Bloustein Impact
Celebrating 25 Years of Alan Voorhees’ Impact on Global Transportation Planning Issues
The Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center (VTC) was seeking a way to highlight Alan Voorhees’ impact on national and global transportation planning issues. The Alan M. Voorhees Legacy Project provided the path forward.
Since 1988, VTC has been a leader in informing public discussion of transportation policy issues. Committed to conducting research and finding innovative approaches to transportation problems, VTC’s research identifies and explores transportation linkages to public policy areas such as economic development, land use, political governance, finance, and social policy.
Data-Driven Future: The Evolution of Informatics
Informatics applications have long been a part of the Bloustein School’s major areas of study—transportation, environmental management, urban design, mobility, social policy, public management and operations, public health, health administration, and community engagement and empowerment.
The school went on to launch the Master of Public Informatics (MPI) in 2019 to provide a vehicle for students seeking higher-level competencies in the field of big data.
Health Administration: Leadership and Public Service
While the Bloustein School’s founding is recorded as 1992, the development of the school’s undergraduate program can trace its formation to the 1960s with the Urban Studies and Community Development (USCD) major. A growing interest in community health across the United States in the 1970s soon led Rutgers to add a new major in public health administration, with many of the original USCD faculty teaching courses in the area.
By 1980, USCD was renamed the Department of Urban Studies and Community Health (USCH) and offered two undergraduate majors: a pre-professional accredited B.S. in Public Health Administration, and a liberal arts B.A. in Urban Studies.
Creative Cities Design Institute: Partnering Students, Artists, and Urban Planners to Understand Socially-Engaged Design
A generous gift from alumnus Walter C. “Wally” Evans MCRP ’74, helped the Bloustein School create a three-year summer program that introduced resident New Brunswick students to the field of urban planning.
Partnering with coLAB Arts and New Brunswick City Center, the Bloustein School sought to provide an innovative STEAM summer enrichment program to help students develop an understanding of urban planning and public policy solutions through a socially-engaged research and design process.The weeklong intensive program partnered middle school students from New Brunswick public schools with professional urban planners and artists in workshops that included building artful cities, 3D printing, community engagement, and social justice.
Evaluating Policies that Serve New Jersey
Working with more than 180 faculty members and staff, 100 students, and experts from more than 20 centers, schools, and universities across New Jersey, the New Jersey State Policy Lab has launched more than 60 research projects and published over 350 research blogs and 50 reports since 2021.
One of its key objectives has been to establish a network of scholars and research centers within New Jersey institutions of higher education to coordinate state policy research and facilitate collaboration. The NJSPL has forged connections with dozens of universities, schools, and centers within the Garden State and beyond. Its guiding mission is to identify and respond to state government and community needs for effective policy solutions through firsthand research and coordination with relevant experts across the state.