Dear NJIT Community Members,
As we prepare to depart campus and begin our winter break, I would like to express my most sincere thanks for the manner in which students, faculty, staff, and others worked together and sacrificed for one another to ensure a safe and successful Fall 2021 semester.
The past few months have been filled with many successes for the NJIT community, some of which I will highlight below, but our most important achievement was bringing our campus community back to its full vibrance by safely and effectively returning to in-person learning, robust research activity, and a full slate of the activities that make for a complete living and learning experience. In doing so, we also welcomed NJIT’s largest and most diverse first-year class in university history.
In addition to our safe and successful resumption of full activity on campus, NJIT advanced critical initiatives.
- Most recently, a regional coalition led by the City of Newark and NJIT was announced as a finalist for up to $100 million in funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge. Each of the 60 finalists, chosen from a pool of 529 applicants, will receive a grant of $500,000 to further develop their proposed projects. This is an extraordinary opportunity for both NJIT and the City of Newark, as well as our entire region, and our coalition is the only New Jersey-based proposal selected as a finalist.
- Earlier this semester, NJIT announced an agreement with ENGIE North America to purchase renewable energy from a portfolio of hydropower facilities equal to nearly 100% of the university’s forecasted electricity consumption. This agreement achieves one of the strongest commitments for renewable power procurement in a retail energy purchase.
Our university also garnered several recognitions:
- U.S. News & World Report selected NJIT among its “Best Global Universities” in the eighth edition of this annual ranking. Only 271 U.S. universities made the 2022 list, which spans 91 countries across six continents. NJIT also rose 15 spots in the 2022 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best National University Rankings and was ranked among the Top 50 Public National Universities.
- The Martin Tuchman School of Management was named the top school in New Jersey and #34 in the nation for undergraduate entrepreneurship by The Princeton Review.
Additionally, NJIT’s students and faculty brought distinction to our university through their achievements:
- A group of undergraduate students in NJIT's architecture program designed and built a prototype “tiny home” that may be part of the solution to Newark’s housing crisis.
- Guiling (Grace) Wang, professor and associate dean for research in the Ying Wu College of Computing, recently became the first woman at NJIT named an IEEE Fellow, one of the electronic technology industry's highest honors.
- The IEEE Computer Society named Distinguished Professor David Bader as the recipient of the 2021 Sidney Fernbach Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions in the application of high-performance computers using innovative approaches.
- Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Shawn Chester won the coveted Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which recognizes special achievement in applied mechanics for researchers under the age of 41.
- Senior Vice Provost Atam Dhawan was selected this year to receive one of IEEE’s preeminent honors, the Engineering in Medicine and Biology William J. Morlock Award, which is given every two years to an inventor of original electronics techniques and concepts used to solve biomedical problems. Atam was recognized for a pioneering invention that enables doctors to use light to look beneath the outer layer of the skin to detect diseases such as early-stage skin cancers.
In reflecting upon the work of the past few months, I am extremely proud of our university and its people. We have navigated challenging circumstances, accomplished incredible things, and positioned our university for continued success and growth. You all have my sincere thanks and appreciation for all you do to make NJIT one of the premier polytechnic universities in the world, and I wish each of you a restful break as well as a joyous holiday season!
Sincerely,
NJIT President Joel S. Bloom
