In the fall of 2015, the new Honors College at
Rutgers University–New Brunswick opened its doors and welcome its inaugural
class. Overlooking the Raritan River and located at the top of Voorhees Mall,
the Honors College will become a new landmark on Rutgers' historic College
Avenue Campus. The Honors College curriculum will create an unparalleled
educational experience, focusing on interdisciplinary and experiential learning
in the context of an innovative and comprehensive living-learning community,
complete with seminar rooms, on-site advising and administrative offices, study
lounges, and faculty apartments. The Honors College will provide a fully
integrated, 24/7 academic and social experience.
Identifying the need to provide more honors
opportunities to the highest-achieving students from New Jersey and across the
country, the Honors College in New Brunswick was conceived as a powerful
academic initiative to support the needs of honors students and build on the
strength of existing honors programs at Rutgers by offering an innovative
learning environment and close interaction with faculty from the beginning of
students' undergraduate careers. In parallel with the national visibility
gained from the Big Ten and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, the
founding of the Honors College nearly doubles the number of high-achieving
students at New Brunswick with access to honors education, underscoring the
role of New Brunswick as the Rutgers public flagship university in the region.
The Honors College will work alongside the existing school-based honors programs--which continue to fulfill their missions of supporting high-achieving
students in New Brunswick--integrating exceptional talent from all of the
schools into its unique residential program and allowing for even greater
interdisciplinary curricular and extracurricular experiences.
Ground was broken on the Honors College facility
as part of the Seminary Place Redevelopment Project in September 2013, creating
a new bookend to the Voorhees Mall opposite the historic Old Queens campus. As
the new facility took shape, a broadly representative faculty committee was
convened by the New Brunswick chancellor, Dr. Richard Edwards, and charged with
developing an innovative curriculum designed to guide students from their
introduction to scholarly inquiry, through the development of critical thinking
skills, to applied research and the formation of new knowledge. Along with the
consortium of six participating undergraduate schools, the New Brunswick Honors
College will work in tandem with a student's major course of study in their
school of enrollment, exposing students to interdisciplinary inquiry, providing
opportunities for research and engagement with Rutgers' world-class faculty,
and challenging them to engage with 21st-century challenges from their
first days on campus.
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