ROI-NJ names four Rowan leaders to its Higher Education Influencers Class of 2020

ROI-NJ this week named four Rowan University educators to a very select club: the ROI Higher Education Influencers Class of 2020.

Leading Rowan’s members of the class is President Ali A. Houshmand, who ROI editors write “has set a standard for higher education that all presidents would be wise to follow.”

Houshmand, they note, is an entrepreneurial thinker and leader whose commitment to students, the Rowan community, and society at large is clear. Rowan’s seventh president, Houshmand since 2012 has made a hallmark of his tenure a four-pillar approach on which the University is thriving: highest quality education, affordability, increasing access to a four-year degree and leveraging Rowan as an economic engine for the region.

“His eagerness to view the Glassboro-based University as not only a business, but a driver of economic and social growth for the South Jersey region, is a forward-thinking model in a sector often driven by century-old beliefs,” editors wrote. “His efforts to make area community colleges partners is the way of the future in these uncertain times. And his dreams of creating stackable certificates and degrees — based on real-world experience — is one that should be implemented in the new world.”

ROI-NJ also recognized Dr. Annette Reboli, dean of Cooper Medical School of Rowan University; Dr. Tabbetha Dobbins, interim vice president for Research and dean of the Graduate School; and Dr. Ben Dworkin, director of the Rowan Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship.

The magazine credited Reboli with leading CMSRU which, having welcomed its first class in 2013, is now among the most competitive medical schools in the country.

“(There are) two things worth noting about CMSRU,” editors wrote. “It has one of the lowest acceptance rates in the country, and it was honored with the Spencer Foreman Award, a national award for community engagement and social responsiveness in the academic medical world.”

Dobbins, the magazine noted, is also an associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, “a nationally recognized scientist in materials science and a passionate educator whose research and teaching engages underrepresented populations in STEM.”

Editors credited Dworkin, whose tenure with Rowan began in 2018, as “a widely respected political analyst” who joined the University intent on creating “a leading institute for public policy that positions itself at the nexus of engaged learning and the issues of the day.”