Alumni Quarterly – Winter '03
This Winter 2003 newsletter is being edited by Karen
Reinbacher, DC 89. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail me at reinbacher@case.org.)
Can you believe it’s almost March 2003? It’s time to pay your 2003 dues. To make dues paying even easier, the Club is working to set up on-line payments. Thanks to our webmaster, Chuck Divine, it should be ready soon. Or you can pay the traditional way-- annual membership dues are just $15 for graduates from the Class of 1999 and prior. Class of 2000 and 2001 graduates pay only $5, and Class of 2002 receive complimentary membership. Make your check payable to "Rutgers Club of Washington", and send it to: Rutgers Club of Washington, 444 North Capitol Street, Suite 728, Washington, DC 20001. Remember that only dues-paying club members will receive a copy of our directory when it is published this summer.
Rutgers University has a new President in Dr. Richard McCormick whose inauguration is scheduled in New Brunswick on April 13, 2002. All alumni are invited to participate at the Louis Brown Athletic Center. Check the following website for additional information: http://www.rutgers.edu/inauguration.
The Club has been busy. A small group celebrated the holidays listening to jazz piano at the Kennedy Center. Others cheered on the RU men’s basketball team against Princeton (even though we couldn’t watch the game) at Champs in mid-December. Many more cheered again in January when the men’s basketball team came to the MCI Center in January. With the team currently sitting just above .500 we hope to cheer them on in the Big East Tournament.
Let’s all welcome Karen Reinbacher to the Club leadership team as the newsletter editor. She has graciously taken on the job of assembling our quarterly document. Thanks Karen. Special thanks to Francine Newsome who has been keeping us regularly informed via email to supplement the newsletter. Keep up the good work.
The Virginia College Nights’ team will be at work again in April at George Mason University. Future community service and cultural events are also planned. Read on…
Stay warm. Go RU.
Hello and Happy New Year’s to all. If you haven’t been to the club’s website recently, please be sure to link over to “Event Photos” for some fun “candid shots” of Rutgers alumni in action. Many event photos demonstrate true community spirit across a broad spectrum of volunteer activities. From landscaping at the DC Animal Shelter to aluminum siding installation at a Habitat for Humanity site, Rutgers alumni represent.
In late November, the Club participated in the annual “Help the Homeless Walkathon” on the National Mall. Twelve Rutgers alumni, friends, family (and pets) braved chilly November temperatures to show their support in the fight against homelessness. And in return for our participation, the Fannie Mae Foundation contributed over $500.00 to area shelters on behalf of “Team Rutgers”. Special thanks to London, who trekked the entire 5K without needing to stop at a fire hydrant!
As this newsletter goes to press the Food Bank event that was scheduled for February 15th has been rescheduled for March 8th. Dozens of Rutgers alums have volunteered to spend at the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast DC, sorting and packing non-perishable items for local families in need. The Capital Area Food Bank is the largest public, non-profit food and nutrition education resource in the Metropolitan Area. Through a network of more than 750 member programs, the Food Bank distributes millions of pounds of food to the community each year, and educates thousands of local residents on hunger, poverty and nutrition issues. The Rutgers Club is proud to support the mission of the Capital Area Food Bank, and we hope to make this the first of many visits.
In early April, the Club will once again participate in the District’s annual “Hands On DC” extravaganza. This event partners the Rutgers Club with a District of Columbia school filled with general maintenance projects. In the past, alums have painted hallways and classrooms, landscaped school grounds and met wonderful teachers, students and families. The before/after comparisons are always impressive. In addition, another upcoming event is the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The race usually takes place in early June, so take out those running shoes and start pounding the pavement……… We’re looking to field another “Team Rutgers” group for this event and will be forwarding registration information via e-mail shortly.
If you would like to participate in any of these events, or if you have an idea for a future volunteer effort, please contact Carol Vilsack at cmvilsack@aol.com, or call her at 202/320-8064.
Dr.
Richard L. McCormick, the new President of Rutgers University, has taken the
reigns at a time of great economic difficulty in Trenton. On January 28th,
Governor McGreevey announced his proposed state budget for Fiscal Year 2004,
which goes from July 1, 2003- June 30, 2004. The budget is bad news for
Rutgers and the other public institutions of higher education in New
Jersey. Under the Governor's plan, Rutgers is faced with a $13.8 million
cut in the current fiscal year, and an additional $39.4 million cut in FY 2004.
