Dean's note
As I write my last dean's newsletter note, I'd like to give a personal perspective on our school.
SC&I is exciting, dynamic, and forward-looking. Here outstanding faculty do leading-edge and creative research across various topic areas drawing on diverse theoretical perspectives. There is a vibrant history of theoretical and methodological innovation; and as a professional school, it has educated the leaders of various institutions and businesses. Here a dedicated, nimble, and energetic complement of staff continually strives to improve systems and delivery; they are fundamental to SC&I’s success. I have been honored to lead that community—and I look forward to continuing to contribute as I transition to a faculty position.
It was probably in the first faculty meeting after arrival that Nick Belkin, one of SC&I's great scholars, told me: you work for us! And by us, he meant specifically faculty. There is a sense in which he was right, but it is much more complicated. In the org chart, the dean works at the pleasure of the chancellor. My vision, however, was that I was working for the long-term success of the entire school. That involves juggling a focus on sustaining an environment in which brilliant scholarship can flourish, recruiting the brightest, and enhancing the infrastructure that supports grant identification and capture, publication success, and scholarly communication through conferences and journals. It involves drawing on an understanding of the complex university dynamics that the school works within. It also involves supporting a high-quality, engaging, and rewarding student experience that sets our students up for the workplace with knowledge and skills suitable for a very fast-changing world of work. There is no algorithm for doing this. It involves judgment, and it involves compromise.
From the day I started (17th August, 2015), it was clear that the merger with Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences had created huge opportunities for research and teaching. SC&I has begun to exploit that but has yet to fully build on the opportunities available. The Master of Health Communication and Information (MHCI) has started to perform (its first students will graduate this spring), but it is not yet performing to its potential. That may be partly a consequence of COVID, but we also need to buttress the Information elements of the program with courses not buried under "special topics." I believe this program will become a key part of our graduate delivery in the future, adding a valuable platform for connection and collaboration with RBHS faculty.
When I first arrived, I emphasized that SC&I’s success would be enhanced by building partnerships—locally within Rutgers, with other institutions in the region, and internationally. Many will remember me standing on a chair at Rutgers events at NCA or ICA and emphasizing this to the audience. There was already a web of connections between SC&I and public health, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Computer Science, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The Data Science major starting in 2024-5 is a really great achievement—it shows how smart cooperation driven by complementary and overlapping skills can succeed, and that the teaching program can, in turn, provide a platform for advanced research collaboration.
A core attraction to me in coming to SC&I was the school’s combination of disciplines. There is no precisely equivalent school in North America (Alabama and Boulder are the most similar). I have felt throughout my time that these disciplines work brilliantly together and add to something missing in, say, single-discipline departments such as Psychology and Sociology, Computer Science and Statistics, or a stand-alone iSchool or Communication department. It is imperative that SC&I not get bogged down with internal turf wars: combining and complementing is so much more effective. It is wonderful that our students can now do a double major. Our teaching needs to continue to be fluid, nimble, and boundary-defying. It is not an accident that most of our centers, clusters, labs, and working groups are populated by faculty from across the three departments.
Historically, our school continually modernizes and reinvents itself. You can see this most vividly in the ITI major and the MI, which have ridden the wave of innovation in digitization and platforms. I have spent some of my time here trying to facilitate a model for a master-level program that combines the core set of knowledge and skills involved in journalism with the broader fast-changing terrain of digital platforms, new forms of delivery, news bubbles, and apps. Such a program would recognize the blurred lines between entertainment and high news, between creative and factual production. And it would need to have an international dimension—perhaps with strong partners (Brisbane and London were top of my list, and they were keen to partner with us) and maybe with a version that could be done fully or mainly online. The need for such a program has not gone away.
Under RCM, SC&I's success in teaching and scholarship is underpinned by our strong student recruitment. Put simply, the money follows the students to the school, and that 'income' is taxed to pay for HR, OIT, the libraries, etc. Our students (and their parents) pay most of our salaries. This income fluctuates between programs for various reasons, and our resilience is helped by the way that recruitment often increases in one area while another goes down. We cannot take this for granted. We need to constantly be reinventing ourselves. Furthermore, we need to keep focused on making this work efficiently—I believe we owe that to our students.
A big challenge in the next few years will be space. Space is expensive. And as we come out of COVID and consider the future of work, we need to explore new models. A building where most faculty offices lie empty 90% of the time is hard to sustain (particularly as physical books and desktop computers cease to be essential). This is empty space our students are paying for. Exactly how we sustain community and culture while making work attractive and personalized is a significant challenge; we are already facing that challenge. Maybe this year or next is too early to tackle this challenge as things are still cloudy, but the pressure to do so will become inexorable.
In a healthy academic unit like ours, there is always a turnover of faculty and staff. People are attracted by new challenges, possibilities that we don't have, or need to respond to personal or family considerations. That is how it should be. And we attract to the school because of what we offer as a wonderful scholarly community in a great university. Throughout my time here one of my strongest emphases has been on establishing and supporting a warm and collegial community. Such an environment is the foundation for everything else. I believe we have done very well. But we mustn't take it for granted in the future. We all have a responsibility to care for one another—staff, faculty, and students—and give each other support and respect.
