Category: Articles

What’s Happening around Rutgers?

Sure, the Libraries play host to a slew of great events throughout the year—but so do other units across the university. Check out what’s in store from other departments in November.

The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival takes place October 29–November 12.

The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival

October 29–November 12
Times and locations vary, Rutgers–New Brunswick

The Rutgers New Jersey Jewish Film Festival showcases dramatic and documentary features from around the world, each of which offers unique insight about Jewish life.

Click here for more information.

(How) Can Teaching be a Force for Justice? presented by the GSE takes place on November 2.

(How) Can Teaching be a Force for Justice?

Thursday, November 2
Reception 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Lecture 4:30 p.m.
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers–New Brunswick

The Graduate School of Education cordially invites you to join them to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the GSE. In honor of their anniversary, they are launching the Advancing Excellence and Equity in Education Distinguished Lecture Series. Dr. Deborah Loewenberg Ball, the Willi William H. Payne Collegiate Professor of education at the University of Michigan, and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, the director of TeachingWorks and the current President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) will give the inaugural lecture on diversity and inclusion in the STEM fields.

Seats are limited so please RSVP to afsheen.shamsi@gse.rutgers.edu.

Rutgers–Camden’s Conference on Cuba will be open to the public on November 6.

International Conference on Cuba

Monday, November 6
8:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Campus Center, Rutgers–Camden

Conference on the Future Directions for a New Cuba: Building Sustainable Partnerships will explore how institutions of higher learning build sustainable public-private partnerships for research and entrepreneurial programs in sustainable agriculture, education, the medical sciences, the arts, and community development. Dignitaries and leading scholars from the University of Havana, San Geronimo University, and the University of Medical Sciences of Havana will discuss research on effective strategies for increased development in Cuba as the country continues to normalize relations with the United States. The first day of this weeklong conference is open to the public, and will feature a 9:30 a.m. keynote address by Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez of the Cuban Mission to the United States.

The Timeless Lessons of Wall Street’s Scandals

Thursday, November 9
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
15 Washington Street, Rutgers–Newark

A timely talk by Diana B. Henriques, New York Times contributing writer and author of A First-Class Catastrophe: The Road to Black Monday in Wall Street History and The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust.

In May 2017, HBO released its film-length adaptation of The Wizard of Lies, with Robert De Niro starring in the title role and Ms. Henriques playing herself. The film was nominated for four Emmy awards, including “Best Picture.”

Seating is limited and advance registration is required.

The Rutgers Climate Institute’s symposium will be held on November 15.

Rutgers Climate Symposium 2017: Climate Change and Cities

November 15, 2017
8:15 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Livingston Student Center, Rutgers–New Brunswick

This one-day symposium is intended to stimulate interaction and collaboration among the community of natural and social science researchers and university students interested in climate change who are from institutions in the greater New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia region. Over 200 attendees representing more than 20 research institutions in our region participate annually. Talks are centered on the symposium theme. The poster session invites abstracts on climate change scholarship and are not restricted to the theme. There is no fee to attend but registration is required.

R. David Lankes will present about the future of library and information science at Alexander Library (and online!) November 15.

Claiming Victory and Moving On – MI Colloquium by R. David Lankes

November 15, 2017
7:15 – 8:30 p.m.
Alexander Library, Rutgers–New Brunswick
Live stream: https://livestream.com/RutgersCommInfo/sci-micolloquium-davidlankes

The rise of information as an idea and discipline since World War II has been driven by the belief that information underlies, and can change, just about every other discipline and industry. When every industry is an information industry, what is left in library and information science? Lankes will lay out a new emerging world view based not on data, or information, but knowledge and meaning. He will talk about the necessity to shift the narrative in libraries and iSchools and propose an agenda focused on communities and the common good. Free and open to the public, no RSVP required.

