Building an engaged community in the classroom can be challenging for teachers, especially in our post-pandemic world. That’s where education professor Brian Girard hopes to make change — with help from games. Using gaming principles in the classroom isn’t new, but Girard’s approach to it is. It’s not about playing games, in the traditional sense, in the…
Academics & Research
Communication studies professor Yifeng Hu embarks on projects to document and share our country’s AAPI history
Yifeng Hu, associate professor of communication studies, spent a good part of last summer documenting the stories of Chinese immigrants and their descendants in Arkansas. Now, she hopes that similar storytelling projects will soon capture the voices of Asian communities in New Jersey. The project is part of the ASIANetwork-Mellon Foundation Award for AAPI…
Math prof dives into mapping the movements of sea creatures with new NSF grant
As a kid, Nick Battista wasn’t much of a swimmer. Growing up outside of Buffalo, New York, he loved going to the aquarium and admiring his grandmother’s fish tanks, but on trips to the beach, a fear of sharks kept him from venturing into the water. That changed during the last year of his PhD in mathematics…
Criminology professor honored with ASC Praxis Award
Jennifer Ortiz, associate professor of criminology, was recently honored by the American Society of Criminology for her tireless work supporting and advocating for formerly incarcerated individuals. She received the 2024 Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice Praxis Award at a ceremony on November 14, 2024, at the ASC Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California. …
ArtsComm dean sets campus up to maintain civility in heated times
The School of the Arts and Communication has launched an initiative called Communication for the Common Good. Led by Dean Pamela Barnett, it is a series of lectures and workshops aimed at giving the TCNJ community a framework for discussing difficult issues in a civil way. For Barnett, fostering non-violent communication on hot topics has…
TCNJ receives $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation
The College of New Jersey was awarded a grant of $500,000 by the Mellon Foundation’s Higher Learning program. The grant will provide funding for Undocumented. Black. Citizen., a three-year, collaborative multi-disciplinary project that aims to co-create teaching resources about citizenship, belonging, migration, and Blackness centering the experiences of Black undocumented immigrants in and beyond Trenton, New Jersey. Led by…
TCNJ student Harrison Lavelle takes a nonpartisan look inside political polling
With less than a month until the November 5 general election, it’s hard to avoid weekly polls that show a dead heat for president and razor-thin congressional races across the country primed to flip which party controls the House and Senate. But for Harrison Lavelle ’25, the poll numbers are not just something he watches…
TCNJ earns NSF Noyce Grant to strengthen climate change education efforts in New Jersey
The College of New Jersey continues to play a key role in keeping New Jersey at the forefront of climate change education for elementary school students. Most recently, the college was awarded a $2,955,563 grant from The National Science Foundation Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. The funds will be used over the next six years to…
Faculty member Sandy Gibson named Addiction Educator of the Year
Sandy Gibson, professor of online counselor education at The College of New Jersey, has been named Addiction Educator of the Year by the National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors. Gibson, who was nominated for the award by former student Arthur Roman ’24, teaches graduate-level addiction counseling courses at the college. She is a…
TCNJ physics department joins regional NSF-funded photonics initiative
Zay Farzan knew nothing about photonics when she transferred to TCNJ, but that quickly changed after joining professor David McGee’s physics lab. There, she got in touch with her experimental side, building lenses and getting hands-on with the lasers and advanced microscopes that help researchers push the boundaries in the burgeoning field of photonics: the…