The Dean's Corner
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Since the launch of our new strategic plan at the end of 2022, we have been busy delivering on that roadmap to 2028 and on our mission to serve as a leading business school committed to high-quality research, academic excellence, and engagement. At RSBC, we have continued to identify innovative ways to deliver transformative education to our students. On behalf of the faculty, staff, and students of RSBC, I am delighted to share our progress report with this edition of our newsletter.
Our progress highlights a holistic commitment to success as an institution. Key accomplishments and initiatives include:
- Beginning in 2021, achieved the highest graduate enrollments year after year, built on an expanded portfolio of degrees. Importantly, our increased commitment to internationalization has also led to significant growth in international enrollments.
- Revisioned our undergraduate leadership program to a Business Honors program that delivers signature opportunities to high-achieving on-campus and transfer students.
- Increased investment in faculty and staff development, including training and professional development, clarification on promotion and tenure guidelines, teaching and research grants, and faculty/staff recognitions.
- Enhanced student mentorship activities through peer-mentor and Executive-in-Residence programs.
- Elevated our alumni and external engagement, resulting in multiple signature events involving community and corporate partners. We were also delighted to receive our largest single gift in the history of RSBC to support activities in Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
We hope you find value in reading about our progress. As always, I encourage you to reach out as you see an opportunity to engage with some of our ongoing initiatives.
With appreciation,
As an increasing number of businesses are embracing societal impact as a vital business capability, the Rutgers School of Business at Camden (RSBC) remains steadfast in critically assessing out own impact while upholding our commitment to positioning business schools as catalysts for social good. With over 50% of our students being first-generation, our primary responsibility is preparing our students today as successful and responsible leaders of tomorrow, thereby delivering upward mobility and intellectual enrichment to future generations. Accordingly, RSBC continues to invest in our students through scholarships to ensure college affordability. To illustrate, in the 2022-23 academic year alone, RSBC provided over $4.7 million in financial aid and scholarships. The undergraduate student debt at RSBC, inclusive of transfer student debt, stands at almost half the national average. Simultaneously, the median starting salary for RSBC undergraduates six months after graduation was $61,250.
Through both curricular and co-curricular activities, we instill a sense of social responsibility in our students at RSBC. For instance, students engage in business improvement projects with small enterprises, organize fundraisers for local non-profits, and act as mentors for their peers and high-school students. Within their courses, they delve into topics such as responsible consumption, ethical use of technology and data, mitigating bias in decision-making, the ethics of dynamic pricing, fostering inclusive organizational governance, promoting environmental sustainability, and combating bribery in international organizations, among others. Moreover, we continue to expand our students’ perspectives through engagement with influential business leaders, such as Suzanne Ackerman, Steven Selfridge, and Kris Kolluri, who reflect a deep and sustained commitment to “doing good is good business.”
Our faculty themselves are actively engaged in socially responsible research within their respective fields. Across its seven main research clusters, many RSBC faculty conduct research on topics such as workplace diversity, responsible consumerism, gun violence, emergency management, slavery in global supply chains, resident matching for enhanced health outcomes, green investments, and the influence of growing nationalism on sustainability initiatives, among others. Faculty consistently contribute to reputable journals known for their international recognition and impact. For their demonstrated commitment to societal good, our faculty serve on a variety of boards that lead regional economic development and policy matters.
Finally, the school has made significant investments in partnerships to advance school-wide initiatives that benefit society. Key among these are partnerships with Professional and Executive Education at Rutgers (PEER) and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), which contribute to workforce development and regional economic growth. Furthermore, our collaborations have resulted in conferences focusing on Environmental Justice and Sustainability in Real Estate, which have provided platforms for students and the community to engage in meaningful dialogue.
Since its inception, the efforts of our advisors, SEED officers, and other staff members, as well as faculty, have profoundly transformed lives, whether through academic excellence or scholarship. In the remaining three years of our current strategic plan, we will persist in refining and expanding our impact through bold initiatives. For our continued success in delivering these transformations, we look forward to your continued support.
With appreciation,
The last three years have probably been some of the most transformative shifts for higher education. Although we tend to call these advances disruptive, they have forced us to think holistically about how we must evolve. In this newsletter, I share three initiatives – let’s refer to them as back to the basics, being in the present, and looking to the future.
