Newark Public High School students got a special treat on Saturday, November 23, 2019 when they were invited to watch Seton Hall University’s men’s basketball team take on Florida A&M University at the Prudential Center. As a part of Seton Hall’s Newark Day, about 40 Newark high schoolers were treated to a box seat experience in the arena, as well as an opportunity to meet with Seton Hall admissions representatives and learn more about the University. Seton Hall’s Interim Provost and Executive Vice President, Karen Boroff, Ph.D. sat and talked with students as they cheered on the Pirates, who got a win over the Rattlers.
Pictured: Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Dean of University College David S. Hood and Assistant Provost for Student Success Danielle Insalaco-Egan
Montclair State University will redesign and strengthen its network of support services to give students a more efficient path to a degree, thanks to a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
The five-year, $2,227,640 award will be used to fund the University-wide initiative “Advising 2025: Creating a Coordinated Care Network for Student Success.” The funding is provided through the Department of Education’s Title III Part A Programs – Strengthening Institutions, which helps eligible institutions expand their ability to serve low-income students by providing funds to strengthen academic quality, institutional management and fiscal stability.
Advising 2025’s three activity areas – creating student success centers, strengthening Montclair State’s new student seminar and providing professional development – will allow the University to develop a coordinated care network that enhances communication among faculty, academic advisors, career counselors, mentoring and tutors to transform its student support system. The overarching goal will be increasing the number of students who persist to complete a bachelor’s degree at Montclair State University.
“The success of our students is the unifying mission of Montclair State University,” says Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Willard Gingerich. “This grant will allow Montclair State to further motivate student intellectual development and catch at-risk students before they fail, enabling us fully to live up to the hallmark ‘small college’ feel that has made this large University the institution of choice for generations of New Jersey families.”
The funding will allow the University to make a sweeping impact. Student Success Centers will be created and housed in each of Montclair State University’s undergraduate colleges and schools, enhancing the institution’s advising model and providing highly personalized and proactive attention to students across the University.
Montclair State’s new student seminar will also be revamped and will include new peer mentoring and financial literacy programming designed to both ease the transition to college and deliver critical financial skills for the rest of a student’s life. These initiatives will be supported by comprehensive professional development programming for faculty and staff, new staff positions and technological upgrades that provide the necessary tools to facilitate the plan.
Montclair State has already invested in the redesigned coordinated care network through the launch of Navigate, an online student success platform designed to help faculty and support areas engage with students more efficiently, for the fall 2019 semester. The platform’s predictive analytics will strengthen the University’s ability to provide targeted interventions for students and more effectively focus resources.
“This funding will allow the University to continue to advance the student success agenda outlined in its new strategic plan,” says Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Dean of University College David S. Hood. “Through this grant award, we will build upon recent academic innovations at Montclair State University, such as the creation of University College. This funding is becoming increasingly critical to institutions as they work to ensure more students obtain degrees in the most efficient, timely manner possible, so we are fortunate to have received this award so we can help heed the State of New Jersey’s calls to action outlined in its strategic plan for higher education.”
$16,000 in scholarship awards available exclusively to New Jersey students in Essex and Passaic Counties!
As a commitment to our mission of serving those in need and our local community, Seton Hall is offering this exciting new award.
Essex and Passaic Counties have been chosen to support students living or attending high school in the counties in which Seton Hall has a campus. Our main campus in South Orange and our School of Law in Newark are in Essex County, and our Interprofessional Health Sciences Campus is in the towns of Nutley and Clifton, which are in Essex and Passaic counties.
This award can be combined with other awards and can be used to cover any directly billed costs, including undergraduate flattuition charges, fees and university-sponsored room and board. This award is renewable if the student files the FAFSA annually, maintains satisfactory academic progress, earns at least 30 credits per academic year, and remains Pell eligible.