Imagining Research, Researching Imagination

November 16, 2017
4:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Writers House, Rutgers–Camden

Novelist Janet Benton, author of Lilli de Jong, and Janet Golden, professor of history, Rutgers–Camden, come together to explore the ways imagination and research inform the writing of both fiction and history, drawing on their mutual interest in the history of mothers and infants. Books will be for sale following the conversation. Admission is free but please RSVP.

Join the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY for a special fireside chat on November 29.

Prospects for the National and Regional Economy: Federal Reserve Bank of New York Fireside Chat

November 29
8:00 to 9:30 a.m.
Rutgers Academic Building, Rutgers–New Brunswick
RSVP by November 24: economics.rutgers.edu/fireside-chat

Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences and Department of Economics invites local and regional business leaders to join us for a discussion with William C. Dudley, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Light breakfast, networking, presentation, discussion, and Q&A.

October 30, 2017
Disaster Planning and Recovery Workshop Report
Tom Clareson, senior consultant for digital and preservation services at LYRASIS, presents at the Disaster Planning and Recovery Workshop.

On October 17, Anthony Timek and I attended part one of a two-part Disaster Planning and Recovery Workshop sponsored by the New Jersey Cultural Alliance for Response (NJCAR). NJCAR is a new alliance that is comprised of a network of organizations, associations, agencies, and individuals dedicated to safeguarding the State’s cultural heritage.

The full-day event was presented by Tom Clareson, senior consultant for digital and preservation services at LYRASIS, the nation’s largest library and cultural heritage network. He talked about the importance of evaluating collections ahead of time and generally knowing the types and value of the materials an organization owns. Clareson laid out a comprehensive disaster plan that includes:

The group conducts a facilities assessment of Old Town Village.
- A communication plan
- Emergency procedures
- Facilities plans
- Resources lists
- Holding priorities
- Insurance information
- Response procedures
- Evacuation plans
As part of an exercise, the group completed a thorough facilities assessment of East Jersey’s Old Town Village, who hosted the event. This included evaluating major areas of the grounds including architecture, drainage, protection from fire and water, the HVAC system, security and more. This kind of assessment identifies vulnerabilities and proposes ways to mitigate them. Part two of the workshop will be held in late November and will cover recovery and hands-on training with damaged materials.
October 30, 2017
Getting to Know Calvin Lai

Many of you will have seen by now that this year’s State of the Libraries meeting on December 6 features special guest speaker Calvin K. Lai. (If you haven’t yet registered on Eventbrite, please take a moment to do so. Enter SOTL2017 when prompted for a password.) In advance of his visit to Rutgers, let’s learn a bit more about his research.

As director of research for Project Implicit, Lai explores implicit biases, or the tensions between our conscious experience and unconscious mind and the resultant disconnect between our thoughts and actions. These biases are evident when, for instance, our attitudes about particular groups of people (based on their gender, race, religion, weight, ability, and so on) are at odds with our explicitly stated values about those groups.

Lai’s research focuses on different approaches to changing our implicit biases and the question of whether changing these biases is actually the best approach for mitigating their effects on our behavior. He also offers lectures and workshops to organizations that discuss how unwanted influences can impair organizational performance.

If you simply can’t wait to learn more, visit the Project Implicit website to complete an Implicit Association Test on your own or check out Who, Me? Biased?, a video series on implicit bias from the New York Times that features Lai (above).

October 30, 2017
What does the “Academic Library Impact” report mean for us?
Stephanie Mikitish is co-author, along with Lynn Silipigni Connaway, William Harvey, and Vanessa Kitzie, of “Academic Library Impact: Improving Practice and Essential Areas to Research,” a new report from The Association of College and Research Libraries. We asked her to provide an overview of the findings and what might be most applicable to Rutgers University Libraries. Enjoy!

Educational stakeholders are increasingly calling upon academic libraries to document their impact, especially in the areas of student learning and success. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) commissioned OCLC to investigate how librarians and other library employees can define, measure, and communicate their contributions to these areas. As Rutgers University Libraries continue to adapt to responsibility centered management (RCM) with the rest of the university, librarians and other employees can utilize the report and tools developed by the project team and add to research on library contributions to student learning and success.

RCM has remapped stakeholder groups into more defined units. The deans of the university’s schools now control more of their budget, and they will likely be more willing to fund resources and services that clearly and directly benefit their faculty and students. Currently, library faculty and staff collect and report numbers for entire groups of users, such as the number of books checked out by undergraduate students for the entire university, or for library location, such as the number of exits at Alexander Library or the number of reference questions answered at the Robeson Library reference desk. Some data are more school- and even department-centered, such as the number of bibliographic instruction classes taught for the Newark College of Arts & Sciences. Studies of student learning and success conducted at other RCM institutions can suggest future directions for the Libraries’ research in these areas. However, the quality of data collected is an important factor that librarians and other library employees must address.

To facilitate future studies and reporting, library faculty and staff may need to rethink strategies for collecting relevant data in a more consistent manner with concern to individual user privacy. While some data, such as the exit gate count, is consistently taken at each library, other data, such as reference statistics, may be recorded using different units of measurement (e.g., time required to answer a question), even at the same location. Standardizing data collection is a large task, but research that documents and informs other librarians on how to go about this and how to use the data may be eligible for funding from ACRL.

In order to promote research, ACRL will be offering grants to conduct and/or present research in the following 6 areas.
1. Communicate the library’s contributions
2. Match library assessment to institution’s mission
3. Include library data in institutional data collection
4. Quantify the library’s impact on student success
5. Enhance teaching and learning
6. Collaborate with educational stakeholders
The project team identified the above areas based on literature on academic library impact on student learning and success and from interviews with librarians and provosts. Given the scope of the Libraries’ collections, spaces, and services, any work done to demonstrate our contribution to student learning and success would fall into one or more of the categories above. The components of the ACRL/OCLC project, which include a research agenda to guide future work on the topic and a literature search/visualization, can suggest what aspects of the Libraries’ resources are most relevant to Rutgers stakeholders, ways to measure reach and impact, and how to effectively communicate the results of such work.
October 30, 2017
Ex Libris Implementation Project Update – November 2017

In spring 2017, the Libraries decided to adopt the new library service platform (Alma and Primo) from Ex Libris. The decision was made in support of two major librarywide priorities: improving information control and optimizing collection development and management. What this means to the Libraries is that Alma will replace the current SirsiDynix system and Primo will replace both the EBSCO Discovery Service and VuFind catalog. Unlike our current configurations, Alma and Primo are fully integrated with each other. They also provide other important benefits: a unified interface to manage our entire collections of electronic and print resources, rich analytics for making better decisions about collections, the potential of improving the discovery experience of library users, and the opportunities to collaborate with other Alma/Primo libraries.

The Ex Libris Implementation Project officially began at Rutgers in late September, when the Implementation Team was formed and met for the first time. The team includes seven members from the Libraries’ infrastructure units – Tao Yang, Abbey DiPaolo, Joseph Deodato, Chad Mills, Gracemary Smulewitz, Chris Sterback, and Mary Beth Weber, with Tao and Abbey as the co-leads. The team has had a busy and productive month: we completed and submitted to Ex Libris the Alma Implementation Form, which is the first step of the implementation process. We have also begun to work on the validation of SIRSI Symphony data extracts, creation of the project website, and development of internal goals, among other things. As a happy coincidence, the Ex Libris Northeast User Group held its annual meeting in Jersey City in mid-October, so all the team members and several other colleagues had an outing to Jersey City and learned the experiences of many libraries who have adopted Alma and Primo.