Perhaps attributable to some disciplinary partiality, at the Rutgers School of Business–Camden, we recognize that some business education can be greatly beneficial to professionals, irrespective of function or industry, whether for-profit or not. We also recognize that, while for many, a holistic knowledge of business comes from full degree completion, others may first want to gain a basic knowledge through smaller learning modules. To this end, this fall, we launched a 12-credit graduate certificate in Fundamentals of Business with required courses in Accounting and Finance and sufficient flexibility to customize the certificate to one’s preferred emphasis. This certificate also strengthens the pathways we provide to our students to stack these certificates towards a full degree. We also revamped core business courses at the undergraduate level to strengthen our foundations in business communications, business essentials, and information technology such that our later undergraduate courses can better rely on these foundations to scaffold a more advanced curriculum. We went back to the basics to strengthen for the future.
In the short time since 2021 when educational institutions were wrestling with the shift to online learning, big data, analytics, and artificial intelligence have made it incumbent on us to continue to adapt. For instance, an immediate question for us is – do we focus on harnessing the strength of AI to enhance learning or do we limit its adoption in the classroom? What we are most excited about is how our faculty are integrating generative AI to enhance student learning and engagement, to improve critical thinking skills, and to serve as thought leaders in the integration of AI in pedagogy. Other faculty are teaching AI from technical, ethical, and human dimensions, reflecting the multi-dimensional impact of technologies. At the same time, our faculty are using AI in their research, such as exploring the intersection between analyst reports and organizational culture. We are proud that our response to new technologies and trends has been to embrace and move forward with creative adoption.
As human and ethical dimensions take on greater significance, we continue to serve as thought leaders on themes of societal impact, as evident in our featured faculty research on gun violence and on diversity in the workplace. But our responsibilities don’t stop with research and teaching. They extend to finding ways to serve as convenors around important themes that will impact our future. In partnership with the Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA), we recently hosted a conference on Environmental Justice that brought together policy makers, corporations, community partners, students, and Camden residents to dialog on this important topic that will shape our future for generations to come. Such conventions will naturally lead to crucial research, discourse, and policy development to ensure that decisions we take today do not undermine our future generations.
As we refresh the basics of our business education and assess our present offerings and opportunities, we continue to create opportunities to bring together various perspectives and stakeholders who can help chart the course for a stronger future.
- Undergraduate-Level Students
- 56% are employed full-time or part-time or participating in full-time service programs.
- 22% are enrolled in graduate/professional school/continuing education.
- 22% are seeking employment.
- Salary Average = $60,880
- Graduate-Level Students
- 94% are working full- or part-time.
- 2 are enrolled in a program of continuing education.
- Salary Average = $69,443
- Eminent Scholar Series: In Fall 2022, Jonathan Doh, Associate Dean of Research and Global Engagement, Rammrath Chair in International Business at Villanova University, spoke on sustainability and climate change.
- Eminent Business Leader Series: In Spring 2023, Kenneth Frazier, Former CEO of Merck shared his journey and perspectives in leadership in Spring 2023. We are thankful to the Holman Foundation for supporting this event.
- Foremost is the opportunity for our business faculty to find synergies across disciplines. For instance, Dr. Karti Puranam (operations management) and Dr. Briance Mascarenhas (strategy and entrepreneurship) are collaborating on projects, one of which was recently published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), that are providing alternative solutions to medical practices including national resident matching.
- Second, the research clusters lend an opportunity to bring together faculty across schools and colleges. This extends the possibility of joint grant writing and collaboration around progressive and impactful areas such as sustainability, workplace wellness, and health equity.
- Finally, the clusters will enable us to expand partnership with industry through joint projects, faculty externships, consultation, and professional and executive training and development. Importantly, these industry engagements are deeply valuable as they come full circle in equipping our faculty to deliver applied knowledge and pragmatic skills to our students.
Across industries, trends that were visible in the horizon have expedited, sometimes exacerbated, over the past couple of years. Higher education is no different. Technological disruptions, evolving student preferences, andexpectations of a more meaningful impact have mandated that we at Rutgers School of Business–Camden (RSBC) reimagine our charge as a leading public business school in New Jersey.
The timing of this mandate couldn’t be better. This year, we launch our new strategic plan, a roadmap to 2028, that underscores the impact, flexibility, and agility that are so essential to the success of our vision to serve as a catalyst for transformation through research, academic excellence, and engagement. This vision is built on three strategic goals:
- Deliver societal impact through student transformation, research excellence, and partnerships.
- Enhance RSBC’s growth and reputation.
- Grow internal capabilities to deliver on strategic goals.