President McCormick shared the
bad news with the Rutgers community in a very thoughtfully composed message
on January 29, 2003. That announcement appears below. President McCormick
has also encouraged interested alumni, students, staff and friends to reach
out to the state legislature to encourage more robust funding for Rutgers
than the Governor has proposed. The university has launched an
excellent website full of tools and information to be used in contacting
the leadership in Trenton. Visit http://www.rutgers.edu/statebudgetcuts/ if
you'd like to send a message of support for Rutgers to the state
legislature.
****************************
Members of the Rutgers Community:
Yesterday,
Governor James E. McGreevey shared with the presidents of New Jersey's public
four-year colleges and universities his intention to reduce state support for
those institutions by roughly $86 million in the coming fiscal year (beginning
July 1, 2003). Additional reductions to other components of higher education
support are also likely to affect Rutgers. The proposed cut in funding for
higher education is part of the efforts to close a projected multi-billion
dollar gap in the state's budget for Fiscal Year 2003-04. Details on the
proposal should be available following the budget address next Tuesday, but it
is clear that drastic reductions will be proposed for all state agencies and
services.
Budget reductions of the size announced yesterday will
seriously damage higher education in general and Rutgers in particular. Coming
on the heels of a seven percent cut for the last fiscal year, the new
reductions, which we estimate to be around fourteen percent of the university's
state-appropriated base budget, will significantly affect access to Rutgers as
well as the quality of education we provide. This comes at a time when
increasing numbers of New Jersey students are seeking admission to the state's
public colleges and universities. To put this cut in context, the proposed
reduction is twice the budget of all of the university's libraries.
The
outcomes will be exceedingly painful for students, faculty, staff and the New
Jersey citizens we serve. Just as we did in dealing with last year's seven
percent cut, we will try to shield our core instructional and research missions
by concentrating our reductions in other areas. However, a cut of this magnitude
is unprecedented and cannot be easily absorbed. While it is too soon to predict
specific impacts, the consequences of the planned cuts could include our
inability to fill vacant positions across the university and greater difficulty
for students to register for desired courses. I will be consulting with all
elements of the Rutgers community on ways to deal with these
reductions.
As members of the university community, it is essential for
us to work together to raise public awareness of the likely results of these
budget cuts. The budget reductions, on top of the existing under-funding
of New Jersey colleges and universities, raise fundamental questions about the
direction of higher education in our state. How will we meet the educational
needs of our citizens? How will New Jersey remain in the forefront of the
innovation economy? How can we achieve the academic excellence necessary
to compete in a global economy? These are basic issues, not only for the
higher education institutions but also for the people of New Jersey and
especially their elected officials.
With higher education more
important than ever, both to individuals and to our society, the people of New
Jersey must recommit to support their public institutions of higher learning,
not walk away from them. Before the state budget is finalized in June, we
must take every opportunity to convince state officials of the importance of
adequate and predictable funding for public higher education. We must raise our
voices today, or we will surely regret the consequences tomorrow.
Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of
New Jersey
Teams from Rutgers will be in the area in April for games against Georgetown. The baseball team, which is a nationally recognized team coached by Fred Hill, will play a doubleheader against Georgetown on Sunday, April 6, 2003 starting at 12 noon.
The men’s lacrosse team, directed by second year coach Jim Stagnitta, will play Georgetown on Saturday, April 26 starting at 1:00p.m.
The women’s teams do not have any games in the area this spring.
For those interested in Rutgers sports, you can check the official Rutgers Athletics website at www.scarletknights.com. For lively discussions of Rutgers sports and current events, you may want to check the message boards at www.rutgersfan.com.
Kevin Horahan UCNB
‘98
Hello from your trusty Capital Alumni Network (CAN) representative. There are many exciting events happening over the next few months within our club and among the D.C. area alumni organizations. Hopefully, CAN will make them all successful! For the uninitiated, CAN is a fantastic organization that brings together local representatives from a large number of universities. The group meets monthly to provide a forum for advertising individual and planning collaborative events. These events range from athletics-related happy hours to networking events to community service activities. In fact, the next big event on the CAN schedule is “Hands on D.C.” where interested groups and individuals get together (on April 5th) to improve some of the D.C. public schools. More information on this event can be found at www.handsondc.org and CAN information can be found at www.dcalum.org. The RU club page is www.dcalum.org/chap/chapterinfo.cfm?SchoolID=20. If anyone has any questions or suggestions drop me a line at khorahan@alumni.rutgers.edu.