'Kean Research' Spring 2026 Message from the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Colleagues and Students,   

As a Carnegie-classified R2 institution, Kean University is committed to scholarly endeavors across a wide range of disciplines. Since 2021, we have hired 180 scholars, now representing over half of our tenured and tenure-track faculty. This has significantly increased our capacity in every department and, with it, our ability to weave research into every corner of the curriculum. 

These efforts, alongside the rollout of a new General Education program this spring and the revitalization of major programs across all six of Kean’s colleges, reinforces a learning environment in which students move beyond consuming knowledge to actively co-investigating it. Working alongside faculty, they design and conduct research that often leads to conference presentations and publications in the leading journals of their fields. 

Each year, we celebrate this work through Research Days, a week-long series of events featuring outstanding presentations, poster sessions, and artistic performances. This newsletter highlights a selection of the exceptional work presented during this year’s events. 

Nearly 1,600 students participated in Research Days this year and, for the first time, we also welcomed students from New Jersey City University as our institutions prepare to merge this summer. Many of these students are the first in their families to attend college, and they demonstrate not only their ability to learn from experts, but their capacity to join faculty in producing both basic and applied research. 

Across all of our campuses, the message is clear: Kean values student insight and supports the development of sophisticated research skills that translate into meaningful, real-world impact. 

Whether studying beach erosion in Ocean County, supportive housing in Jersey City, or pursuing projects across the arts, humanities, sciences, health care, and design, our students are connecting scholarship to the needs of their communities. 

Research is everyone’s business. It lends structure to curiosity and rigor to insight. As a public anchor institution, Kean is committed to democratizing the production of knowledge, demonstrating that our work draws us closer to the communities we serve and invites a broad spectrum of voices into the process of discovery. 

I am proud to share these research highlights with you and hope they offer you the same sense of excitement and inspiration that they bring me. 

Sincerely, 

David S. Birdsell, Ph.D. 

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs