The Conference Center at RVCC
The Conference Center at RVCC serves as a conduit to bring the academic and corporate communities together.
The Conference Center offers more than 5,500 square feet of multi-functional meeting and event space to accommodate your specific meeting, conference, theatrical production, training or other event needs.
- The conference rooms provide over 3,600 square feet of flexible event space, with a seating capacity of up to 400 people.
- Breakout rooms can be configured to meet your unique needs. Each room can seat up to 30.
- A PC Lab offers 24 workstations.
- Boardroom includes audio and videoconferencing capabilities that can accommodate up to 20 people.
Each of our conference rooms is equipped with installed audio visual systems, desktops for presentations and wireless touch screen control panels.
Evelyn S. Field Library
The Evelyn S. Field Library is located on two floors near the main entrance of the College. The circulation desk and the reference desk are both on the first floor. The circulating book collection is located on the second floor.
- Library Card: The College ID card serves as the library card.
- Group Study Rooms: Group study rooms, which are located on the second floor, may be reserved for groups of two or more students for up to three hours at a time. Groups are also welcome to use the Library Lounge located outside the Library.
- Study Space: The Library has carrel and table seating available for studying on both levels. Silent study is offered on the second floor. We try to maintain a quiet environment on the first floor.
- Computers: Computers are available for library research, writing papers, College e-mail services and general Internet access.
- Library Instruction: The Library’s instructional program offers a wide variety of classes at the developmental level, through basic instruction to advanced subject-specific classes. Classes are conducted in our computer classroom by the Library faculty.
- Photocopying and Scanning: Photocopying and scanning are available with the use of copy cards.
- Collection: The Library’s collection of books, eBooks, DVDs, videos, audio books, journals and newspapers has been selected in consultation with the faculty to support the curriculum of the College and to provide academic, cultural, and informational enrichment. The Library catalog, which is available from the Library’s website, provides access to books, eBooks, videos, and audio books. An extensive collection of databases gives access to current information in journals, magazines, and newspapers.
- Remote Access: The Library’s website serves as the gateway to the digital library. Users may conduct research from home or office using their RVCC network login to access subscription databases. Users may electronically request inter-library loan for materials that the RVCC Library does not own. Research questions may be sent to an RVCC librarian through the Ask-a-Librarian or chat service directly from the website.
- Hours: The Library is open day, evening and weekend hours as posted in the Library and online at http://library.raritanval.edu.
Video Production/Editing Studios
The Video Production/Editing Studios are located in the West Building and are used to teach video production and editing courses. The Editing Studio features Mac and PC digital editing stations, as well as mini DV/DVD decks. The Video Production Studio contains camera, lighting and audio equipment for video production.
Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Resource Center
Since 1981, the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has offered educational programs for educators, students and the community. Through education and unique programming, it promotes tolerance, understanding and compassion. The Center educates thousands of New Jersey students and teachers about the lessons learned from the Holocaust as well as genocides that continue today.
The Resource Center of The Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is located on the second floor of the Evelyn S. Field Library at Raritan Valley Community College. The Resource Room, established in 1999, is a joint project with the College and The Jewish Federation of Somerset, Hunterdon, and Warren Counties. The Resource Room houses computers, books, a video collection, and other reference materials for research and study as well as an area for classroom instruction. The Morris and Dorothy Hirsch Research Library of Holocaust and Genocide Studies is an extensive collection of materials on the Holocaust, genocides and diversity.
Teachers are encouraged to bring their classes to visit the resource center. Educational programs with speakers and survivors of the Holocaust and genocides are offered to the local community.
“Learning Through Experience,” the Institute’s cornerstone educational program, began as a one-day program 30 years ago and has now grown into a three-day annual event. It invites more than 3,000 middle and high school students and educators to take part in a unique series of guest speaker workshops on the Holocaust and genocide.
For information regarding programming, resource information or annual events, contact (908) 526-1200, extension 8524.
Testing Center
The Testing Center conducts admissions, placement and competency testing for the College, including ESL, English and Mathematics, foreign languages and technological competency testing. Students taking make-up exams or tests for online courses may be required to use the Testing Center. Tests such as the GED, CLEP and DSST are also administered at the College. Photo identification is required prior to testing. For more information about the Testing Center, visit the RVCC website at www.raritanval.edu/testing.
High School Equivalency Testing (GED)
The College offers the General Education Development Test (GED) to qualified applicants who wish to gain a high school diploma. The test is given by appointment. For additional information, visit www.raritanval.edu/ged.
