Dr. Daniel Hart is interested in the study of human development, particularly, the intersection of personality with adaptation and development. He tries to understand what the components of personality are, the ways in which personality influences successful adjustment to different social contexts, and how the components of personality are acquired over the course of development. He has written or edited five books, including Colby & Hart, Character and Competence: Developmental Pathways and Killen & Hart, Morality in everyday life: Developmental Perspectives  (and for one of the books he received the Outstanding Book Award for 1996 from the American Educational Research Association, Moral Development and Education Special Interest Group).

Dr. Hart is currently involved in a study of the development of civic competence in adolescence. The William T. Grant Foundation funded "The Development of Civic Competence in Adolescence,” a joint 2-year project between research teams at the Catholic University of America and at Rutgers University. More...

Ms. Connor is the Senior Program Director at the Center for Children and Childhood Studies where she also oversees the Department of Childhood Studies’ Early Childhood Education Program. Ms. Connor’s work seeks to improve the professional knowledge and best practice of early childhood educators with the goal of advancing the educational opportunities and learning outcomes of children ages birth to five. Over the past nine years, the Professional Development Pathways Initiative for Early Childhood Educators (PDPI) has put in place a continuum of professional development and training, support services, and post-secondary degree granting programs for early childhood educators. With the recent addition of the Early Childhood Education Concentration through the Department of Childhood Studies and the P-3 Teaching Endorsement at Rutgers-Camden, both originating through Ms. Connor’s efforts, PDPI is the only program of its kind to fully articulate professional ECE credentials as part of a university early childhood education degree granting program.  
Currently, in collaboration with the Teacher Preparation Program, Ms. Connor is working with area school districts to implement P-3 Continuum approaches providing a systemic alignment of common learning goals and teaching strategies throughout the early elementary years (kindergarten through grade three). With clear evidence that sustaining the investment in early education requires consistent standards of teaching and learning beyond the preschool level, this approach insures that the gains children make in quality preschool programs persist as they continue their education in their first elementary school years. Strengthening P-3 Teacher Preparation that facilitates the development of data-driven instructional design and teaching strategies for improving individual student learning outcomes is a critical component of the new Rutgers-Camden program.
Ms. Connor’s own evaluative efforts have sought to study the efficacy of long term, sustained training and upgrading of professional standards as it relates to improved collegiate success among urban, non-traditional adult learners within the ECE workforce. Over the past seven years, three cohorts of participants were followed in order to assess which collegiate readiness and support interventions have proven most effective reducing the number of barriers that typify the normal collegiate experience for urban non-traditional learners. The goal is to provide improved efficiency and effectiveness of educational and vocational pathways for students entering the early childhood education workforce. 
As part of her tenure at RUCCCS, Ms. Connor has served as the Principle Investigator of over three million dollars of grants from foundations that include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Schumann Fund for New Jersey and the William Penn Foundation in order to improve early learning outcomes for children ages birth to five. She has also developed and coordinated programs through RUCCCS that promote early childhood obesity prevention and health literacy in coordination with numerous Camden City stakeholders. Ms. Connor is most enthusiastic regarding the advancement of Camden based professionals she met nine years ago, many of whom believed that a professional credential or college degree was unobtainable within their own lives. To date over 400 Camden based educators have completed the ECE credentialing process, with over sixty in collegiate programming thanks to PDPI programming.  

The biosketch below is a bit outdated. Will be revised, soon.

Ingrid E. Campbell is the Early Childhood Training Specialist for the Center of Children and Childhood Studies. Ingrid has over 25 years of diverse teaching experience that spans center and family-based child care, public education, and adult education. In her role as a teacher and parent advocate for special education, Ingrid created a parent support group in her local school district in 1992 to promote positive inclusion practices. She subsequently served as a member of the Pemberton board of education from 1994-1997, and from 1999 to 2004, Ingrid served as board vice president and five consecutive terms as president.

Ingrid is a certified ITERS, ECERS and Arnett rater and serves on the Camden County Early Childhood Conference committee. She has been a private consultant since 1985, conducting state-wide trainings in early childhood, leadership, diversity and exceptional learning issues. Prior to her role at RUCCCS, she served as the New Jersey Professional Development Center’s Camden Site Director from 2003-2007.

Jerri L. Pittsley is the Program Coordinator for the Rutgers University Future Scholars Program on the Camden Campus. Jerri graduated from St. John Fisher College with a BA in Sociology and minors in Psychology and Political Science. She is receiving her Masters in Childhood Studies from Rutgers University in 2009 where her area of study is exploring the perspectives of at-risk adolescents through the use of photo-essays. Jerri has experience with youth development programs with urban youth and curriculum development for service and outreach projects.