A 2001 headline in the New
York Times pretty well sums it up: “Bloustein Makes, Policymakers Take.”
It may be one of the youngest schools at Rutgers, but the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and
Public Policy has a robust reputation under
its institutional belt.
The Times article
calls it “a knowledge factory for the state.”
Planetizen, a planning-related news website, ranks Bloustein’s graduate
urban planning department third in the nation, out of 105 contenders. Hundreds of its graduates dot the public
service landscape from the municipal level on up to the federal government.
Now a yearlong series of forums, lectures, and colloquia is under way, designed both to mark the school’s
Bloustein dean Jim Hughes has watched his school put its stamp on such diverse fields as housing, transportation, workforce development, public health, energy, and social justice.
20th anniversary and to
showcase its role as “public policy central for the region.”
A highlight of the celebration will take place next month, with a two day symposium on "Planning Healthy, Sustainable Communities" on April 26-27, and a reception and dinner at the Hilton East Brunswick Hotel on April 26.
James W. Hughes, longtime Bloustein
dean, has watched his school put its distinctive stamp on such diverse
fields as housing, transportation, workforce development, public health,
economic development, energy, and social justice.
“Our graduates are all over the place,” says Hughes. “We
provide a lot of the key people who keep the state running.”
Count among them Tom Dallessio of Hopewell, who as a senior policy advisor for
former New Jersey governor Christine
Todd Whitman wrote the act that preserved 1 million acres of Garden State open
space. And Anthony Marchetta, executive director of the New Jersey Housing and
Mortgage Agency, who spent a decade overseeing the Middlesex Department of
Housing and Community Development.
Other alumni hold leadership positions with Amtrak, the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Mediation
Services, as well as New Jersey’s Departments of Environmental Protection,
Community Affairs and Transportation, among others.
In its downtown New Brunswick headquarters housed in Civic
Square, on the site of the former Arnold Constable department store, Bloustein
brings together under one roof formerly disparate units focusing on
undergraduate and graduate planning, public policy, and public health. Its
undergraduate courses attract students from the entire university.
Bloustein School headquarters in downtown New Brunswick.
The school is named for Edward J. Bloustein, 17th president
of Rutgers. During his tenure, Rutgers intensified its role as a public
research facility, and was invited to join 56 other academic institutions in
the American Association of American Universities.
Looking back over the past two decades, Hughes prefers not
to highlight any singular event or program, but rather to laud the research centers
and institutes within the school that focus on local, city, state and regional
planning.
Their reach goes both deep and wide.
Bloustein’s Alan M. Voorhees Transportation
Center, for example, has teamed with the state’s Department of
Transportation to make trains and busses more appealing to people with
disabilities, seniors, and non-English speakers. The John J. Heldrich
Center for Workforce Development issues a consumer “report card” that
evaluates the state’s worker training programs.
The Center for
Urban Policy Research serves as a de facto research arm for the nation,
Hughes says, completing more than $40 million worth of sponsored research for
federal agencies, major private foundations, and state and local agencies.
Among its projects has been a profile of U.S. military bases in New Jersey.
There’s hardly a segment of public life in the Garden State
the Bloustein School hasn’t touched, Tom Dallessio says.
“As someone born and bred in New Jersey, I am always hearing
that Bloustein has a tremendous reputation around the country,” notes the former
executive director of Leadership New Jersey, now adjunct professor at the New
Jersey Institute of Technology.
The education he received gave him the tools to be an
effective planner, he says.
“Planners are by their very nature multifaceted folks, trained
in a liberal arts background to use empirical research to make decisions,” says
Dallessio, a borough councilman in Hopewell for eight years and former
president of the Bloustein
School Alumni Association. “What makes
Bloustein so critical is that it not only provides you with a world-class
education, but it also gives you real-world, day-to-day experience about how
New Jersey works.”
Tony Marchetta brings that insight to bear at the New Jersey
Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, an agency with assets of $4.5 billion that
finances affordable housing developments throughout the state.
“The concept of urban planning is something that grew into
its own in the last three or four decades, and Bloustein has been at the
cutting edge,” Marchetta says. “The school’s focus has been on how to use
resources most effectively, and New Jersey has benefitted dramatically from its
contributions.”
As a go-to guy for state and national
media, Hughes certainly qualifies as one of those resources. Editors and
reporters turn to him to interpret census data, provide economic forecasts,
predict housing trends, and advise on workforce policy. He does it all with a
patented dry wit and understated humor.
Most recently, the Rutgers
University Alumni Association gave Hughes its Richard P. McCormick Award,
which recognizes a dean or faculty member who has performed outstanding service
for the RUAA.
