"An Experiment That Works"

The mission of the Albert Dorman Honors College is to offer excellent students a superior academic program, hands-on research activities and projects in order to prepare them to be leaders in their fields.

History

The Albert Dorman Honors College, founded in 1985 as the Institute Honors Program, became a college in 1995 with an endowment from Albert Dorman and other generous donors.  The College now enrolls 630 exceptional Honors Scholars in all majors offered at NJIT.

Academics

Honors Scholars are enrolled in specially designed Honors classes.  The university’s academic departments now offer over forty such Honors courses.  Over the past several years, twenty-five new Honors sections or courses were created in Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences, History, and Mathematics.

Accelerated combined programs are available in medicine, dentistry, optometry, and physical therapy. The Accelerated BS/JD program with Seton Hall University School of Law, the Honors Management minor, and the Honors BS/MS in Management were created to enable Honors students to tailor their studies to their interests and career goals.  Accelerated students now have a choice of nine major areas, offered by departments in the Newark College of Engineering, the College of Science and Liberal Arts, and the College of Computing Sciences.

Colloquium

The Honors College offers a dozen colloquia each semester for its students and the NJIT community, focusing on the interface between science, technology and society.  They feature talks by and conversations with industry, academic, and government leaders on a wide range of topics.  Field trips to corporate, scientific, cultural, and community organizations are also included.   Examples of some exciting recent colloquia:

• Passing the Torch of Knowledge
  A roundtable discussion with Dorman Honors alumni.
  Honors alumni who are in professional careers, graduate and professional schools met with current Honors students in a roundtable session about key skills they must have in order to be successful in their careers, and ways for them to acquire these skills prior to graduation.
• How We Invented the Catalytic Converter
  John Mooney, Engelhard Corporation (retired)
• Innovation and Commercialization in Nanotechnology
  A discussion featuring a panel of American and European entrepreneurs
• The Challenges Ahead for the Pharmaceutical and Medical Technology Industry
  Edward J. Ludwig, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Becton, Dickinson and Company
• HIV/AIDS in the Middle East: Issues and Solutions
  Dr. Sandra Sufian, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities and History at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine. She described studies she has carried out on the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East.

A guided trip to Washington, DC has been an annual spring event for the last three years. The trip exposes students to the federal policymaking process and explores a range of professional fields in both the executive and legislative branches of our government. With a long-time Washington veteran as our host, we get inside legislative and executive-branch offices and have meetings with top policy-makers. In May 2006, Honors College students met with New Jersey's Senator Robert Menendez (center in photo at right).

The Colloquium also includes an “Honors Night at the Theater,” conducted in cooperation with the NJIT/Rutgers theater program, and featuring attendance at a play and a conversation with the director.

Scholarships & Financial Aid

All Honors scholars receive need and/or merit-based scholarships and grants.  The average scholarship award is $12,000 per student and the total amount of awards exceeds $6 million per year.  About a third of Honors students receive aid based on financial need, totaling almost $1 million per year.

The Numbers

Research & Internships

Honors students carried out over 300 research projects and internships in the sciences, mathematics, engineering and technology, including:

• Developing a compact artificial kidney device that uses membrane separations and tissue engineering to carry out the two vital functions of the human kidney
• Clinical research comparing the advantages of two types of grafts in spinal fusions.
• Research in developing a high throughput screen for increased protein activity.
• Helped to complete the NJ state long range facility plans by doing field surveys, plan drawings and documentation on the state website
• Internship with Becton Dickinson in the Internal Audit Department. Traveled to Mexico City and Buenos Aires for two Audits.
• Characterization of High-K Devices for Future C-MOS Applications.
• Internship with Antenna, Microwave and Optical Systems Branch of NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland
• Computer Science Trainee, US Army Communication-Electronics, Research Development & Engineering Center
• Mathematical modeling of the rate of formation of nylon film
• Assisting NJIT faculty in publishing a Historic Structures Report for the City of Paterson's site redevelopment

Service

Honors students carried out almost 1000 service projects and activities both on and off campus, such as:

• Honors Students spent their 2006 Spring break cleaning up debris from Hurricane Katrina, rebuilding houses, and helping in medical clinics.
• Boys and Girls Club of Wayne: assist the supervisor of the computer lab
• Teaching music to middle school students in Newark
• Serving as mentors with Newark high school students in the FIRST Robotics competition
• Teaching Newark high school students math and verbal topics in preparation for their SAT
• President and Vice President of the Chemical Engineering Honor Society
• President of National Mechanical Engineering Honor Society
• President of the National Society of Black Engineers
• General Manager of WJTB, the NJIT radio station
• President, African Students Association
• ASME Student Design Competition Team Captain: Design of fishing rod for quadriplegics
• Senior Member of the Residence Hall Peer Review Board
• Member and co-creator of the Emerging Green Builders Program run by the US Green Building Council
• 173 Honors Students serve on honors service committees, write for the honors newsletter and Observer, serve on the Honors Student Council, and assist with  events such as open houses, retreats, and peer mentoring.

Outcomes

Honors Graduates

Many Honors College students are also members of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). Five EOP/Honors College May 2006 graduates received the Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, presented to graduating seniors in EOP who have a GPA from 3.50 to 3.99:

• Hermes Alvarez, BS Chemical Engineering
• Reynald Benoit, BS in Information Systems
• Iman Kazerani, BS in Mathematics with Computer Science minor
• Adonis Peralta, BS in Computer Engineering with Applied Mathematics minor
• Jose Ramon, BS in Civil Engineering

Honors alumni have gone on to noteworthy careers in industry, government, and academia, including positions at:

Nearly half of Honors graduates go on to graduate and professional schools, an exceptionally high proportion for technological universities, where 30% is more typical. Honors students have continued their educations at some of the nation’s most prestigious graduate and professional schools, such as:

• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Rutgers Law School
• Seton Hall Law School
• Stanford University
• University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
• Yale Law School

as well as at NJIT.

Distribution of Postgraduate Study