Remember Spring?

It's an early spring in New Jersey - for a few days anyway - and the warm weather has inspired me to pull up some of the great campus photography taken over the past few springs. All the photos were taken by professional photographer Theo Anderson.

Check out the lush greenery and pastel blossoms all over campus (not to mention our great-looking students!)


Students walking on Norman Samuels Plaza

View of the Golden Dome and downtown Newark, NJ

Hula-hooping on the Norman Samuels Plaza

Students on the New Street Plaza

 For more spring photos, check out our Facebook gallery 

Beijing High School Visit

File this one under Jersey Roots, Global Reach - on Tuesday, Jan 25th, Rutgers-Newark hosted a group of middle and high school students from the Yuncol School in Beijing, China. Led by 2 current undergraduates, they toured the campus and learned about math and computer science.

The program was organized by the department of Math & Computer Science in the hopes of starting an exchange program with the school. Dr. Chengwen Wang and Program Director Sue Tel put the day together for the 12 students and 2 teachers that participated.

Below, students look through their welcome bags filled with Rutgers gear.

Students listen to the presentations.

Students toured the campus, led by freshman Jennifer Somai (front, in the black coat) and Serafina Smith, a junior in the Business School (in the gray coat and hoodie).

Many thanks to Lois Catala for taking and sending these photos!

A Rutgers Newark Student in Australia

Check out these great photos from Down Under!

Natalie Cacace writes,

I'm a Senior with a degree in Marketing, graduating Fall 2010. I studied abroad for a semester during Fall 2008 to Sydney, Australia at Macquarie University. Thanks to Rutgers, I had the most memorable time of my life, meeting amazing people from all over the world, and meeting my boyfriend Jethro (who recently this semester transferred to Rutgers Newark to be with me and will be finishing his degree here!).

This first photo (above left) was in Canberra, Australia, which is the capital of Australia. I went on a Global Leadership Symposium and it took us on a tour of the capital for 4 days. At this trip, I met many international students, and 2 were from Rutgers New Brunswick!

Thanks for sharing your amazing trip with us! Love that you got to feed a kangaroo while you were there!

More Move in Day Photos

Wow, (some) people actually do read those emails that get sent out. Thanks for all the great recent photos!  If you haven't heard back from me yet, rest assured I've seen your submissions and am slowly getting to them all.

Recently I posted a photo of Mayor Cory Booker visiting the campus for move-in day (here)

Angie Bonilla sent me a link to the official Woodward Hall Facebook page with lots more photos like these:

No need for the gym after lifting these weights!

Friends and family:

The residence life crew:

Thanks Angie! You can see the full gallery here (you'll need a Facebook account).

Move in Day; Request for Submissions!

Welcome back to school! Hope everyone had a fabulous and relaxing summer.

Just got this photo in from Angie Bonilla in Housing and Residence Life. Guess who stopped in to say hi on move-in day? Newark's very own Mayor Cory Booker!

What did you do this summer? If you took any great photos or (short!) video and would like to share your experience with the Rutgers community, send them over to eluongo@andromeda.rutgers.edu along with your name and a short description.

Earth Day

On April 21 and 23 over ninety students, faculty, staff, alumni  and friends put on their gardening clothes and helped make Newark green and beautiful - and had a lot of fun doing it!

On the first day, the volunteers weeded and pruned the campus bird gardens. Yes, you read that right - we have over 100 types of birds visiting campus year round; in fact our resident expert, Professor Claus Holzapfel, is running bird watching tours every week in May.

Thank you to everyone for all their hard work!



Does this look like Newark? Well, it is!!

 

This year, we also installed a bird 'water feature' (aka a small pond) in the garden near Smith Hall.

NJN even stopped by to interview some of our students about the event.

On Friday everyone went over to the Newark Conservancy's Urban Education Garden on Prince St. and helped them with their compost heap - which according to Carlos, our liaison at the Conservancy, they save up special just for Rutgers every year.

Below, one of our students becomes a human sun dial.

Photos above are by Rebecca Yuschak, Helen Paxton, and myself. To see more photos, go to our Earth Day Photo Album

Fed Challenge Team Beats Harvard, Northwestern to Win 2nd Place

On Dec. 2, 2009, students Lakshya Aeri, Sharissa Barrow, Victor Castaneda, Diego LaFuente and Michael Martins scored a second place finish - beating Harvard and Northwestern Business Schools, and winning a $15,000 award from the Moody’s Foundation - at the national finals of the ninth annual College Fed Challenge. Their coach is Economics Department Chair John Graham.

The team is pictured at left on the steps of the the Federal Reserve in Washington DC.

Just before the break, I managed to get in contact with Sharissa Barrow for her thoughts on the experience. (That's her smiling from her perch in Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke's chair!)

This is what she had to say:

"The College Fed Challenge is hard work. Preparation requires extensive and constant reading, analysis of data, and an understanding of both macroeconomic theory and the economic and financial systems. At the beginning of the semester, I knew very little about the Federal Reserve or about the intricacies of the economy. That has certainly changed; changed so much in fact that my daily routine now includes following the release of data for key economic indicators and reading the Wall Street Journal and speeches.