The Academic Support Center
The Academic Support Center (ASC), located in Somerset Hall, Room S-020, provides academic support services at no additional charge to registered RVCC students. The ASC offers:
- Drop-in Tutoring - Free tutoring is available in a wide variety of academic disciplines. ASC tutors are employed by the College and participate in regular training in accordance with CRLA (College of Reading and Learning Association) requirements.
- Learning Support Materials - Reference books, current text books, DVDs, computer software, and manipulative learning tools for math and science are available at the ASC. State-of-the-art assistive technologies are accessible to accommodate special needs students.
- Computers - Internet access and learning support software are available for writing papers, doing research, and completing homework. The ASC staff is trained to help students with online learning systems and course software.
- Online Tutoring - ASC writing tutors provide prompt feedback for papers submitted online to asctutor@raritanval.edu. Smarthinking, a web-based tutoring service covering multiple subjects, is accessible 7 days a week. Please visit our website or contact the ASC for details.
- Hours of Operation - Fall and spring semesters: Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.- 3 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. For summer and intersession hours, visit our website or stop by for an updated schedule. Limited tutoring services are available at RVCC @ Bridgewater.
For more information about the ASC, call (908) 526-1200, extension 8393 or visit www.raritanval.edu/studentserv/asc/index.html.
Students, adjuncts and other professionals interested in becoming tutors should contact the ASC or check the website for application information.
Optical Clinic
The optical clinic serves the RVCC community by providing high quality prescription eyeglasses and contact lenses at a substantial discount from the retail price. Located on the ground floor of the College Center, the clinic is operated by the Ophthalmic Science program and is staffed by students in the program under the direct supervision of a licensed optician. The optical clinic contains a state-of-the-art laboratory and can fill any prescription for contact lenses or eyeglasses.
Paul Robeson Institute
The Paul Robeson Institute for Ethics, Leadership, and Social Justice was founded in 1999 to preserve Paul Robeson’s legacy in the area where he came of age as an artist, athlete, orator, and scholar. The Institute envisions a global community of diverse cultures that embodies, through attitudes and behaviors, Paul Robeson’s ideals, beliefs, values, and vision for a world of justice and peace.
The Paul Robeson Institute offers:
- Opportunities for individuals and community that foster a spirit of inquiry and excellence in academic studies, communication skills, and the arts and sciences
- Educational workshops, seminars, and forums that train educators to integrate the history and contributions of African-Americans into the full educational curriculum as required by the New Jersey Amistad mandate
- Cultural happenings such as exhibits, lectures, concerts, and artistic events
- Programs that emphasize the core values needed by young adults for leadership roles and civic participation in the 21st Century
- Annual Paul Robeson Youth Achievement Awards to distinguish and honor middle school and high school students who are following the Robeson role model as leaders and achievers in the following categories: Arts, Scholarship, Athletics, and Community Service.
The Paul Robeson Resource Room, located in the College’s Evelyn S. Field Library, is an information center for Robeson’s national and worldwide activities. Established in 2003, the Resource Room serves as a repository for educational materials, historical records, and memorabilia of Robeson’s Somerville years and the worldwide accomplishments of people of African-American descent.
Physical Education Complex
The physical education complex consists of indoor and outdoor facilities. The indoor facilities are highlighted by a 10,000 square foot gymnasium that seats 1,200 patrons, a natatorium that houses a six-lane heated pool, and a recently renovated Fitness Center. The 2,800 square foot Fitness Center contains strength and conditioning equipment such as Lifecycles and assorted Nautilus equipment. The state-of- the-art Fitness Center provides a variety of equipment designed for personal wellness and conditioning.
Outdoor facilities include four full-length basketball courts; a soccer field and a six-lane, 400 meter track; a baseball diamond; and a softball field. Athletic facilities are available to members of the student body for recreational activities and can be scheduled through the Athletic Department. All students are encouraged to participate in a variety of programs, from intramurals to intercollegiate athletics.
Additional information and photos can be viewed at www.rvccathletics.com.
The Planetarium
The 100-seat RVCC Planetarium utilizes a computerized AllDome High Definition projection system, offering visitors an immersive virtual tour of the Universe. The Planetarium visuals are complemented with a 5.1 surround sound audio system.
