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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.
Graduate Virtual Information Sessions | Fall 2025
Tuesday, November 11 @ 6pm (1800) EST: Master of City and Regional Planning Virtual Information Session Tuesday, November 18 @ 6pm (1800) EST: Doctor of Health Administration Virtual Information Session All NYC Area Planning Schools Virtual Open House Join the...
Design and Data: Transforming Urban Mobility
“What I enjoy most about the field of urban planning is that it combines design, data, and the ability to make a difference for communities, helping create fairer and more accessible cities. That’s the kind of work I want to do. My goal is to apply the transportation planning and GIS expertise I’ve developed at Bloustein to design more inclusive, efficient, and sustainable transportation networks that improve quality of life in our communities.”
NJSPL: Breast Cancer Outcomes for Black Women
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death due to cancer in New Jersey, and recent research has determined that this form of cancer disproportionately affects the mortality outcomes for Black women, as they are 40% more likely to die due to breast cancer compared to Non-Hispanic White women.
Safe Routes to School: Back to School, Back to Safety
Safety isn’t seasonal. While school brings urgency to these reminders, the truth is: safer streets benefit everyone, every day. Whether you’re dropping off your child, biking to class, or commuting past a crosswalk, remember, our roads are shared spaces. Let’s keep them safe, welcoming, and calm.
After Stafford mobile home landlord jacked up rent 20%, is rent control the answer?
“Rents are the high, and they’ve gone up quite a bit, particularly since the pandemic,” said Eric Seymour, a Rutgers University professor who co-authored a study looking at rent control in New Jersey. “And so there’s interest in understanding the policy levers available to try to keep rents manageable.”
Edwards: Work from Home and Job Satisfaction
A new paper co-authored by Renée Edwards, Ph.D., Assistant Director at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development and Managing Director of the Employer Disability Practices Center, analyzes how different measures of job satisfaction vary between people with and without disabilities, and the extent to which working from home moderates the relationship between disability and job satisfaction
Office vacancy issue in New Jersey will only get worse, experts say. Here’s why
“Today that office inventory is between 44 and 34 years of age. All the stuff built then was before the internet, before mobile technology,” Hughes said. “A lot of it was cheaply built. So now we have the aging, obsolete suburban inventory that we have to deal with today.”
NJSPL: The Trouble with Neighborhood Trash
Communities must be willing to address disparities in their policies, budgets, and priorities in order to address equal access to sanitation infrastructure, fair enforcement of polluting laws, and other waste-related decisions. Because clean streets shouldn’t be a luxury. They should be the baseline, no matter your zip code.
New Jersey is gearing up to dispatch a new round of ANCHOR property tax relief money to homeowners and renters
Hughes said, “They’re living on the edge right now, they’re really stretched,” he said. “We’re in a higher inflation era both now with high energy costs and for what may be coming, because of the [Trump administration] tariffs, any benefit they can receive will be helpful.”