From the Office of the Executive Dean

Both the May 14 Commencement with Ralph, and our school Convocation on May 16, which filled Jersey Mike’s Arena three times over, capped a stellar year for the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS).

In the fall we welcomed Leslie Alexander to Rutgers as the new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History, an SAS faculty position established in 1969 to honor Dr. King and to support the development of excellence in African American studies.

A renowned scholar of late 18^th- and early 19^th-century American history, Leslie sees her classroom role as helping to guide students as a learning community encountering, navigating, and working through ideas.

“That’s one of the things I love about teaching: seeing the light bulb go off in someone’s eyes,” she said in an interview posted on the SAS website’s homepage. “I get to be part of the process of watching, helping, and supporting students through a process of revelation.”

In our science labs, meanwhile, a research team led by Sagar Khare, a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, received a special federal grant to begin work on “editing” protein molecules—an advance that could one day lead to major human health breakthroughs, such as treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

In addition to the extraordinary work in our classrooms and labs, SAS social and behavioral scientists were out in the community putting their scholarship to work in support of the common good. At a medical clinic in East Brunswick, NJ, a team of faculty and graduate students in our psychology department has been working with heart patients to treat symptoms of exercise anxiety that can hinder them from completing their recovery program and regaining their health.

These are just a few examples of what excellence in the School of Arts and Sciences has looked like this year. Whether you attended SAS or one of our four legacy colleges, you can be proud of the high standards of teaching, research, and service that continue to inform our work preparing students for success and creating new knowledge that serves the greater good.  

As you may know this is a time of leadership transition at the School of Arts and Sciences. We have been honored to serve as interim co-Executive Deans over the last year, succeeding Peter March, who joined the faculty as a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics.

After a national search to find his successor, Rutgers announced in April that Juli Wade, an academic leader and scholar from the University of Connecticut, has been named the new Executive Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences effective July 1.

Juli has served since 2019 as Dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences—the University of Connecticut’s largest and most academically diverse school, and worked at Michigan State University for nearly 25 years, including as Associate Provost for Faculty and Academic Staff Development and as Chair of the Department of Psychology.

We’re looking forward to Juli getting acquainted with RAA and learning all about our wonderful partnership. 

We want to close by acknowledging our gratitude for that partnership, which is critical to building connections between new and older alums. RAA programs like the speed networking event, and the WeaR It Forward robe donation program have been big hits among our students. We appreciate your presence at SAS Convocation welcoming our new RAA members, and the opportunity for us to be part of the annual Loyal Sons and Daughters dinner.

We have enjoyed working with you!

The School of Arts and Sciences is proud to be the principal constituent school for the Rutgers Alumni Association, and we are fortunate to have the RAA as the official alumni association for SAS.