In December, 2007, the Board of Governors appointed
Jeannine F. LaRue as vice president for public affairs.
The Department of Public Affairs acts as a liaison and
ambassador between Rutgers’ campuses and the
government, corporate, and nonprofit communities.
Overseeing state and federal relations, as well as
Friends of Rutgers, LaRue will focus on relationship
building with varied stakeholders throughout New
Jersey and beyond.
LaRue’s career of more than 30 years in education,
health care, government, and politics has focused on
relationships as the building blocks to getting things
done. Her private and public sector experiences have
resulted in upwards of 17,000 contacts in her
BlackBerry, which she always has by her side. She
began her career as a high school English teacher;
became the youngest person, first woman, and first
ethnic minority elected to public office in Winslow
Township; and served almost a decade as a lobbyist
for the New Jersey Educational Association (NJEA).
LaRue also served for more than a decade as a
senior vice president for the Saint Barnabas Health
Care System. She left that post in 2006 to join
Governor Jon S. Corzine’s administration as deputy
chief of staff, overseeing the Office of Appointments,
Office of Constituency Relations, and Office of
Intergovernmental Affairs. LaRue has won scores of
awards and acknowledgments from nonprofit
organizations and associations throughout the state.
What is your vision for the Department of Public
Affairs?
The vision I bring to this department is to develop
partnerships among people here at Rutgers and
legislators, corporate leaders, and the nonprofit
community. These relationships will help us play the
vital role in society that we expect from a major
research university.
We can only achieve this through better relationships
and regular communication with elected and
appointed leaders at the state and federal levels. It's
going to take the full engagement of our student body,
our faculty, and our administrators, and also of our
more than 300,000 living alumni.
What are some of the special issues on each of our
main campuses?
Our campus can play a major role in Camden during
this period of statutory oversight by the state. We have
the Walter Rand Institute, we have the childhood
studies department, and we’ve been doing a lot of
interacting with the players in the Camden school
district. But I want us to accelerate our efforts there.
The Walter Rand Institute did the initial survey in
assessing what the city government looked like, what
are the available resources in the Camden city
government. Now that all that information is in and
people have had an opportunity to analyze it, we can
help the city of Camden and the new COO [chief
operating officer] Theodore Davis. For instance, we
can help them with staffing through our graduate
program. Since we are the state research university,
we can team up with some of our institutes – the
Walter Rand Institute, also the Cornwall Center in
Newark – along with the League of Municipalities, and
offer some additional resources to mayors throughout
those areas. Right now the governor is talking about
the consolidation of programs. We have some very
good ideas we can lend to that discussion.
In North Jersey, Rutgers is definitely an economic
engine in Newark. We own a lot of real estate. We are
getting ready to do the ribbon cutting for the Rutgers
Business School building. We have the beautiful law
school building. There is so much going on in the city
of Newark where Rutgers is a major player. Our
professors, administrators, and students have totally
integrated within the Newark school district and have
assisted students in academic programs such as
math and science. I would like to just accelerate that
and enhance what we’re already doing.
In New Brunswick, I have already met with Dean Jolie
Cizewski to look for outlets for our graduate students
to assist in nonprofit areas or in state government. I
am engaged in discussions with administrators from
the Center for American Women in Politics to see if
we can seek other funding avenues to help in some of
the great programs they are developing. I also
attended a very comprehensive meeting with the
student leaders in New Brunswick at the Rutgers
Club so that I could get their thinking on some of the
needs on the New Brunswick Campus. They have
offered some very good advice that I will take to
Trenton.