The Planetarium also features a gift shop and exhibit area. Exhibits include 1/15th scale models of the Space Shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope; various images from the Space Telescope; a Gravity Well; an H-R Diagram; and a series of five displays that describes our place in the Universe. A 142-pound iron meteorite is on a three-year loan from the American Museum of Natural History. A small observatory using a 16-inch Meade telescope was permanently installed next to the Planetarium in spring 2013, along with a variety of portable telescopes that are available to visitors.
Each year the Planetarium provides programs to more than 20,000 school children, as well as 8,000 public attendees. Presentations include such topics as the changing seasonal sky, Moon phases, tours of the solar system, exploration of our Milky Way Galaxy and the Universe.
Introduction to Astronomy classes are offered each semester for credit students and meet regularly in the Planetarium. Other College courses that use the facility include Geology, Biology, and Geography. A College Astronomy Club is also available to all RVCC students.
Since 2004 the Planetarium facility has been part of the New Jersey Astronomy Center (NJACE) at RVCC. NJACE, through its Science Education Institute, coordinates Project ASTRO and Family ASTRO and conducts teacher workshops, science education consulting, and in-service programs to K-12 educators throughout New Jersey, across the country and internationally.
Science Laboratories
Laboratories for science courses, located in the Christine Todd Whitman Science Center, are state-of-the-art facilities. In addition to the standard equipment required by each discipline, the laboratories house networked microcomputer workstations, providing faculty and students with access to the College’s Learning Resources Center, e-mail, and the Internet. Students are encouraged to use word processing, database, and spreadsheet applications to generate lab reports. Faculty are expanding the use of computers for the collection and processing of data through interfacing, and are incorporating appropriate simulation exercises into the laboratory experiences in the various disciplines.
The $2 million Institute for Biotechnology Education – which is located in the College’s Christine Todd Whitman Science Center – has two wet laboratories, a cell culture room, a classroom and cutting-edge instrumentation to support the College’s biotechnology curriculum. The College offers an Associate of Science (AS) in Biotechnology. In addition to the two teaching laboratories, which each accommodate 20 students, the Institute features a microscope room, a cell culture room, an equipment/instrument room, a prep room and a classroom. The labs and the classroom are equipped with networked computers, audiovisual equipment and projectors. The state-of-the-art facility offers the standard laboratory equipment that includes hoods, freezers and refrigerators, an autoclave, spectrophotometers and microscopes, as well as incubators, a deionized water supply for the labs and the prep area, a Gel Doc system, a PCR machine and an autoclave.
Biology laboratories are equipped with microscopes, an autoclave, spectrophotometers, preserved specimens (including for student participant dissections), and innovative models. The 240-acre campus, surrounded by mature forest growth, fields, and a pond, provides a natural living laboratory for botany and ecology courses. A herbarium collection of several hundred specimens for teaching local plant identification and a greenhouse with a periodic collection of tropical and subtropical plants are also maintained.
Chemistry laboratories are equipped with hoods, each accurately ventilated, and workstations with gas and water lines. Students use a variety of precision balances, infrared, UV-visible, and atomic absorption spectrophotometers, as well as gas chromatography instrumentation.
The laboratory supporting physics and engineering courses has an array of diverse equipment and instrumentation for mechanics, heat, sound, light and electromagnetic experiments. Students in the circuits laboratory course use analog and digital equipment to perform direct, alternating, or three-phase circuit analysis.
Integration of computer-aided design into the engineering science curricula is ongoing. Students in engineering graphics and other courses have access to a computer laboratory equipped with workstations and digitizer tablets which support AutoCAD, a professional drafting and design software package widely used in business and industry.
The Theatre at RVCC
The Theatre at Raritan Valley Community College opened in 1985 with a mission to serve RVCC and the community at large. Each season the Theatre presents the Major Artists Series consisting of artists from around the world; Tuesdays with Stories, which offers an opportunity to experience great American literature; Club28, which features cabaret-style musical performances in a relaxed, intimate setting; the Family and Sampler Series and TinyTots, which offer programs for children and their families; and School-Time Performances, a series of educational field trip events for teachers and students grades pre-K to 12.
The Theatre complex consists of two performing spaces. The Edward Nash Theatre is a proscenium-style auditorium with 1,000 seats on two levels. With excellent acoustics and sight lines, it is a perfect setting for concerts, theatre and dance. The Welpe Theatre is a flexible studio space that seats 100 to 150 people, depending upon the configuration. It is a perfect setting for more intimate and experimental performances.
