Ramapo Magazine

Students Successes on Campus and Abroad

Photo: International Day at Ramapo College

International Day at Ramapo College is a celebration of cultural heritage with native dress and ethnic pride on display. A smorgasbord of international cuisine adds to the popularity of this annual event.

Ramapo College offers its students an unparalleled opportunity to achieve a global education through interdisciplinary coursework with an international and intercultural focus and through a vast array of study abroad and cooperative experiences. Ramapo is also the college of choice for international students and boasts representation from sixty-six countries. Students are Ramapo College’s most dynamic and energetic attributes and we take pride in their accomplishments. For FY 2000-2001:

The class of 2004, the largest freshman class since 1979, is twenty percent larger than the class of 2003 and fifty percent larger than in 1996.
Applications to the freshman class were the highest in the history of the College; sixteen percent more than in 1999 and sixty-four percent more than in 1996. Admission was offered to fewer than half (forty-eight percent) of the freshman applicants for fall 2002.
Class rank for enrolled freshmen has risen from the 68th percentile (top thirty-two percent of the class) in 1996 to the present 73rd percentile (top twenty-seven percent). Mean combined SAT scores are 1090, 540 Verbal and 550 Math for fall 2002.
The freshman class of 644 students came from all twenty-one counties in New Jersey as well as from Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and sixteen foreign countries.
In total enrollment, twenty-one states, the District of Columbia, and sixty-six countries were represented.
For the year ending June 30, 2001, the undergraduate and graduate headcount was 5,195. This was the largest enrollment in the history of the College. The undergraduate enrollment of 4,906 marked a five-percent increase from 1999 and the graduate enrollment of 289 represented a thirty-six percent increase.
Eighty-two percent of first-time, full-time students enrolled in fall 1999 returned in fall 2000.
“Senior Transitions” prepped students for their lives after Ramapo. The three-day event sponsored by The Cahill Center for Experiential Learning and Career Services and the Office of Student Development offered advice and skill-building techniques to develop effective resumes, clinch an interview, use the Internet as a job search tool, and to consider post-graduate educational opportunities. Ray Rigoli, a business professor, CPA, and financial advisor outlined the financial needs of recent graduates.
Students who participate in Ramapo College’s competitive sports programs serve as off-campus ambassadors for the College by demonstrating cooperative effort, skill, and spirit. The College’s varsity athletic teams compiled a win/loss record of 136-112-1.
New Jersey’s Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) is a state-supported initiative that targets and prepares individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to earn associate, baccalaureate, graduate, and professional degrees. Program services provide students with educational enrichment activities, improve academic performance, and promote retention and progress towards graduation. The number of EOF graduates in the 1999/2000 term increased by sixty-eight percent compared to statistics compiled for the 1995/1996 term. Overall attrition for fall and spring terms was reduced by forty-four percent.
Pi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Honor Society, inducted ten new members including Jan Barry, a reporter for The Record of Bergen and a graduate of Ramapo’s political science program. Two of the Honor Society members, Ken Groh and Edward Peck, were nominated as co-recipients for political science awards.
The College completed its May 2001 graduation with a class of 520 students. These graduates represented 198 municipalities in New Jersey and thirty-six in New York. Graduates from states outside the metropolitan area included Connecticut, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Ramapo also had graduates from Israel, Japan, and Yugoslavia.

One Student’s Story

John Tomaszewski, president of Ramapo’s Student Government Association, is the recipient of two Sanyo Study Abroad scholarships. The political science/economics major is particularly interested in post-communist transition in central Europe.

John Tomaszewski has made four trips to Prague, including winter 2002. His first visit was as a participant in Ramapo’s Study Abroad Program. “Being in Prague sparked my interest in international politics,” says the political science/economics major. On his second trip as a SANYO Semiconductor Study Abroad scholarship recipient, he completed an independent project, “Post-Communist Transitional Economics.” His third visit, also on a scholarship awarded by SANYO Semiconductor, was to conduct research on Czech macroeconomic development. This project is an overall study of post-communist transition in central Europe. “I look at social indicators such as education and health access,” Tomaszewski says. “What I’ve found is that there is better quality, but the access is different.”

Eight years ago SANYO Semiconductor began providing scholarships for students studying abroad in Prague. Dr. Michael Riff, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, coordinates the program. Tomaszewski believes being a scholarship recipient has helped him grow personally and professionally. “It’s helped me go beyond the classroom and to delve deeper into research and study. I’m doing graduate level work as an undergraduate. It’s helped me see that we do live in a global community and helps me to understand what we’re doing here at Ramapo.”

SANYO Semiconductor’s commitment to Ramapo students also extends to cooperative education opportunities. For more than a decade, the corporation has placed students in cooperative programs domestically and in Japan and Hong Kong.

Tomaszewski’s interest in politics applies to his personal life, too. He is a former student trustee who served on the Board for two years. “I had input into the Phase VII housing project and assisted in the search for Dr. Smith.” Tomaszewski currently is president of Ramapo’s Student Government Association and a contributing editor for The Ramapo News, the College’s student newspaper. The senior plans to apply to graduate schools including the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the International Relations and European Studies program at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and the London Center of International Relations at The University of Kent in Canterbury, England. He may pursue a career in policy study, perhaps as a lobbyist in Washington D.C. “I’d like to use the tools I’ve learned at Ramapo to get involved with emerging markets in central Europe.”