Rutgers-New Brunswick Winter Session Offers First Hybrid Courses

Winter Session in New Brunswick begins Dec. 23 and concludes Jan. 14. Credits earned during the three-week term may be applied toward degree completion at Rutgers, but students enrolled elsewhere should secure approval from their academic advisers to ensure credit transferability to their home school, advised Elizabeth Beasley, director of New Brunswick Summer and Special Projects. She added that before enrollment, all students should take careful note of course prerequisites. “Rutgers first-year students must receive permission from their advisers to participate in the intensive, fast-paced winter term,” she said.

Beasley noted Summer Session students enjoyed the flexibility afforded by hybrid classes. “They took advantage of in-person interaction with professors and fellow students, and also appreciated flex-time associated with home study,” she said. For Winter Session, students will meet once before the holiday break (Dec. 23 or 24) then work online until Jan. 3, when they resume classroom meetings. The four, undergraduate hybrid courses are “Scientific and Technical Writing,” “Principles of Management,” “Business Policy and Strategy” and “Women, Culture and Society.”

Besides the hybrids, Winter Session offers a number of noteworthy courses, Beasley said. Among them:

• “Dracula: Facts and Fiction.” Associate Professor of History Stephen Reinert will reconstruct the real life career and exploits of the Wallachian Prince Vlad III Tsepesh, then explore the genesis and evolution of the “Dracula image” from Vlad’s own times to the present.

• “Issues in International Public Administration and Management: Building Civic Capacity in Southern Africa.” Associate Professor Dorothy Olshfski, director of the Center for Executive Leadership in Government, will lead a travel study graduate class to Southern Africa to identify the most significant challenges facing an emerging democracy, including the realities associated with imparting stability and strengthening its institutions.

• “Winter Field Ecology.” Led by Professor Richard Lathrop Jr. from the School of Environmental and Biological Studies, students will embark on a weeklong field experience in the Adirondacks in January to explore the adaptations of temperate plants and animals to the harshness of winter.

For more information about Winter Session, call 732-932-7565 or write winter@docs.rutgers.edu.