For additional information about The Theatre at RVCC and a complete list of performances, visit www.rvccArts.org.
Visual and Performing Arts Studios
The Visual and Performing Arts curricula are supported by the studio and performance spaces located in the Arts Building, the West Building, the Theatre, and two building units located next to the Arts Building.
The studio arts area includes nine studios: a ceramics studio with an outdoor Raku firing area; a printmaking studio; a drawing studio; a painting studio, a sculpture studio with an outdoor welding area; black-and-white and color photography studios; a computer art studio; a design studio; and an art history classroom.
The ceramics studio has a handbuilding room; a wheel room with 14 electric wheels and two kick wheels; two glazing areas; and a kiln room with five electric kilns and one 17-cubic foot gas kiln. The outdoor Raku firing area can support four Raku kilns firing simultaneously.
The photography studio has a large black-and-white darkroom area with 13 enlargers; a classroom for lectures and critiques; a film developing room; a color photography area with individual enclosures for each color enlarger and an RA color processor; and an area with a large format copy camera and large format enlarger that can handle formats up to 4 x 5.
The painting studio is equipped with 20 steel easels, drawing tables, stretcher storage racks and daylight track lighting. Large windows on the north wall provide excellent light for daytime painting classes.
The painting studio serves acrylic and oil painting classes, as well as watercolor and drawing classes. A second drawing studio is equipped with track lighting, drawing stools and pinable walls.
A large lecture room fitted with multiple audio-visual display possibilities serves as an art history and art appreciation classroom.
The Arts Building also has an 18 Mac computer studio that is used by students taking 2D Design, Color Theory, and various photography and printmaking classes.
The advanced graphic design studio, digital photo studio, and video production studio are located in the West Building. The video studio has four digital editing stations. The graphic design studio has professional digital equipment for Graphic Design, Illustration, Typography, Web Design, and 2D and 3D Animation. Digital Photography is also taught in the graphic design studio, which is equipped with 18 Mac computers. Audio Production is taught in the digital music studio in the Arts Building.
The department uses the RVCC Art Gallery in the first floor of the College Center for eight exhibitions per year, including two Student Art Exhibitions, an Art Faculty Exhibition, and a Juried Art Student Exhibition. A Holiday Art Show and Sale of student and faculty work is held in December. Two non-student or faculty exhibitions also are held, curated by various faculty members.
The music program classes are held in the Arts Building. The music rehearsal studio is used for performing ensemble rehearsals, music classes and small recitals. A second classroom-studio is equipped with electronic pianos for keyboard proficiency and theory study. An electronic music lab is equipped with computer-keyboard stations with MIDI-equipped synthesizers and selected music technologies and software programs for music notation and ear-training skills. All music studios are equipped with sound reproduction equipment. A fourth music classroom for music theory classes is equipped with a digital projector and sound reproduction equipment. Informal concerts/recitals are held in the music rehearsal studio. Formal concerts/recitals are presented in the Welpe and Nash Theatres. Soundproof practice modules are available to music students for instrumental or vocal practice.
The dance studio, located in the Arts Building, is equipped with a wood-sprung floor and Marley surface, mirror, barres and a media/projection unit. The dance studio serves classes in modern dance, ballet, jazz, performance of repertory and choreography. An additional performing arts studio, with a semi-sprung floor and mirrors, is used for classes and rehearsal space and is shared among the three performing arts (dance, music, and theatre). Dance concerts utilize the Nash Theatre, a proscenium-style stage with 1,000 seats on two levels. The Welpe Theatre, a flexible studio/black box space, is a perfect setting for more intimate and experimental performances.
The theatre arts classes are taught in the College Theatre (in the Welpe Theatre) and in the Arts Building. Theatre productions—both dramatic and musical—dance concerts, and music recitals and concerts are held in the Edward Nash Theatre or the smaller Welpe Theatre. In addition, The Theatre Lab in the back of the Arts Building is used as the classroom for all of the Acting classes and as a small rehearsal studio. The unit is equipped with a room with spot lights, curtain, and storage space for props.
The Interior Design degree program courses are held in the Interior Design Center next to The Theatre Lab at the rear of the Arts Building. The space has two classrooms; one room holds traditional drafting tables and supplies used in the traditional development of interior design. The second room is the computer room that holds the computers with which students learn AutoCAD, Google Sketchup, 3D Max and other programs needed to design interiors on the computer. Various printing and plotting machines are used to produce the end design products.
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