In the future, Livingston Campus will be an academic setting with a professional focus – a place where aspiring business leaders and educators mingle with adults pursuing continuing education to advance their careers or enrich their lives.
President Richard L. McCormick announced in his annual address to the university September 28 that his administration is proposing a long-term plan to develop Livingston Campus and bring all of Rutgers’ professionally oriented programs to the Piscataway campus.
“Throughout its history, Livingston has focused on leadership and social responsibility in a diverse society. Our vision is to expand that focus by making Livingston a center for professional education,” McCormick said. “I want to bring together our schools of business, management and labor relations, education, and social work, which already share a commitment to professional education, continuing education, and executive education.”
University administrators have already identified synergies among the professional programs, and foresee a Livingston Campus experiencing a renewed academic vibrancy and economic boost.
Plans to renovate the Livingston Student Center and construct a new dining hall will move forth in 2008, as a working group defines the academic vision for the campus.
Tony Calcado, vice president for facilities and capital planning, said talks about a re-envisioned Livingston Campus began in early 2007. The president and university administrators laid out an ambitious academic vision for the campus; once that was in place, discussions about development and funding on the campus got under way.
Livingston Campus has a wealth of potential to make it attractive to all types of students – particularly business-oriented and adult students: close proximity to world-class science and research facilities on Busch Campus; athletic facilities and ample parking; easy access by highway (augmented by the completion of Route 18 in Piscataway); and convenient accessibility to the NJ Transit train station in Edison, approximately one mile from the campus.
“We actually have an area where it sits even closer [to the train station] than a mile away,” Calcado said. “We’re exploring how that could work. There are lots of things we envision down the road.”
A professional and continuing education focus on Livingston Campus may signal the need for a hotel and conference center, Calcado said. That is one consideration among many others: new academic buildings, apartment-style residence halls, market-rate housing, housing for retired faculty and staff, commercial space, additional entertainment venues, and a high-tech, business-focused research park.
These goals require a creative and entrepreneurial approach to financing. Administrators propose bond-funding, self-funded projects, public-private partnerships, and long-term lease agreements. Many of the envisioned academic programs, seminars, and courses would be revenue producing.
Any new development on Livingston Campus – and on any Rutgers campus, for that matter – will be built in an environmentally sound fashion, Calcado said; new university design standards require at least a silver rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. Sustainability concerns extend to the Rutgers Ecological Preserve, a 370-acre plot of unspoiled forest straddling Highland Park and Piscataway.
The ecological preserve is not used to its maximum educational and recreational potential. By defining well-maintained trails and developing educational programs, university administrators hope to bring a similar vibrancy planned for Livingston Campus to the preserve.
“Right now, it’s difficult to get through, and there are limited trails,” Calcado said. “It’s got to be used a lot better for our educational purposes, and be an amenity to everything that we plan.”