Academics

Spotlights

Academic Spotlights

Areas of Study

GenEd

General Education

Know exactly where life is leading you? Not likely! Today’s graduates can expect to change careers five times in their working lives.

You need to be prepared to adapt (and fast!) to new people, places, and possibilities. What kind of education gives you that flexibility? A Drew education does, by combining liberal arts traditions with academic innovations calibrated to the demands of the 21st century. Our general education plan builds well-rounded, well-grounded citizens of the world by leveraging strengths that are distinctly Drew: interdisciplinary collaboration, self-directed exploration, local and global awareness, and full engagement with ideas in the classroom and action in the community.

This isn’t a punch list of required courses; it’s a purposeful, four-year academic journey that’s yours and yours alone. Close study in your major combines with wide exploration across the liberal arts to give you both depth and breadth of knowledge. Sequential coursework builds your mastery of fundamental liberal arts proficiencies in writing, reasoning, and information analysis. Study of a foreign language and diverse cultures puts your knowledge into a global context, while off-campus learning experiences and civic engagement courses connect the classroom’s lessons to the world’s realities.

The result? You graduate from Drew a sophisticated thinker, with the confidence to read, write, and reason across shifting contexts and within different cultures and communities. You can analyze complex problems through to a rational solution. You can collaborate in groups and find common ground among colleagues. You can argue persuasively, disagree civilly, and act decisively. These are the skills most valued in the 21st-century workplace-and most essential to the rewards of full citizenship in a participatory democracy. A foundation for all life’s twists and turns-it’s all part of the Drew plan.

The Common Hour

Nothing common about it. Every Wednesday at noon, the entire first-year class comes together for the shared experience of the Drew Common Hour. It’s a year long orientation to life at Drew, with activities practical, cultural, and intellectual. Hear big-name speakers tackle today’s hot-button topics. Break into small groups to discuss the summer reading assignment. Get the inside scoop on majors, career services, academic advising, and other campus-life issues. You’ll fully connect with Drew—and with your first-year classmates.

Common experience creates community, and that’s why Drew created the Common Hour. By immersing first-year students, immediately and meaningfully, into university life, the sessions ease your transition to Drew. And your College Mentor—the upper-class student who assists with your College Seminar—leads you and your classmates through the Common Hour as a group. The result? You get to know more people more deeply. You extend your circle beyond the classroom and the residence hall. And you build on these new ideas, skills, and friendships to make the most of Drew, starting your first year here.

This is a common hour with uncommon power—and it’s so vital to the Drew experience that we give you credit for it.

Honors

The Baldwin Honors Program

Each year, a new crop of Drew first-year students will include a unique group of undergraduate scholars—the charter members of the university’s new Baldwin Honors Program.

Baldwin Scholars are exceptional students with strong academic records who seek a special opportunity for independent learning, engagement and research. The honors program meets this demand by offering a challenging set of courses augmented with exclusive co- and extracurricular activities. These include the sophomore fall honors off-campus overnight, a trip underscoring an academic topic or theme; receptions, dinners or master classes with elite VIP speakers, like recent campus visitors Madeleine Albright and Al Gore; and regular honors gatherings with the program director for topical conversations like sustainable energy, the economy and more.

Back in the classroom—and beyond—junior year focuses on a community initiative, identified and implemented on or off campus by the Baldwin Scholars themselves, which focuses on citizenship or social change, community education or an academic opportunity. The experience culminates in a capstone project during senior year.

All this adds up to a challenging and rewarding experience for participants that enriches and enhances the academic culture at Drew.

The Curriculum

Above and beyond the regular challenges of an undergraduate education, the Baldwin Honors Program curriculum includes:

• First year: one-credit fall honors colloquium, spring honors seminar
• Sophomore year: fall or spring honors seminar
• Junior year: participation in the community initiative
• Senior year: completion of a capstone honors thesis or project
• One additional honors course: seminar, honors-across-the-curriculum course or tutorial

Selection Criteria

High school students applying to Drew whose records demonstrate academic purposefulness and talent, engagement and leadership and who have achieved a GPA of 3.7 or above will be eligible. The admissions committee will select students for the program based on their applications for admission. Candidates will be notified of their selection at the time of their admission to Drew. Baldwin Scholars will be expected to maintain a 3.5 GPA to remain in the program

Financial Aid

All students admitted to the program from high school will receive a substantial, four-year merit award, in addition to need-based aid.