Applicants must file the FAFSA form and apply for admission by January 15 of their senior year of high school to be considered for the award. There is no special scholarship application required for this award. The scholarship is automatically awarded in late January to students who meet the eligibility requirements outlined below:
Award Eligibility
Incoming freshman who apply for fall admission and submit a FAFSA by January 15
Minimum SAT score 1120 or ACT 23
Unweighted minimum HS GPA 3.0 (B)
Attend high school in or have a permanent address in Essex or Passaic County, New Jersey, for at least a year
Pell eligibility as determined by the FAFSA
Award Amount
This $4,000 award is renewable for three additional years for a total award of $16,000. When combined with other Seton Hall scholarships and need-based grants, this award helps make Seton Hall nearly tuition free to students receiving maximum Pell and TAG awards! In addition, students can still qualify for need-based aid and apply for other scholarships. Learn more atwww.shu.edu/scholarships.
Application Procedure
There is no application required for this scholarship; the scholarship is automatically awarded to students who are admitted to Seton Hall and meet the eligibility requirements.
Founding NCLC member Bloomfield College announced in February that Dr. Marcheta P. Evans will become the College’s 17th president beginning on June 1, 2019. She will succeed Richard A. Levao.
Dr. Evans is both the first woman and African American to lead the College in its 150-year history. She was unanimously selected by the College’s Board of Trustees after a nationwide search by Academic Search, an executive search firm dedicated to serving higher education institutions.
Dr. Evans has served in transformational leadership roles in higher education for twenty-five years at both public and private institutions, with twenty of those years at Minority Serving Institutions (MSI’s) in the seventh largest city in the U.S., San Antonio, Texas. Bloomfield College holds the designations of a Predominately Black Institution (PBI) and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).
“I am so humbled and honored to be selected as the 17th President of Bloomfield College. This is truly the fulfillment of a dream that was inspired by my grandparents as they raised me as a child during the civil rights movement of the 1960’s,” expressed Dr. Evans. “My heart is overflowing with this blessing and privilege. You will not find anyone more dedicated to the mission, vision, and goals of Bloomfield College as we move this great college forward with our commitment for diverse students to have access to an affordable education. We will become a national leader and role model for inclusive excellence.”
Currently the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU), Dr. Evans sequentially served as Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean at OLLU and Associate Dean and Department Chair at University of Texas at San Antonio. She has served as a faculty member for over 23 years and has the rank of Full Professor. Dr. Evans is a past President and Fellow of the American Counseling Association, past President of the Association for Creativity in Counseling, and is the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions. A small sampling of these recognitions includes the Outstanding Multicultural Leadership Award, Yellow Rose of Texas Lifetime Educator Award, and Counselors for Social Justice Ohana Award.
Dr. Evans has authored numerous articles and book chapters, focusing on issues of diversity, multiculturalism, women’s issues, and leadership. She has presented over one hundred times at the state, regional, national, and international levels addressing topics such as empowerment, multiculturalism, diversity, and leadership. In her international work, Dr. Evans has traveled extensively, including a length of time in the African country of Malawi where she worked with educators and counselors on literacy initiatives sponsored by USAID.
Dr. Evans graduated from the University of Alabama with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Counselor Education and Supervision, specializing in Student Affairs, Administration in Higher Education, and Human Resource Management. Additionally, she has a Master of Arts degree in Education in Elementary Education from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, a Master of Arts degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Alabama.
“Dr. Evans’ tenure at her previous institutions has been nothing short of transformative,” said William H. Turner, Chairman of the Board. “Her leadership qualities represent the academic and mission-based values of Bloomfield College, and we are delighted to welcome her to our community and campus.”
Some of her career highlights include optimization of class sizes, which resulted in over $300,000 in revenue and cost-saving strategies; development of academic centers to enhance student success, which saw freshman retention rates rise from 56.2% to 68.2%; and modified the advising model through collaborative advising, cohort scheduling, student success initiatives, and strengths-based peer mentor/teaching that resulted in a 23% increase in first-year students who earned a 3.0 GPA or higher.
