Ever forward: The next big decade

by Kim Mulford ’94, with Barbara Baals, Steve Levine ’87, M’07 and Jon Hartley

Change comes quickly when mission and momentum drive leaders and partners to shape the future.

Even as it celebrated its Centennial, Rowan University spent the past year looking ahead to the next 100, starting with the decade in sight. With nearly $2.9 billion in annual economic impact, bold plans and a growing roster of supporters and industry partners, the University is again positioned to expand its presence, influence and enrollment.

“We know that serving more students and providing more access and educational opportunities benefits all of New Jersey,” said President Ali A. Houshmand. “Rowan is the proven leader and the catalyst for continued progress in our state, region and beyond.”

The president’s perspective isn’t just positive thinking. In its last accreditation review, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education described Rowan as a “model for institutional transformation,” citing it as “exceptionally innovative, entrepreneurial and nimble.”

From that 2019 assessment to now, the University’s trajectory has stayed its course, with new facilities, programs and partnerships accomplishing visible, tangible advances.

Enrollment growth, economic influence

Numbers speak for themselves. Houshmand’s “University of the Future” plan for the next decade includes $1.5 billion in expansion projects—and explosive enrollment growth.

The fall’s incoming first-year and transfer class is Rowan’s largest ever, defying dives in enrollment trends nationally. And by 2033, growth goals include a student body of 38,500, with the majority coming from online programs at the undergraduate, graduate and professional levels.

The projected 70 percent increase in enrollment, a 75 percent increase in the operating budget and spending increases mean Rowan’s growth could lead to nearly $5 billion in economic impact on New Jersey, according to a recent independent economic study (details on p. 6).

While that economic impact can be seen throughout the region and in each community that hosts Rowan activities and facilities, the effects are especially visible around the main Glassboro campus. Rowan Boulevard’s expansion toward Academy and High streets will continue to transform the borough with public and private partners to provide new housing for residents and students, plus business opportunities and more.

Rowan’s road to R1

Commencement Week 2024 included Rowan’s first Hooding Ceremony, marking a major milestone in Rowan’s rapid ascension in research activity and classification. 

During the ceremony to bestow academic hoods on 84 recipients, Houshmand announced the institution is on track to achieve Carnegie R1 status within three years, placing it among the most prestigious in the nation.

A top 100 public institution and the nation’s fourth fastest-growing public research university, Rowan is committed to ambitious, applied research that also enhances its commitment to high-quality undergraduate education, including STEM disciplines, liberal arts and interdisciplinary programs. Among the many advantages Rowan offers students will be its continued access to research opportunities usually reserved for graduate studies at other institutions.

Already and ahead

Ten years from now, Rowan’s current transformation will rival historic periods of growth during the ’50s and ’60s, the early aughts and the last decade.

With each day of progress, the University—an academic, research, health care and economic development powerhouse—proves it is already the University of the Future.

And still, Rowan’s transformation continues ever forward.

Shreiber School of Veterinary Medicine

One medicine. One health.

That’s the approach the University is taking as it builds New Jersey’s first veterinary school on the West Campus.

“The interrelatedness of animals, humans and the environment is at the heart of our work in the Shreiber School of Veterinary Medicine,” said Founding Dean Matthew Edson, noting that caring for livestock and addressing zoonotic diseases—infections that spread between people and animals—affect human health.

“Veterinary medicine isn’t just about pets. Through the ‘one health concept,’ we expect graduates to consider societal concerns in the broadest sense by addressing the health of animals that can impact humans and the environment.”

The Shreiber School, which will offer the state’s first Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and related degree programs designed to shape the future of veterinary medicine and health care in the state, plans to welcome its first class of 70 students in fall 2025. Applications for the first class are expected to open this fall.

The “one health concept” will be embedded early in the school’s curriculum through extensive clinical experiences via rotations, clinical observation and practice. The curriculum includes a clerkship in shelter medicine that introduces concepts like animal welfare, population medicine and epidemiology.

Virtua Health College of Medicine & Life Sciences

Through its strategic partnerships with Virtua Health and other health care leaders, Rowan is perfectly positioned to meet critical needs in health care education, practice and research in the next decade and far beyond. With West Campus research space adjacent to the Shreiber School’s facilities, Virtua Health College gains dedicated laboratories for a range of disciplines and collaborations.