Currently, the project is still at the pre-implementation phase, which is when the library team works with an Ex Libris consultant to get ready for the implementation. The project will kick into high gear in early December, when the implementation phase officially begins. The new system is expected to go live on June 1, 2018. Between early December and June, there will be many opportunities for library colleagues to get involved in the project and become familiar with the new system. Please stay tuned. Thank you!

Tao Yang & Abbey DiPaolo

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October 30, 2017
Humanism in Medicine: Teaching Poetry to Residents

I serve as the clinical medical librarian for the Internal Medicine department at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark. This means I attend the residents’ morning reports every Thursday and Friday at 8 a.m. as they discuss patient cases to help them learn how to diagnose and treat the patients they serve. When a question comes up which can be answered by an article, I look up the answer in the medical literature and the chief residents share the results with the others via Sakai. I also train the residents in searching techniques in various databases such as PubMed, Scopus, or VisualDx.

Dr. Mirela Feurdean, internal medicine residency program director at New Jersey Medical School, approached me in September 2017 about doing something a bit different with the residents. “I know you’re a poet,” she said to me. “Would you be interested in teaching a poetry workshop to the residents?” In my personal life, I’m a published poet who teaches a weekly workshop in Jersey City, and I just published my first chapbook this year. So of course, I said yes.

The first workshop was held at noon on September 22, alongside free pizza for the residents. The residents were a bit shy, but 11 (out of 20 or so) ended up participating. I shared handouts with them that included a poem written by an award-winning internal medicine doctor, Rafael Campo, as well as a patient. I also shared a couple articles about how to use metaphors effectively when explaining science to patients. For example, research has shown that breast cancer patients who use battle or war metaphors to describe their experience with cancer have a higher incidence of depression than those who use positive words like “challenge” or “journey.” The words we use matter. The residents wrote poems employing medical metaphors, and some even submitted their finished poems to Ars Literarium, the literary journal of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and other RBHS Schools.

The chief residents asked me to return the following month, and on October 20, we focused on short poems, learning a bit about the form haiku. This time, virtually all 20 or so residents participated. Even if they weren’t writing themselves, they snapped their fingers or clapped their hands to celebrate each other’s work as they started to share their writing. Dr. Ahmad Al Turk was inspired to write a clever quatrain, Odgen Nash-style.

NSAIDs work for all
Conditions that end with –itis,
Summer, spring, or fall,
But don’t get fooled with gastritis!

By Ahmad Al Turk, MD

The medical “joke” of the poem, for those without the medical background, is that NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin or ibuprofen) can irritate the stomach and cause gastritis.

However, not all the poems were strictly linked to medicine, and some of the doctors wrote about other aspects of their lives. One resident was inspired to share a rap he had previously written, and he nervously approached the front of the conference room. As he closed his rap, which shared a story about a patient who survived a dire medical situation, he encouraged his fellow doctors not to “go numb” as they continue their work as physicians. His fellow doctors cheered and clapped, and there were tears in the eyes of many.

I look forward to continuing these workshops to my residents, as I hope to help them de-stress during a hectic time of their lives.

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October 30, 2017
How Do We Handle New Requests in the Planning Process?

As busy as we all are, sometimes it can be difficult to see the tremendous progress we’ve made in the last couple of years—particularly with something as diffuse as the priorities planning process. Our most recent cabinet meeting provides a snapshot of how far we’ve come.

As indicated in cabinet minutes, earlier this year cabinet produced a set of priorities to guide our activities over the next 18 months or so. These priorities have specific projects in mind and reflect the capacity of our central units. This planning document is intended to be the scaffolding for our collective work and, by definition, we must work within its bounds. While this may sound limiting—“We only do what’s on the list!”—when it is working well, the opposite is true. A good plan enables us to take advantage of unexpected opportunities as they arise. And in recent weeks, four such opportunities have been brought to the Libraries.

These requests are for activities that are not currently part of our plan and must be weighed against our existing commitments. Our recent discussion at Cabinet illustrates the give and take negotiations that must take place when we consider new projects or services.

