An Announcement from the Honors Living-Learning Community
Dear Rutgers University – Newark community members,
We write with exciting news about a major milestone in the development of our Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC). We have attracted a leading national figure working at the intersection of inclusive excellence in student development and publicly engaged scholarship: effective January 1, 2017, Dr. Timothy K. Eatman will serve as the inaugural Dean of the Honors Living-Learning Community and Associate Professor of Urban Education in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Currently, Tim serves as Associate Professor of Higher Education at Syracuse University and faculty co-director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (IA), a thriving consortium of over 100 colleges, universities, and cultural organizations—including Rutgers University – Newark—whose members strengthen the public roles of arts, humanities, and design fields through research and action initiatives, coalition building, and leadership development. He will continue to serve as co-director of IA until its central office moves from Syracuse University to the University of California Davis next July. An educational sociologist who earned the 2010 Early Career Research Award from the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE), Tim is a sought after speaker, workshop facilitator, and collaborator who has earned national and international recognition for his leadership in advancing our understanding of the multi-faceted impact of publicly engaged scholarship. Most recently, Tim was elected to the IARSLCE board of directors. For the past four years, he has served a faculty member of the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Institute on High-Impact Practices and Student Success. He holds an appointment as Honorary Professor at the University of South Africa through the end of this year. As co-principal investigator of IA’s Tenure Team Initiative on Public Scholarship, he co-authored its widely cited report, “Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University” (2008) with IA’s founding director, Julie Ellison, and organized a series of regional meetings with Campus Compact that involved more than 60 higher education institutions. This work on faculty rewards led to a second national study on the career aspirations and decisions of graduate students and early-career academic professionals who identify as publicly engaged scholars. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook on Service Learning and Community Engagement under contract with Cambridge University Press. Tim received his Ph.D. in educational policy studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master’s degree in college student development at Howard University, and a bachelor’s degree in early childhood development at Pace University.
Clearly, Tim’s strengths resonate powerfully in many dimensions with the HLLC vision. We could not have found a better candidate than him for this pivotal leadership role in advancing one of our highest collective priorities at RU-N: creating an Honors Living-Learning Community that, in the words of our strategic plan, truly honors:
“the potential (evident in a wide variety of talents and skills for leadership, innovation, citizenship, resilience) of the next generation to anchor the future of the ‘American Dream’ (one shared across the world), and to continue the legacy of RU-N as a seeder of opportunity and excellence…”
As dean, Tim will build on the incredible work of the faculty on the HLLC Curriculum Team, who dedicated their time over the past year to design and implement the first phase of a university-wide interdisciplinary HLLC curriculum focused on “Local Citizenship in a Global World.” This innovative HLLC curriculum is being designed for an intergenerational and interdisciplinary learning community comprised of students, faculty, and community partners focused on tackling some of the nation’s most pressing social issues. As such, the curriculum is committed to providing HLLC Scholars with the education, resources, and opportunities necessary to be the thought leaders within their fields, positive collaborators within their communities, and change agents in our world. To build organically on their own knowledge and lived experiences, HLLC Scholars learn to increase cross-cultural competence and approach local challenges that resonate globally from historical, philosophical, legal, scientific, and comparative perspectives. The HLLC curriculum provides the flexibility to focus on issues ranging from civil rights, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religion, domestic and international violence, environmental justice, health inequities, and questions of democracy and citizenship. Tim is especially suited as a scholar and teacher to lead the development of the HLLC curriculum and the groundbreaking academic work that the HLLC will seed at Rutgers University – Newark and nationally across higher education. He will lead this transformative work with Associate Dean Marta Esquilin and an outstanding team, including six new faculty mentors who will work in cohorts of ten students each, supporting the terrific HLLC Scholars, 87 in all (61% from Newark and 47% first generation college students).
With such a strong leadership team in place and a new building on the horizon, the HLLC is poised to take its already significant accomplishments to a whole new level. We could not be more excited for Tim to assume this leadership role in our continuing collaborative work with students, faculty, and staff across RU-N and with community partners and residents to realize the bold vision of the HLLC as a truly transformative college access and success program that fosters the academic, social, and personal development of talented students from all walks of life with a desire to make a difference in their communities and beyond.
Sincerely,
Shirley M. Collado, Ph.D. Sherri-Ann P. Butterfield, Ph.D.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Senior Adviser to the Chancellor
Chief Operating Officer Senior Associate Dean of Faculty
of Arts & Sciences
