Newark, Feb. 7, 2000 - New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has expanded its unique Collaborative Doctorate to include public sector as well as private sector employees.

     The Collaborative Doctorate is designed for mid-career engineers, executives, scientists, military personnel and educators who want to pursue a Ph.D. while continuing full-time employment.

     According to Saul K. Fenster, President of NJIT, "The academic requirements for the Collaborative Doctorate are the same high quality as for other NJIT doctoral programs, but greater flexibility allows participants to draw on the combined expertise and resources of both NJIT and their employers."

     Fenster notes "This collaboration enhances the already rich university research environment and provides an opportunity for employers to develop higher skilled, more knowledgeable and ultimately more valuable employees. This gives employers a competitive edge in an increasingly knowledge-dependent global economy."

     Ronald S. Kane, NJIT's Dean of Graduate Studies, notes that the program integrates independent study and an array of alternate educational deliveries with conventional classroom sessions to meet the specific needs of both employee and employer.

     Students must be recommended by employers who also must commit to a proposed area of research in concert with the dissertation committee.

     In addition, the employer must suggest a researcher to serve on the student's Ph.D. dissertation committee. Concerns about patent and copyright issues are resolved prior to the start of the dissertation research.

     "The employer's representative is an active working member of the dissertation committee, not just a token. This is unique," says Kane. The employee-student's dissertation research may be experimental, analytical, applied or theoretical, but it is expected to make an original contribution to their field.

     To participate in the Collaborative Doctorate program, one must have been employed in his or her field for at least five years. Prior work-related research activity, publications and honors will also be considered in evaluating prospective participants.

     The Collaborative Doctorate Program has won praise from many students like U.S. Army Major John Lacontora, a doctoral student in Industrial Engineering who enrolled in the program a year ago.

     Lacontora, who is director of the Army National Guard's Distributive Technologies Innovation Center at Fort Dix, asserts the NJIT Collaborative Doctorate Program has enabled him to "…achieve goals that otherwise would have been unachievable. The program is an excellent opportunity to excel personally and professionally. I would tell anyone who is interested in pursuing a doctoral degree to enroll…" says Lacontora.

     A student looking forward to applying to the Collaborative Doctorate Program is Jacqueline Chambers Rogers, a Senior Process Engineer with a major New Jersey pharmaceutical and health products firm.

     While searching the web for doctorate programs, Rogers, an alumna of NJIT, found the university's Collaborative Doctorate offering and immediately knew the program was for her. "I should have known my alma mater would be on the cutting edge," she says.

     Via NJIT's Collaborative Doctorate Program, Rogers now plans to pursue an engineering Ph.D. part-time while applying what she learns "… on an on-going basis, within a corporate environment."

     The Collaborative Doctorate Program is available in the following disciplines:

• Biomedical Informatics (joint degree with University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey)
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Engineering
• Computer Science
• Electrical Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Environmental Science (joint degree with Rutgers-Newark)
• Industrial Engineering
• Information Systems
• Materials Science and Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Physics (joint degree with Rutgers-Newark)
• Transportation

     For more information about the program, contact the Dean of Graduate Studies at 973-596-3462 or kane@adm.njit.edu. The program is also described on the NJIT website at http://www.njit.edu/Directory/Admin/Graduate_Studies/industry.html

     NJIT is a public research university enrolling nearly 8,200 bachelor's, master's and doctoral students in 87 degree programs through its five colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, the School of Management and the Albert Dorman Honors College. Research initiatives include manufacturing, microelectronics, multimedia, transportation, computer science, solar astrophysics, environmental engineering and science, and architecture and building science.

     Yahoo! Internet Life magazine has ranked NJIT as America's "most wired" public university for two consecutive years, U.S. News and World Report's 1999 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT among the nation's top universities, and Money magazine's most recent issue of Best College Buys rated NJIT as the sixth best value among U.S. science and technology schools and among the top 100 overall. In September 1999, Mademoiselle ranked NJIT as the second most Internet-connected university in the nation.