Our shared list of priorities forms the foundation of purposeful discussions about tradeoffs and how best to shift priorities to new opportunities. For example, we have been asked to create space for a new OIT Lab in Alexander Library and to provide dedicated health sciences library services at LSM. Both of these requests stem from strategic initiatives within the university. We have also been approached about integrating ORCID into our journal platform and providing ETD support for honors undergraduate theses. Each of these is a reasonable request, but they require time and effort from the same central units that support our existing weeding projects, the implementation of ExLibris, and the development of digital projects templates, among other items identified through the planning process.

Cabinet considered the source of the requests; the anticipated benefit to local users; staffing and capacity in the central Libraries units; the amount of development vs. coordination required; and more, before deciding which opportunities to pursue. The outcomes, communicated in the minutes, are to move forward with adding ORCID iDs to the Open Journal System workflow and to shift weeding priorities to accommodate the deadlines for the Alexander OIT Lab and the LSM renovations. We also decided to hold off on the development of honors ETDs process.

This is not because including honors theses in RUCore is a bad idea—we simply don’t have capacity this year and we have other priorities to complete. But this is where the planning process kicks in. A local need has been identified, and while we don’t have capacity to follow through this year, the proposal will be moved forward to next year’s planning process for consideration.

No doubt, there will be additional requests from the university and additional local needs identified throughout the year. In fact, I would argue that the level of attention we are receiving from the university is an indicator of the important role of the Libraries on campus. We are viewed as strong partners and collaborators, our spaces are appreciated student resources, and our services are recognized as key to student success.

Thankfully, we now have a planning model that allows us to assess these opportunities in objective, realistic, and equitable ways that balance the needs of Camden, Newark, New Brunswick, and RBHS. We must continue to take on high priority projects for the university, but we must also make sure we have the capacity, technology, and resources to succeed. The only thing worse than saying “not now,” is saying “yes,” and not completing the task. These types of discussions are much easier to have when we have a shared understanding of priorities and capacity.

October 30, 2017
Rutgers Hosts Nobel Laureate for 14th Annual Weisse Lecture (with some librarian help!)

On September 19, 2017, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) hosted the 14th Annual Weisse Lecture on the History of Medicine. This year’s Weisse Lecturer was Dr. William C. Campbell, who shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Dr. Satoshi Omura of Japan “for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.”

In his presentation, “Finding Medication: Ivermectin and Beyond,” Dr. Campbell recounted the story of Ivermectin’s development and its antiparasitic uses in both animal and human health. A single pill taken yearly is preventative against river blindness (onchocerciasis), a disease found in South America, Africa, and Yemen. Since 1988, Merck has donated the drug (under the name Mectizan) for distribution within affected regions, and river blindness has been eliminated in most South American countries, with efforts to eliminate the disease in Africa still ongoing. In what he termed a “tirade,” Dr. Campbell stressed the need for much more drug discovery in an era of increasing drug resistance. He concluded his presentation with charming photographs and stories about the Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquets in Stockholm.

Since its inception in 2004, the Weisse Lecture has been overseen by Dr. Allen Weisse. He and his wife Dr. Laura Weisse have endowed the lecture, which is presented as a grand rounds by the NJMS Department of Medicine. Previous Weisse Lectures have featured prominent medical historians and physician-historians, including T. Jock Murray, Michael Bliss, Barron Lerner, and Nancy Tomes. Dr. Allen Weisse himself is an accomplished physician-historian, having published two volumes of oral histories (Conversations in Medicine, and Heart to Heart) and several volumes of essays on medical history.

