Our Return to Campus

After more than a year and a half conducting classes, meetings, and other business remotely, Rutgers School of Social Work students, faculty, and staff are beginning to return to campus this fall. 

“Rutgers is meant to be an in-person, face-to-face university community, with campus walkways, academic building hallways, libraries, dining halls, and student centers buzzing with live interactions. We need to get back to that model. Our plan for return recognizes this ideal while making clear that we want to be careful and to do this right,” said Rutgers President and University Professor Jonathan Holloway in a message to the Rutgers community last spring.

The School of Social Work is using guidance from federal and state public health officials to inform our planning to ensure the safety of our entire community. Our return is also guided by three principles as directed by the university:

1. We are returning to the classroom and the workplace in support of our mission of teaching, research, clinical care, and service;
2. our commitment to the health and safety of the campus community, based on science and public health guidelines, remains paramount; and
3. the safe repopulation of our campuses is a shared responsibility, which means we all must do our part to keep safe, to ensure equity in our return, and to be flexible in implementing the return.

President Holloway has also tasked Senior Vice President for Human Resources Vivian Fernández to chair a presidential task force on the future of work at Rutgers. The group will provide suggestions to better serve the Rutgers community, operate more efficiently, promote work-life balance, and support sustainability.

“We are focused on building a better future for the School of Social Work community,” said Dean and Distinguished Professor Cathryn C. Potter. “Although there will be challenges as we repopulate our spaces, we know our return to campus will be a positive step forward in this long journey. Looking back on all that we’ve endured since March 2020, I know that our community members are resilient.”

To learn more about Rutgers’ return to campus planning, visit coronavirus.rutgers.edu.