Faculty, staff, and students are the core of Cook College`s community. There are about 220 on-campus faculty appointments and about 3,253 undergraduate students. In addition, 120 faculty are associated with Rutgers Cooperative Extension and funded through federal, state, and county contributions.
Cook College, as part of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, performs the three functions of teaching, scholarship, and service. It does this through its various instructional, research, and outreach programs, some of which are also part of the research and extension components of the NJAES.
A primary function of Cook College is educational: the personal and professional development of its students in a small college campus setting within the larger New Brunswick campus of Rutgers. Instruction also takes place off-campus through the efforts of RCE and the Office of Continuing Professional Education (OCPE).
Twenty-four bachelor`s degree programs, many with several areas of further concentration, are available to Cook College undergraduates. Cook`s undergraduate instructional programs are closely tied with the rest of Rutgers. Cook students, like other Rutgers students, take many of their courses on other campuses and/or with faculty from other units. In this and other ways they are part of the larger Rutgers community. In recent years about one-third of the instruction of Cook students has been done by Cook faculty. The Cook faculty also teaches large numbers of students from other colleges at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers.
To implement Rutgers` land-grant mission, Cook`s undergraduate programs are designed to promote the study of challenges facing society in the areas of agriculture, food, the environment, and natural resources. This is accomplished through the integration of the life, earth, and physical sciences with the social sciences and humanities and by using conceptual frameworks that explore human interactions with the earth`s system. Cook College emphasizes the roles of interdisciplinary and liberal arts instruction and practical experience in an undergraduate professional education. The curricula are designed to include not only competence in a field of concentration, but also in relevant quantitative skills, computer competence, and professional ethics; interdisciplinary/ethical analysis; introductory life and physical sciences; the arts; human diversity; economic and political systems; oral and written communication; and experience-based education. A Cooperative Education program offers students the opportunity to gain on-the-job experience related to their majors and career goals.
The dean of Cook College also holds the titles of executive dean for agriculture and natural resources and executive director of NJAES. The dean is responsible for and has budgetary oversight of the various components of Cook College, which include all instructional programs, the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and its research programs, and outreach through the programs of Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) and Continuing Professional Education. He oversees the dean of academic and student programs; the dean of research and graduate programs and senior associate director for research, NJAES; and the dean of outreach and extension programs and senior associate director for extension, NJAES, who provide leadership to their respective areas of teaching, research, and outreach. The senior associate dean for administration heads the executive dean`s administrative staff. The overall structure of the college and station is designed to provide optimum communication and coordination among all units.
The dean of academic and student programs directs undergraduate curriculum planning, academic advising and services, counseling, EOF and special programs, honors programs, career development programs, and all student life and leadership development activities. This dean works with the executive dean of agriculture and natural resources, the dean of research and graduate programs, and the dean of outreach and extension programs to integrate all these areas with the undergraduate student experience.