Caption: Nobel Laureate (left) and librarian (right). Photo credit: Devayani Kumaran, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

In 2016, Dr. Weisse designated me to assume the role of Weisse Lecture Coordinator. Over this past year, he and I worked together to organize this year’s lecture and luncheon. My duties ranged from choosing the luncheon menu with the caterer, to chauffeuring the Nobel Laureate to NJMS and back to the train station. Best of all, I had the honor of introducing Dr. Campbell to the standing-room-only crowd. I made sure to emphasize that even though he was born in Ireland, was educated at Trinity College in Dublin and the University of Wisconsin, and is now living in Massachusetts, his true home state is New Jersey. Both Dr. Weisse and Dr. Campbell served as presidents of the Medical History Society of New Jersey, an organization I have also actively supported, which has actively supported both Special Collections and me as well!

With the support of colleagues in the NJMS Department of Medicine, I am assuming responsibility for the Weisse Lecture going forward. The annual Weisse Lecture is the premier medical history event at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Allen Weisse and Dr. Laura Weisse, and their love of medical history, the Weisse Lecture series is well positioned for a long and successful future.

September 29, 2017
The Budget Process and Library Impact on Student Outcomes
With the last of the Welcome Days events now completed and the start of the fall semester fully complete, it is time to turn our attention to another annual tradition: the preparation of our annual budget request.

Each year, we are asked to put together a budget request for the following fiscal year, so this October we are in the process of requesting budgets for 2018–2019. The budget process has changed quite a bit in the last few years. Historically, budgets were distributed through the ‘all funds’ budget process in which the ‘administration’ made decisions about how best to allocate resources. The process was not transparent, and in the last few years of the all funds process, the Libraries did not fare well.

The shift to the RCM model may have been turbulent, but the result is a much more transparent budget process and a way for us to request needed funds. In fact, anyone can view a lot of detail related to the sources of allocations to cost centers (including the Libraries) at budget.rutgers.edu. In addition to being more transparent, RCM has moved decision-making from ‘administration’ to the chancellors and the chancellors are now in the process of engaging the deans. This means that more of the budget decisions are being made by people who use our resources and services.

I have now participated in two budget requests through the RCM process with some success (see reports on FY2017 and FY2018 requests). It is clear that the chancellors face difficult decisions in allocating funds because of competing factors, including other cost centers such as Student Affairs and Facilities and internal needs such as new faculty and startup packages.

During this process, the Libraries are asked to provide a description of our services. We routinely include figures that demonstrate our impact on students or the use of our resources (such as the estimated savings of the OAT Program, the use of resources, or the cost per use for journal articles), so we know it is helpful to have strong evidence that Libraries make a difference. However, because of the complexity of the educational environment, it has been difficult to measure the impact that libraries have on student success.

That is what makes this news out of the University of Minnesota so exciting.

The Impact of Academic Library Resources on Undergraduates’ Degree Completion: https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.78.6.812

A large, rigorous study by the University of Minnesota—“The Impact of Academic Library Resources on Undergraduates’ Degree Completion”—assessed whether first-year students who used the library at least once during their first year were more likely to graduate or continue to be enrolled in four years (indicating progress towards degree completion).

The survey followed the 2011 entering class of 5,368 students, controlling for factors related to differences in students, including first-generation, socioeconomic status, participation in support programs for underrepresented students, on-campus vs. off-campus housing, SAT scores, AP courses taken, and enrolled college.

They analyzed the students’ records to determine if they had used at least one of five major library services—borrowing books (including interlibrary loan and ebooks), using electronic resources, using a computer workstation, enrolling in library instruction, or asking a reference question—in their first academic year

The results indicate that, overall, first-year students who used any of the library services at least once during their first year of enrollment were nearly 40% more likely to be enrolled in four years or 44% more likely to have graduated in four years than peers who did not use any library resources.

Further analysis of the individual services showed that first-year students who used:
- electronic resources at least once in their first year, were 45% more likely to continue to be enrolled and nearly twice as likely to graduate;
- books at least once in their first year, were 34% more likely to graduate in four years; or,
- instruction, either by enrolling for a class or having library instruction embedded in classes, were 40% more likely to continue to be enrolled after four years.
There was no significant relationship with the use of workstations, reinforcing the fact that workstations are simply a tool. There was also no significant relationship with the use of reference services (including chat), perhaps because a very low number of students—only 5%—used this service.

