Ramapo Magazine

Dr. Alice Chandler
Interim President

The Road to Excellence

As interim president at Ramapo College of New Jersey, I am traveling down just a very short part of the College's "Road to Excellence," but an important one. Many years ago, when I previously lived in New Jersey, my husband and I visited the new campus being constructed in Mahwah. We drove up and saw dirt piled high, debris scattered about, and construction in progress. Almost thirty years later, I am back at Ramapo once more, witnessing and being a part of the changes, the excitement, and the community that has unfolded and thrived.

Let me start by saying that College is doing remarkably well when welook at any of the traditional measures of college success. We have enrollment growth, we have better students, we have better retention, and we have new growth in programs and facilities.

The factors underlying this success get us closer to what makes Ramapo, Ramapo. The one thing I hear over and over again from alumni and from students is the opportunity our campus offers for student-faculty interaction. I think this intellectual closeness is something we want to cherish and preserve, even when other things change. I have been enormously impressed by the intellectual caliber of faculty whom I have been meeting over the past months. They are a very distinguished group, and that is certainly a value that we treasure.

We have our "founding vision" to be a public college with the ethos and the intellectual environment of a high quality private, liberal arts college. We have kept a remarkable amount of that vision for a public institution. We were built around the concept of connections between life and learning. Ramapo combines interdisciplinary and experiential learning together, and connects study and work. There is also a deep humanistic substratum, which comes out in our international and intercultural emphasis.

The fact that we are offering students opportunities for residential living enables us to draw from all of New Jersey - indeed, from other states and foreign countries. Students choose Ramapo largely because of the availability of professional and career programs, including nursing, business, and teacher certification. These programs make use of existing strengths and resources and will bring us new, well-qualified students. The experiential learning emphasis in our curriculum "cooperative education, fieldwork, and internships" gives us an added edge as students look at what college to select. Other intrinsic strengths are the diversity, range, and flexibility in our curriculum. We also have an excellent student life program.

Finally, we have a Board of Trustees whose dedication, expertise, and leadership support the College. I offer its members my heartfelt thanks. I have been in many different governance situations, and I know of none better than the one we have here, with its strong, but not intrusive, leadership.

Ramapo had a very special beginning. We were founded with a vision. Ramapo started during a period when experimental and innovative thinking were prevailing, and there is still much of that founding impetus alive on the campus today. Our distinctive origins are helpful to us because they give us a strong sense of identity and the potential for reputational growth.

The institution has thrived in recent years, continuing on the "Road to Excellence." We are now at, what I call, the Transition of Generations as many founding faculty retire after many years. Ramapo is going to have new leadership and a new president. We are going to be facing a new technological, multicultural, multinational society. Our curriculum must be up-to-date and our demands rigorous; the world into which our students are graduating will demand no less of them. As a college community, we need the courage to embrace what's new, to have a realistic sense of who we are and who we can become, and to always remember that the institution's primary purpose and highest priority is student learning.