New ‘RU Engaged’ Program Connects First-Year Students to New Brunswick Through Service

A weeklong service program that introduces students to the community will expand next year after its inaugural launch over spring break

After eight weeks in the classroom, a group of 20 mostly first-year students spent their spring break staying in the community working alongside food-security organizations in New Brunswick. They helped build raised garden beds, unloaded food and served clients at the Unity Square Choice Food Pantry and prepared meals at the mobile soup kitchen for Elijah's Promise.

"This experience has truly been transformative," said Isabelle Latorre, of Roselle Park, N.J., who is majoring in molecular biology and biochemistry at School of Arts and Sciences. "I felt incredibly fulfilled seeing our team's efforts create such a tremendous impact and becoming much closer to the New Brunswick community in only a few days."

The weeklong experience was part of the RU Engaged Byrne seminar, a one-credit course focused on the issue of food security. The class aimed to connect first-year students to the community through a series of service projects and was capped with the RU Engaged Spring Break trip funded by a 2025 New Brunswick Chancellor's Challenge Grant.

"RU Engaged spring break was designed to help students understand that Rutgers and New Brunswick are deeply interconnected," said Kathe Newman, professor at Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and director of the Ralph W. Voorhees Center for Civic Engagement. She developed the class with Cara Cuite, undergraduate program director and associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

"We hope that this course and Spring Break experience created the conditions for meaningful learning and genuine relationships between students and community partners," Newman said.

Cuite and Newman designed the program in collaboration with the Office of the Vice Provost for Experiential Learning and the Alternative Breaks Office.

"This is exactly the kind of work the Chancellor's Challenge was designed to support," Rutgers-New Brunswick Chancellor Francine Conway said. "RU Engaged brings together academic learning and meaningful community engagement in a way that benefits both our students and the city of New Brunswick. It reflects our commitment to preparing students not only for careers, but for lives of purpose and impact."

Next year, RU Engaged will expand to three Byrne Seminar classes each with an associated spring break trip to address a different social issue.

Cuite said the program was designed to build lasting connections.

"We were blown away by the commitment and energy of the students, and we hope it is only the first of many times they will partner with these New Brunswick organizations," Cuite said.

For many of the students, the course provided an opportunity to make a difference beyond campus they were seeking.

At Unity Square, students contributed to the ongoing efforts to expand access to fresh food and create shared spaces for community connection. Gardening experts from Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the Bloustein School showed the students the importance of soil quality, garden layouts, and the role of urban gardens in bringing neighbors together to a shared space for growing food.

"We can't wait for the students to come back in a few months to see the vegetables growing in the garden beds that

they built," said Michelle Gil, director Unity Square.

"Being at a big school like Rutgers means you have access to the whole world, but no one to bring you through the door," said first-year School of Engineering student Robert Sorkin, of Scotch Plains, N.J. "This is the first program I've seen that really tries to do that."

Cuite and Newman, along with their community partners, hope it is also a foundation for students' continued connection to the community of New Brunswick.

"When students come ready to help their neighbors, they become part of our community, not just visitors," said Michelle Wilson, director of Elijah's Promise. "Our motto is transforming lives through food, and we hope the students felt a bit of that transformation."