That said, participating in the Fed Challenge has been the most remarkable experience of my college career. Not only have I learned more in two to three months than I would have ever expected, but I was able to work as a part of a team that was made up of some very bright people. Professor Graham was fantastic—his patience and dedication to getting us through the competition were unbelievable.

The team poses in the boardroom of the Federal Reserve before the competition

Then there was Washington. Beating Harvard and Northwestern was certainly a feat. We didn’t win, but we did break a tradition—Harvard and Northwestern are no longer the only schools to have placed first and second in the competition. I am proud to have been a part of that! And being in the very room that the Federal Open Market Committee meets to discuss current economic conditions and sitting in Chairman Bernanke’s chair and shaking his hand weren’t so bad either :) !"

For more coverage of this story, see Rutgers Students Capture 2nd Place in National Contest

GlassBook Project Goes to Hollywood

This week I'm giving over the reigns to student (and documentary filmmaker!) Samantha Glovin, who attended the celebrity-studded Voice Awards at the famed Paramount Studios in Hollywood earlier this month.

Sam was in Hollywood to continue filming a documentary about the GlassBook Project, which started right here at Rutgers-Newark last spring, as part of a book arts class offered by Instructor Nick Kline. I was also in that class with Nick and Sam last year, and feel particularly proud of how far we've come with what started as a class assignment.

Sam writes:

What an experience! My trip to Hollywood to film the Voice Awards with the GlassBook Project as the featured exhibit was something I never would have imagined when starting this project in January. The responses from people admiring the books I received from interviews, as well as filming the red carpet and the awards ceremony, although extremely nerve-racking, was a once in a lifetime experience and something I will never forget. Seeing the GlassBook Project in the center of the main foyer immediately next to the red carpet was mind-blowing. To imagine how far we've come in less than a year! The project has become so much more than just an assignment for class that has come and gone. We are truly making an impact with lasting effects. I am so thrilled to be given this opportunity and to be part of something that is truly spectacular.

Sam is pictured below with her trusty camera, filming part of the exhibit:
The project was introduced at the awards by actor Richard Dreyfuss:

GlassBook Project video. Branding was done by Rutgers-Newark professor Ned Drew and Brenda McManus

The people who started it all! Helga Luest, of Witness Justice, and Nick Kline

More photos of the books can be found on the GlassBook Project Facebook Group. Information about the project, including detail photos of individual books, can be found at www.glassbookproject.org

If you're on campus, the books are going to be exhibited at the Dana Library beginning Nov 6.

Staff vs. Students

My office is right next to the athletic field, and yesterday as I was leaving work the annual staff vs. students softball game was just starting. I couldn't stay for very long, but below are some photos I snapped before I had to leave.

While I was there the students were pummeling the staff (sorry guys!) But there was still plenty of time for the staff to catch up after I'd left.

Unfortunately for the staff, I heard afterwards that even though they put up a good fight and managed to close the gap, in the end they still lost (I was told it was only by 1 point though!)

Congrats to the student team! At least everyone got to enjoy the bright sunshine for a few hours! It was a welcome break from this dreary rain we've been having all June.

MFA Graduation

Graduation festivities have been underway all this week at Rutgers.

Yesterday afternoon was the Graduate School and School of Public Affairs & Administration ceremony. This year, 17 students from the inaugural MFA class graduated as part of that group. Fittingly enough, the speaker was director of the program, Jayne Anne Phillips, who's been touring in support of her highly acclaimed novel Lark & Termite all semester. One of the grads in the fiction concentration, Paul Vidich, sent me some great candid shots of our classmates. (I took some of the podium shots).

Remember these faces, you never know who's going to become the next Pulitzer Prize winner.

Congratulations all of you!! The program is going to miss you next year... 

Tomorrow afternoon is our big undergraduate ceremony at NJPAC, watch for me wandering around with our official photographer. And if you took/plan to take any great photos or video, be sure to send them over!

Ja Kunst!

Last week the graphic design students celebrated the end of the semester with an art show and party at the Jajo Gallery. The best pieces from each design class were selected by a faculty jury and displayed for the night. I stopped by for a bit and saw amazing posters, illustration, and other work.

David Mizak, a Visual Arts student, sent me these photos. (Actually, I accosted him with my card when I saw him wandering around with a camera, but he was nice enough to oblige.)

At right, faculty and student teams line up in anticipation of the night's events.

Below, professors Manny Cacciatore, Ned Drew, and Nick Kline arrange the student artwork along the display wall.

The students and faculty teams came complete with team 'uniforms' like team Jar, in the purple underpants, and team Sand, ready for a swim in the kiddie pool (both pictured below).

You didn't expect designers to just show up in a boring t-shirt, did you?

Events included a mini-golf competition set up on a homemade course throughout the gallery space. Both students and faculty joined in on the fun.

The Jajo Gallery is on Orange St. in Newark and is run by two lovely ladies, at least one of whom is a Rutgers-Newark graduate. For more information on their shows and goings-on, visit their blog at www.jajoart.blogspot.com.