Under the VHC umbrella, opportunities for interdisciplinary work abound with Rowan-Virtua School of Translational Biomedical Engineering & Sciences. Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine and Rowan-Virtua Rita & Larry Salva School of Nursing & Health Professions.

Meeting the immediate needs of the region’s health care landscape, the Salva School offers an RN-to-BSN degree for working nurses to enhance their credentials and master’s programs that include tracks for nurse educator, nurse practitioner and nurse executive. A new building planned for the West Campus will become the home of the nursing school.

Rowan also offers the first—and only—baccalaureate respiratory therapy program in New Jersey. Respiratory therapists are in high demand in the region’s hospitals and SNHP is meeting that need with a bachelor’s option and degree advancement for those who have completed an associate degree in respiratory care.

Plans include adding a physician assistant program at SOM’s Sewell campus.

The next decade promises an expansion of the college’s interdisciplinary vitality and the opportunities made possible in the Rowan-Virtua strategic partnership.

Edelman Fossil Park & Museum

Among Smithsonian Magazine’s most anticipated new museums in the world, Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University will invite visitors to explore South Jersey’s prehistoric environs later this fall.   

The Mantua Township fossil park preserves the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary, which marks the moment when most dinosaurs went extinct. Visitors can experience the museum’s life-sized collection of creatures that once lived in the area, including a replica of a 55-foot mosasaur fossil found in the quarry just outside the museum’s walls.

The museum’s features include a VR-powered experience, live animals and an opportunity to comb for fossils in the park’s fossil quarry. With its sustainable design and materials, the building itself demonstrates
the highest environmental leadership from Rowan’s facilities master plan.

West Campus expansion and opportunity

Strategically located along the spine of South Jersey’s Rt. 55 north-south corridor a mile west of the Glassboro main campus, Rowan-owned property offers expansive room to grow.   

In October 2024, the University will break ground on a new education facility for Rowan-Virtua Rita & Larry Salva School of Nursing & Health Professions. The University is working with county, state and federal officials to secure approximately $37.6 million for infrastructure funding to support West Campus projects. A planned mix of sustainable development will continue to bolster Rowan’s commitment to serve
and build the region.

In the decade ahead, the University, commercial and industrial partners will construct an advanced manufacturing facility, a bioenergy production facility, a wellness village and academic buildings on the West Campus, creating construction and permanent jobs.

 The Library of the Future

The Keith & Shirley Campbell Library has begun a transformative renovation to meet the present and future needs of the Rowan community.

“The Library of the Future … needs to be the academic crossroads of campus; that kind of interdisciplinary energy really is what drives new ideas,” said Robert Hilliker, associate provost of Rowan University Libraries.

Post-renovation, the library will include a quiet reading room with views over Meditation Walk, sensory isolation rooms for technology-free resetting, a space for the new, student-driven #RowanReads collection,
a lactation room, more gender-neutral restrooms and more group collaboration rooms.

There will also be dedicated space for the Rowan Writing Center, Rowan Thrive (well-being programming), IRT’s Technology Assistance Center and the Dreamscape Learn classrooms. This confluence of services cements Campbell’s place at the heart of the Glassboro campus.

Dreamscape Immersive Learning Center

Imagine college courses that incorporate virtual reality (VR) to expose students to long-gone cities, data visualizations, 3D models or disaster scenarios, using technology demonstrated to improve testing scores.

Through a collaboration with Dreamscape Learn and Arizona State University, Rowan will offer specially designed courses supplemented with immersive learning sessions at Campbell Library, starting in spring 2025. The library will house two 30-person classrooms featuring VR headsets, sensors and motion-capture cameras to convert each user into an interactive avatar.

The immersive courses will offer access to places and concepts that are otherwise out of reach. 

“One strength of this VR is that you can bring students to places where they normally wouldn’t be,” said Pamela Watson, Ph.D., a lecturer in the Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences who is designing Rowan’s first immersive course, an introduction to biology for non-science majors. “There’s so much data out there that we can use to build new experiences.”