Our Mission:
The Division of Continuing Studies (DoCS) is the sole university-wide unit at Rutgers dedicated to the mission of lifelong learning. DoCS enriches lives and communities by providing lifelong access to progressive, learner-driven education. Grounded by its New Jersey roots and its support for Rutgers faculty and staff, DoCS seeks to meet learners wherever they work and live, both in the classroom and online.
Our Impact:
DoCS was founded by University Presidential action in 1996 as the Division of Continuous Education and Outreach to coordinate and support continuing education, distance education and outreach at Rutgers University across all of the campuses. Since then, DoCS has grown to include over 150 employees at 20 units and 20 locations, that coordinate hundreds of credit and non-credit programs, enrolling thousands of participants, reaching audiences from youth to retirees and providing various support services across the University. Our educational services include a range of services that rely on state-of-the-art technologies.
DoCS is engaged in all three components of the Rutgers University mission of research, teaching and service. This site provides an overview of the services provided through DoCS, with easy-to-use links to the various DoCS units and staff. Please contact us if we can be of service.
Core Values:
Integrity
Integrity is such a fundamental core value that all other core values require it as a prerequisite. How can we address the other values if we do not have integrity – if we are not considered honest, ethical and transparent? Professor Stephen L. Carter of Law at Yale Law School notes that the word integrity comes from the same Latin root as integer and carries the same sense of wholeness, a person undivided. Integrity requires three steps: “1) discerning what is right and wrong; 2) acting on what you have discerned even at personal cost; and 3) saying openly that you are acting on this understanding.”
People
DoCS is committed to supporting lifelong learning and lifelong learners. That is our mission. The people of DoCS are fiercely dedicated to this mission and try to live this out by example. I would challenge anyone to show me any place in Rutgers that has the DoCS level of commitment and passion for lifelong learning. Docs has achieved a great reputation across the university for its commitment to service. Our people routinely go above and beyond what is expected. The University and the citizens of New Jersey are better because of that fierce commitment of DoCS.
Excellence
Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway coined the phrase for his inaugural year, “this is what Excellence looks like.” “When I look at Rutgers,” he said, “I want to see a beloved community in which we recognize the things we hold in common so that when we disagree, we will do so without denying one another’s dignity. This is what excellence looks like. When I look at Rutgers, I want to see a place that aspires boldly to be both a leading engine of world-changing research and a vehicle for social mobility for students across the socio-economic spectrum. This is what excellence looks like.”
DEI
We want everyone to feel a sense of belonging, respect, and fairness. DoCS core value of inclusion is in alignment with Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway’s goal for Rutgers of a beloved community, a university culture defined by tolerance, mutual respect, diversity and the spirited exchange of opinions and ideas. Partnered with inclusion and diversity, DoCS labels equity as a core value that we strive to live towards. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
Consideration
Consideration is an appreciation of and mutual respect for all people representing diverse backgrounds, opinions, and points of view. These values are crucial to the tenet of being a safe, supportive, and inclusive organization. Consideration is the ability to see things from another person's perspective. Undergirding our understanding of consideration are appreciation and mutual respect. Appreciation is finding value in the differences in others even though we may disagree with points of view or have different life experiences. We can appreciate the other person in all of his/her wholeness of being.
Service
Service to others encompasses caring more about others than ourselves, in order to help others materially or spiritually, improve their lives, ease their suffering, assist in their self-actualization. Service means we make intentional decisions and actions to benefit others; we put others above ourselves. There is a long-standing tradition in the history of humanity of respect for serving others. Being of service makes us truly human. Think about the power that each one of us has to positively impact someone’s life and their perception of Rutgers University.
Lifelong Learning
Lifelong learning - this term has become pervasive in our world and is no longer just the domain of higher education any longer. It is self-evident to say that we live in a complex and complicated world, that people are living longer, and that employment has morphed so that the shelf life of knowledge is so short that ongoing education is required just to stay relevant in one’s job. We also know that lifelong learners live longer, healthier, and happier lives.
