Once again, the SGA held their bi-weekly meeting on Monday, where Rowan’s bold aspirations were among the topics discussed. It was the first meeting to be live-streamed by the Rowan Television Network.

Some exciting news came from student trustees Ricardo Dale and Kyle Perez. Last Thursday, they attended the Board of Trustees retreat. 

​”One of the more important topics we talked about was merit-based scholarships,”​ Dale said. ​”The engineering major gets a larger percentage. While they are deserving of them, we feel it should be more evenly distributed.” 

Dale says this will be a primary focus going ahead.

The Alternate Student Trustee, Perez, highlighted plans for Rowan’s growth. ​

“We listened to a few interesting presentations,” Perez said. “Firstly from research, and how we can go from an R2 distinction, which we just received, to an R1.”​ 

Perez is referring to Doctoral University Rankings.

The ranking of schools is done by ​Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education​, and it’s done every five years. R1 schools do the most research, while R3 does the lowest. The classification ranks just how extensive and institutions research is.

Examples of the 131 classified R1 schools are ASU, Drexel and Cornell. Getting the R2 ranking is a huge deal, however as Rowan grows, it becomes ever more critical to associate itself with the “upper-echelon” of American universities.

This wasn’t the only significant developments that Perez shared with senators.

 ​”We also talked about the future of Rowan Online,”​ Perez said.

Rowan Online has become an irreplaceable facet of Rowan’s business plan. Last Friday, Ali Houshmand showcased this during his assembly. 

According to Rowan University, ​”Since its inception, Rowan Global has generated $265 million, with a profit of $112 million.” 

​”Without Rowan Global,” Houshmand emphasized. “We would be in financial trouble.”

Rowan must continue to grow it’s online presence as it can reach broader markets. Rowan doesn’t just want to have the most prominent online program in the state, but also the Tri-State area. It would also alleviate some of Rowan’s costs, considering it’s much cheaper to give a degree online, rather than having to build more housing.

Perez also said that Houshmand mentioned the possibility of two new majors coming to Glassboro. Neurodiversity and agriculture.

Rowan’s growth has come with a cost housing wise. The university has some growing pains, due to the housing issues we’ve seen earlier in the semester. Focusing on developing the nearby community colleges, as well as online degrees is certainly some of the solutions to this issue. If Rowan can grow without adding more costs to on-campus students, it stands to increase in profit exponentially.

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