I look forward to being part of SC&I's evolving future and continuing to work with you.
|
|
 |
In Memoriam: Ross J. Todd, Associate Professor of Library and Information Science
|
|
|
|
Bernadette Gailliard Named Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
|
|
|
|
|
Itzhak Yanovitzky Receives Faculty Scholar-Teacher Award
|
|
|
|
Dafna Lemish Named Interim Dean of the School of Communication and Information
|
|
|
|
·
-
Mark Beal’s new book, “Gen Z Graduates to Adulthood,” is now available on Amazon.
-
Jack Bratich’s new book, “On Microfascism, Gender, Death, and War," was published by Common Notions press.
-
Caitlin Costello’s paper, “Emotional Strip-Mining”: Sympathy Sockpuppets in Online Communities” was published in New Media and Society.
-
Marija Dalbello presented “Reading the Ellis Island Filing Cabinets as ‘Mirror’ of Migration,” Pockets, Pouches & Secret Drawers, A Virtual Conference, at the Institute of Modern Languages Research (IMLR), University of London.
-
Kiran Garimella was awarded funding from the Knight Foundation for the project, “A System for Fact-Checking WhatsApp Content from Diaspora Communities.”
-
Ralph A. Gigliotti’s paper, “Crisis Leadership in Higher Education: Historical Overview, Organizational Considerations, and Implications,” was published in "Oxford Research Encyclopedias: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Crisis Analysis."
-
Shagun Jhaver is presenting “Designing Word Filter Tools for Creator-led Comment Moderation” at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems with Quan Ze Chen, Detlef Knauss, and Amy Zhang, Jhaver co-authored with Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Amy Bruckman, and Eric Gilbert the paper, “Quarantined! Examining the Effects of a Community-Wide Moderation Intervention on Reddit,” published in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.
-
Vikki S. Katz spoke at the ASU+GSV Summit on “Kids Media Confronts the ‘New Normal’: What Blended Learning Will Look Like Post-Pandemic.”
-
Susan Keith, Matthew Weber, and Ph.D. program graduates Kevin Lerner, Allie Kosterich, and Qun Wang, have chapters in the new SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism, 2nd edition.
-
Dafna Lemish and Maya Götz, the Director of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI) and PRIX JEUNESSE International, edited the new book, “Children and Media Worldwide in a Time of a Pandemic.”
-
Matthew Matsaganis and Brenda Sheridan have completed the Rutgers Leadership Academy 2022. Matsaganis' project focused on strengthening Rutgers’ capacity to develop and sustain global partnerships. Sheridan’s project examined the professional development opportunities available to part-time faculty, adjuncts, and non-tenure-track faculty.
-
John V. Pavlik’s book, “Disruption and Digital Journalism,” in the series “Disruptions: Studies in Digital Journalism,” was published by Routledge.
-
Yonaira Rivera gave two presentations: “Engaging with Latino/a/x communities during public health emergencies: Considerations for (re)establishing trust” as the invited speaker for Rutgers School of Public Health’s 27th Annual Public Health Symposium - Takin’ it to the Streets: Authentic Communication for Strengthening Trust in Public Health and “Understanding the impact of engagement with cancer (mis)information among Latino Facebook users” as an invited lecturer for Fairleigh Dickinson University’s 2022 Schering Plough Executive Lectures Series.
-
The 2nd edition of Jennifer Theiss and Denise Solomon’s book, “Interpersonal Communication: Putting Theory into Practice,” was published by Routledge.
-
Matthew Weber, an investigator with Project ASPEN, is collaborating on a new project focused on adolescent depression policy in New Jersey.
-
Itzhak Yanovitzky an investigator with Project ASPEN, is involved in advocating for the creation of a 988 hotline for suicide prevention and mental health crisis.
-
Read more faculty publications here.
|
|
-
Rutgers Board of Governors has enacted the following as of July 1, 2022: Kaitlin Costello is promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in Library and Information Science; Charles Senteio is promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in Library and Information Science, and Vikki S. Katz is promoted to Professor I in Communication.
-
Tawfiq Ammari was named 2022 AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Honorable Mention in Human-Computer Interaction “for his outstanding and vibrant contributions to this field between 2012 and 2021” by AMiner Scholar.
-
Melissa Aronczyk was featured in a “Frontline” documentary, “The Power of Big Oil,” was quoted in The Intercept article, “Documents Show How Polluting Industries Mobilized to Block Climate Action,” and was featured in a recent episode of the Drilled podcast.
-
Marc Aronson organized the 2022 International Children’s Book Day event: Celebrating International Youth Literature Collection. Jonathan Potter opened the celebration; Dafna Lemish, Lilia Pavlovsky, and Marie Radford participated.
-
Authority Magazine interviewed Mark Beal, “PR Pros: Mark Beal of Rutgers University-New Brunswick on the 5 Things You Need to Create a Highly Successful Career as a Public Relations Pro.”