Foremost, we must intensify our efforts to empower through high-quality business education. Delivering high-quality, affordable education that intellectually and economically transforms our and students has been our missionand will remain an area of continuous improvement. Fundamental to this is caring for the whole student and delivering opportunities that build on their grit to grow their personal and professional selves.
Our new plan extends this goal of intellectual and economic transformation to our business and community partners. In the next five years, we will strength our partnerships, convene thought leaders, develop our communities, and serve as a catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurship in the region.
Academic and research excellence is built on a strong foundation of excellence – of people and infrastructure. Translating our faculty’s high-caliber research for impactful consumption by industry is a key priority. Our staff, deeply rooted in our communities, will grow as thought leaders. And our alumni and friends who have experienced first-hand the transformative work at RSBC, will be engaged as crucial partners.
This strategic plan is about relationships. And your relationship with will be crucial to our success. Join us in actualizing our vision and making a difference, one student at a time.
These past 18 months have been about transformation driven by technology, human relationships, and our relationship with nature, to name a few. Rutgers School of Business–Camden was poised for this transformation due to our continuous investments in innovative programming, a strong and positive internal culture, and our commitment to student success.
There is great excitement at the RSBC as we look to another exciting phase of our transformation – and for reasons that are better than the past 18 months! RSBC is preparing to launch our new strategic plan that will chart our course for the next five years. The data-driven process has engaged multiple stakeholders and includes initiatives that integrate social impact, capability enhancement, and the growth of our regional and national footprint. Beyond the Rutgers-Camden stakeholders, our advisory board members, alumni, and corporate partners have provided valuable insights into these initiatives. I look forward to sharing this plan with you later this semester and welcome your engagement with it.
At RSBC, we are proud that our business school imbues responsibility in everything we do: preparing students to strengthen the workplace, conducting path-defining research, and fostering social impact by empowering communities, businesses, and families. Our initiatives this year will continue to build on that foundation.
On behalf of the RSBC, I extend our profound gratitude for your engagement. For what lies ahead of us, I look forward to your partnership and will lean on you to help realize our vision.
We are back on campus, as expected, with mixed feelings. While there is elation about the campus returning to some normalcy with in-person classes, seeing students in our hallways, and having real-time faculty exchanges, our mask mandates are a reminder of our transitionary state. As a society, we have come a long way since last year with the pandemic, even as more needs to be done.
The same is true of our work at SBC. We accomplished much last year – new and revised graduate programs and certificates, a greater emphasis on student engagement, and a developing strategy for deepening our positive impact on our stakeholders. Our faculty have remained prolific with their research, even as they have balanced the demands of pivoting to online and care for loved ones at home. It gives me great pride to share that this past year, our faculty published nearly 60 articles in high-quality journals such as JAMA, Journal of Management, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Journal of Marketing Research – top journals recognized by The Financial Times. Our faculty’s impact outside their academic disciplines is recognized through research features in outlets, such as The Economic Times and BBC, as well as invitations to serve on boards and as subject matter experts for policy makers.
Our past accomplishments have strengthened our foundation for the work that lies ahead. Our efforts this year are directed to updating our undergraduate curricula to reflect currency and student preparation for future jobs and graduate education. An important part of our undergraduate experience is student development outside of the classroom. Our prior Student Experience Center (SEC) is being re-envisioned to provide a more holistic approach to student development. This office, now known as Student Engagement, Empowerment, and Development (SEED), has created a student journey that delivers transformative co-curricular opportunities, including a pilot peer mentor program, case competitions, and career management skills to our students. Your support of SEED is crucial to its success.
An exciting and important accomplishment for us this past year has been the formation of our Rutgers School of Business Alumni Association (RSBCAA) I am deeply grateful to Suzy Swartz (SBC’85) and Cal Maradonna (CCAS’74, SBC’79) for leading the charge on this. Suzy has graciously agreed to serve as the inaugural President of RSBCAA. Our officers are busy planning events for this upcoming year and I look forward to your participation, as alumni and friends, to make this a long-lasting community for our current and future alumni.
As we wrap up our strategic planning this Fall, I am excited – as I hope you are – for the future that lies ahead of us. For what we have accomplished this past year, I am deeply thankful to our students, SBC faculty and staff team, our advisory board members, alumni, and corporate partners who have provided valuable insights into our initiatives. For what lies ahead of us, I look forward to collaborating with you and will lean on you to help realize our vision.