President Richard A. Levao, who will retire after serving the College for 16 years, is excited for Bloomfield College’s next chapter with Dr. Evans at the helm.
“The Bloomfield College community is extremely pleased to have Dr. Evans assume the leadership of this wonderful institution in its 150th year,” said President Levao. “Her experience, dedication to our College’s mission, as well as her personal warmth, energy, and compassion bodes well for the future of this College that so many of us love so well.”
Dr. Evans and her husband, Edgar, are exceedingly proud parents of six children with five of whom graduated from minority-serving institutions. She and her husband are looking forward to moving to New Jersey.
The University of Pretoria’s Mamelodi Campus has been involved in a range of community engagement activities in Mamelodi since 2008. The range of projects in the community is indicative of the University’s commitment to the social and economic development of the local community, the greater Tshwane area, and the country as a whole. In 2017, the Kresge Foundation awarded the University of Pretoria and Rutgers University-Newark a planning grant towards their anchor institution strategies in their respective communities in Newark and Mamelodi, called the Mamelodi Collaborative.
As part of the planning phase of the Mamelodi Collaborative, the UP Mamelodi Campus hosted a workshop on 5 February 2019 in which it engaged in the reciprocal exchange of ideas with 43 stakeholders, as well as its international partner, Rutgers University-Newark, to develop a model to enhance the post-secondary opportunities for the residents of the Mamelodi Township. The Executive Director of the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC), Reginald Lewis, together with Dr. Kristi Donaldson, Postdoctoral Associate in Education Research and Policy, and Danielle Cohen, Special Assistant to the Executive Director and Special Projects Manager, presented the model of the NCLC to the stakeholders. The workshop, a first of its kind in the Mamelodi community, endorsed the lessons learnt from the NCLC. A decision to formalise and strengthen a network of all key role players working in the Mamelodi education ecosystem, provisionally called the Mamelodi Community of Learning Collaborative (MCLC), was adopted.
The MCLC enables the UP Mamelodi Campus to collaborate with the Department of Basic Education’s Tshwane South District and a network of stakeholders to achieve the goal of broadening educational pathways by providing academic enrichment programmes and alternative academic pathways to other tertiary institutions in the Mamelodi Precinct such as the universities of technology and training and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges. A Steering Committee to drive the adoption, translation and development of this model for the Mamelodi community was established.
In her opening remarks at the workshop, the Director of the Gauteng Department of Basic Education’s Tshwane South District reported that her district, which includes the schools in Mamelodi and surrounding areas, was the best-performing district in the entire Gauteng province, based on the matric pass rate of 2018. It also performed the second best nationally. These achievements are, in part, the result of the partnership between the Department and Mamelodi Campus in its pre-university interventions. This observation underscored the significant success achieved by the efforts of the campus and its community partners in assisting the local school system to improve access and success in Mamelodi’s schools.
As part of enhancing the post-secondary school-going culture, the campus, together with its partners, plan to focus on awareness and readiness. Initiatives to promote career awareness include career interest tests, a career fair, career advising, parental education, placement and a credit transfer system through the formulation of articulation agreements and a credit transfer system with TVET colleges and universities of technology. A career hub that will serve as an information centre for residents and learners will be launched in 2019, while a post-secondary readiness programme consisting of academic curricular support and soft skills will commence in July 2019.
Superintendent Roger León, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Gerald Fitzhugh and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Shakirah Harrington were joined by more than 450 students and nearly 60 teachers for the 2019 NJIT Stem Day, held at NJIT on March 14th.
The Stem Day was led by Ivory Williams, Special Assistant of Science Teaching and Learning, and her staff; Bethany Davis, Demiana Awad and Melissa McLain of the Science Team. NJIT hosts were Jacqueline L. Cusack, Ed.D, Executive Director for The Center for Pre-College Programs, Division of Academic Support and Student Affairs and Levelle Burr-Alexander, PhD, Director of Special Projects at NJIT.
