key goal for her department. “The name is getting into a lot more households than we could possibly have imagined. I hear students saying, ‘Well Rutgers wasn’t in my top three, but now I’m considering Rutgers.’ That opens the door for engaging them in a conversation about all the wonderful opportunities and programs that Rutgers has.”
The recent successes have affected employee morale as well. The undergraduate admissions office has worn red clothes and Rutgers gear every Friday for years. Now, other departments in the Administrative Services Building on Busch Campus are following suit. “It’s been rubbing off,” Tanner said. “A sea of red is a wonderful thing to see walking through the building.”
Rutgers is ranked 21st among national public universities with doctoral programs by U.S. News & World Report. Graduate school departments ranked at the top of their fields in 2006 include library science (No. 6); English literature (No. 16); and history (No. 17).
Highly ranked individual graduate programs include:
- School library media – No. 1
- Discrete mathematics and combinations – No. 2
- Women’s history – No. 2
- African-American history – No. 4
- Criminal justice – No. 4
- Gender and literature – No. 4
- American literature before 1865 – No. 5
- Cultural history – No. 7
- Nursing, psychiatric/mental health – No. 9
- Logic – No. 10
- Elementary particle and string theory – No. 13
- Algebra – No. 15
Additional academic departments at Rutgers that have been ranked in the top 30 among public and private colleges and universities in national surveys include:
- Art history
- Anthropology
- Biomedical/bioengineering
- Computer science
- Executive MBA
- French
- Geography
- Physics
- Psychology
- Political science
- Statistics/biostatistics
- Theater arts