Ramapo Professor Named Director of College Honors Program
(Mahwah) – Dr.
Edward Saiff, a professor of biology, recently assumed leadership
of the Ramapo College Honors Program. Students selected for
the program work directly with faculty on honors projects that provide
an added layer of challenge to their coursework and participate in
specialized trips and lectures. For the fall 2004 semester,
31 first-year students joined 33 continuing
Honors students.
Saiff envisions
an invigorated Honors Program with high-level, academically oriented
activities and coursework. Students admitted to the
program are accepted based on an application
that includes a short essay, their high school
record and SAT scores.
“I’m excited about it,” he says. “This
is another challenge; it gives me an opportunity to work directly
with the students, which is why I get up in the morning.” Saiff
has held many roles at the College, including
professor, dean of the School of Theoretical
and Applied Science and president of the Faculty Assembly.
He foresees
enhancing curricular components of the Honors Program by linking
them to programs Ramapo College directs at the New Jersey Meadowlands
Environment Center. “I’m hoping to
create a faculty lecture series centering around timely events like
the election and the history of religion,” he says. He
also would like to plan extracurricular activities
that have a New Jersey focus, for instance,
trips to minor-league baseball games at one of the three regional
ballparks or attending programs at the New Jersey Performing Arts
Center in Newark.
Dr. Saiff’s areas of expertise include neuroscience, vertebrate
biology and zoology. He resides in Mahwah, New Jersey.
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