Learn More

To learn even more about Baldwin Honors, take a look at the program’s page which provides links to the program and admission requirements, honors courses, and more!

Civic Engagement

Civic Engagement

Doing well by doing good—it’s a defining element of a Drew education.

Community-based learning puts academics into action, leveraging classroom knowledge into real solutions for real people. This is not just volunteerism: It’s service that connects the issues you study with the problems people confront. It’s learning that brings depth to your understanding and change to your community. And it’s skills and knowledge that transfer to the workplace and shine on your résumé.

At Drew, civic engagement is integrated in the curriculum and embedded in campus culture from day one. We start with a first-year orientation that engages all incoming students in a community service project. And we carry that commitment throughout your four-year journey at Drew. Student organizations; service trips overseas and across the united states; a civic engagement center; community-based learning courses; sustained partnerships with local community groups; problem-based projects that break down cultural barriers, racial divides, and social conflicts. All of these—and more—are knitted into the Drew experience.

Our students live their lessons: Writing business plans for the entrepreneurs of an African village in a class on grassroots development. Going behind bars with inmates as classmates to learn about the pathways to prison. Traveling to Egypt to assist relief efforts in a seminar on the Sudanese refugee crisis. This kind of learning leaves the world better and makes your life richer. And that’s the purpose of a Drew education.

Drew Civic Scholars

How serious is Drew about civic engagement? We are one of the few universities to offer scholarships for service: $20,000 ($5,000 per year for four years) to convince action-oriented high schoolers to bring their passions to Drew. We’re dedicated to nurturing a collegiate community that believes knowledge is too valuable to leave in the classroom.

Drew Civic Scholars have the unique opportunity to do well by doing good—to develop marketable skills while strengthening our shared community. In addition to receiving a monetary award, they are tracked into an exciting new program at Drew through which they will have the opportunity to build on their service and leadership experiences.

About the Scholarship

The Drew Civic Scholarship is offered in the amount of $5,000 per year (for a total of $20,000 over four years). A commitment to the learning track described below is required in order to maintain the scholarship and Drew Civic Scholar status for up to three additional years.

How to apply: Visit the College Grants & Scholarships page for the application form and details.

About Our Students

From supporting the troops to protecting the environment, from promoting literacy to helping the homeless, our current crop of civic scholars has community action down to a science. After coming to Drew from high schools all over the country, they’ve spent the Fall 2009 semester working on projects that are making our shared world a better place. Learn about our civic scholars and the projects they’ve been working on.

About the Program

DrewUniversityactively supports students who show extraordinary commitment to community by offering Civic Engagement Scholarships. These Drew Civic Scholars not only receive a monetary award, but also enter a four-year civic engagement pathway that will increase their service and leadership skills and experiences. Drew Civic Scholars participate in special classes, workshops, seminars, and off-campus service projects.  Those completing Drew’s four-year program graduate with a “Civic Honors” designation on their transcript.

By the end of their four years at Drew, successful Civic Scholars will have accomplished the following learning objectives:

• Achieve a deep understanding of an issue or problem from both a community and academic perspective
• Graduate with a strong practical skill-set that enables you to plan and execute effective action informed by a significant knowledge-base

Civic Scholars complete

• 100 hours of community service each year
• 10 credits of Community-Based Learning courses and internships over four years
• Progressive program of workshops and leadership opportunities, culminating in a Senior project and portfolio of accomplishments

The Civic Scholars first-year program includes

• College Seminar taught by the Director of the Center for Civic Engagement
• Weekly Civic Scholars Meetings: workshops, guest speakers, planning, and reflection on community activities
• Community placements with non-profit organizations inMorrisCounty
• Preparation for and implementation of a Spring civic engagement project that benefits a community outside of Drew

More Information

For more about civic engagement at Drew, visit the Center for Civic Engagement’s site.

Off Campus

Study Abroad

Where do you fit into the world? Grab your passport and find out by studying in another country. You won’t just see the sights—you’ll change your life. Learn more about Studying abroad at Drew.

N.Y. Semesters

Three of Drew’s most popular off-campus programs—the Wall Street Semester, and the Semesters on Contemporary Art and the United Nations—use New York City’s economic, cultural and diplomatic settings as their classrooms.