This survey is a tremendous accomplishment and is directly relevant to our work, in part because of the parallels between Rutgers and the University of Minnesota. Like us, UMN is a large public land-grant institution and member of the Big10. I hope you will take time to read the report and think about how its findings might be useful to what we do and how we do it. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

These findings couldn’t arrive at a better time! Although I have never been asked to prove the value of the Libraries during the budget request process, evidence of library impact on student outcomes will be very useful in our budget request and I hope to have good news for the Libraries later this year when we receive our budget allocation.
September 29, 2017
University and City Celebrate 150 Years of Friendship with Fukui, Japan

This week, Rutgers University Libraries and other New Brunswick institutions will welcome a delegation from Japan as part of the New Brunswick Sister Cities project. Fernanda Perrone is vice president of the group and has invited the delegation to visit Alexander Library and will give a presentation related to the Griffis Collection. The Global Experience Team is sponsoring refreshments after the presentation. If you are interested in learning more about this event, please contact Fernanda.

Seems like a good time to revisit this terrific video:

Sister Cities Project Press Release:

One hundred and fifty years ago, a young samurai from the province of Echizen (today Fukui prefecture) in the far west of Japan came to New Brunswick with the goal of entering Rutgers College. Kusakabe Taro arrived fired with the desire to “fulfill my duty to the Imperial realm by clarifying the defects in the relations between us Japanese and the foreigners in the light of the international law of all nations and universal principles.” Ranked number one in his class, Kusakabe became the first Japanese to graduate from Rutgers College, the first to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and, along with Niijima Jo at Amherst, the first to graduate from an American college. Tragically, Kusakabe died of tuberculosis on April 13, 1870, only weeks before commencement. He is buried in the Willow Grove Cemetery in New Brunswick along with seven other young Japanese. The following year, Kusakabe’s friend and classmate William Elliot Griffis traveled to Fukui to introduce Western-style educational methods into the local school system. Griffis would spend four years in Japan and a lifetime writing, teaching, and collecting information about Japan. His collection was bequeathed to the Rutgers University Libraries in 1928.

Indeed Rutgers was an important destination for international students from Japan during the nineteenth century. Many of those who studied at Rutgers returned to Japan to become leaders in education, industry, and commerce. Although the last of this early group of Japanese students attended Rutgers in the 1920s, the relationship between the university and Fukui was re-discovered in the late 1950s by Rutgers administrator and professor of political science Ardath Burks. Working closely with the city of New Brunswick, programs and exchanges were initiated, and the William Elliot Griffis collection was organized and made available to the public. Rutgers and Fukui Universities became sister universities in 1981, and in 1982 New Brunswick and Fukui became sister cities. As well as the 150th anniversary of Kusakabe’s arrival, 2017 marks the 35th anniversary of the sister cities relationship.

From October 4 to 7, New Brunswick will welcome a large delegation from the city of Fukui including the mayor and members of the City Council, members of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and members of the Fukui International Citizens Association. Among the events planned are a Buddhist ceremony at Kusakabe’s grave on Thursday, October 5 and a lecture on “Kusakabe and His Friends,” which will held at Alexander Library on Friday, October 6. The delegation will also visit the Zimmerli Art Museum and the new Johnson and Johnson Museum and be entertained by the Rutgers Centers for Global Advancement and International Affairs, Rutgers Community Affairs, and Rutgers University Libraries at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. The Fukui Junior Chamber of Commerce will accompany two middle-school students who have written the best essays of the year about Kusakabe Taro. These children will have a chance to visit the New Brunswick Middle School and meet with their contemporaries there.

In November 2017, New Brunswick mayor James Cahill will lead a delegation from New Brunswick to visit Fukui.

September 29, 2017