-
Student leaders of the Zeta Delta Chapter of Lambda Pi Eta, the National Communication Association’s honor society, hosted a speaking panel that included Mark Beal, Kristen Koehler, and DaJung Woo.
-
Mary Chayko gave an invited talk on "Diversity and Complexity in Superconnected Social Networks" for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas via video conference.
-
Marija Dalbello (with Pamela McKenzie from the University of Western Ontario) is a panel and poster co-chair of the Conceptions of Library and Information Science - CoLIS11 bi-annual conference at the University of Oslo, Norway.
-
Richard Dool developed and delivered a series of communication workshops for the leadership and staff of the Rutgers University Office of Research.
-
Emily Drabinski, PTL, and the interim chief librarian at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, has been elected 2022-2023 president-elect of the American Library Association.
-
David Greenberg’s essay, “The War on Objectivity in American Journalism,” was published in Liberties journal, and he was quoted in the Politifact article, “How misinformers manufacture and embellish embarrassing presidential moments.”
-
Alexa Hepburn is a lecturer for session two of our summer workshops, “Analyzing Race/ism in Interaction,” 6-8 July 2022.
-
David Love wrote an opinion piece for The Grio, “The lawsuit against DeRay Mckesson would have a chilling effect on the right to protest,” and for The Washington Post, “Jan. 6 committee revelations are crucial for preventing the next coup.”
-
Regina Marchi presented a research paper, “50 Years of Chicanx Día de Los Muertos Celebrations: examining political, cultural and commercial transformations of a multi-media phenomenon,” at the annual conference of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS).
-
Katherine Ognyanova was a panelist on the webinar, "Roundtable on COVID-19 Misinformation: the State of the Research."
-
John V. Pavlik gave the invited keynote address, “The Metaverse as Media," at the 5th International Virtual Conference on Digital Culture (Beyond Identity and Power) in Tamilnadu, India. He and doctoral student Shravan Regret Iyer were featured in an article from Grunge, “The Victorian Era’s Obsession with the Occult Explained.”
-
Caitlin Petre discussed her book, “All the News That’s Fit to Click,” with A.J. Bauer at the University of Alabama Office of Politics, Communication, and Media.
-
Marie L. Radford, Mary Chayko, Richard Dool, and Gary T. Radford presented a panel on "Book Publishing and the Pandemic: Overcoming Obstacles and Promoting Productivity" at the annual conference of the New Jersey Communication Association.
-
Brent Ruben was featured in the Daily Targum article, “Recent study distinguishes U. for its strategies to approaching coronavirus pandemic effectively.”
|
|
-
Nicole Cooke, Ph.D.’12, MLS’99, received the 2022 SC&I Distinguished Alumni Award, presented in April by the SC&I Alumni Association.
-
Martha Hickson MI’05 RC’82, school librarian at North Hunterdon High School in New Jersey, targeted during a book banning protest last fall, stands strong against censorship.
-
James A. Hodges, Ph.D.’20, has accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at the School of Information at San Jose State University.
-
Tinah Ogalo JMS’20 is a social producer and coordinator with MTV and VH1 and hosts the podcast, In Your Twentys.
-
David Pangilinan JMS’16, creative strategist at Paramount, shared his career journey and advice with students in Mark Beal’s Media, Marketing, and Communication class.
-
Cathy Pedrayes MCM’22’s book, “The Mom Friend Guide to Everyday Safety and Security: Tips from the Practical One in Your Squad,” was published by Simon & Schuster.
-
Chloe Tai JMS’21, Hayley Slusser JMS’22, and Madison McGay JMS’22 received the 2022 NJ News Commons Excellence in Local News Award and the 2021 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award in the student category for their special report published in the Daily Targum.
-
Hayley Slusser JMS’22 won the 2021-22 New Jersey Daily Newspaper Women's Prize in Journalism from Douglass Residential College.
-
MaryLynn Suchan JMS’10, writer, producer, and actor, is the showrunners’ assistant to Krista Vernoff (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “Station 19”).
-
Emmy Award-winning meteorologist Violeta Yas JMS’07 joined Storm Team 4 as a meteorologist at NBC 4 New York.
|
|
Thank You for Helping Rutgers Help the World!
Rutgers Giving Day indeed was a celebration of philanthropy. The Rutgers global community united in a daylong celebration of Rutgers' excellence. Alumni, faculty, staff, students, families, and friends of Rutgers showed their scarlet pride, supported their favorite Rutgers causes, and helped create a brighter future for the next generation of leaders. We're thrilled to share that more than 6,500 donors showed their support by contributing over $3 million to better the world.
Thank you for showing the world what Rutgers excellence looks like. Whether you made a gift or shared your voice online this #RUGivingDay, you helped make a meaningful impact on Rutgers’ students, schools, programs, and causes. Check out this exciting video: Rutgers Giving Day 2022.
|
|
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Phone Number:
848.932.7500
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
