Contact Us

P) 609.771.2548

F) 609.771.2573

E) bonner@tcnj.edu

Street Address

1938 Pennington Rd.

Ewing, NJ 08618

Please enter our parking lot from Pennington Road, we are located about 150 yards south of the College's main entrance.

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Mailing Address

Bonner Center for Civic
and Community Engagement

The College of New Jersey

P.O. Box 7718

Ewing, NJ 08628-0718

Staff

Pat Donohue, Director

E) pdonohue@tcnj.edu

Paula Figueroa-Vega, Associate Director

E) pfiguero@tcnj.edu

Richard Wilson, Program Assistant

E) rwilson@tcnj.edu

Morgan Reil, Democracy Project Fellow

Bridge to Employment Initiative

E) reil@tcnj.edu

Brittany Aydelotte, Democracy Project Fellow

Bonner Community Scholars and Education Coordinator

E) aydelot2@tcnj.edu

Giancarlo Giametta, Democracy Project Fellow

Special Projects Coordinator

E) giamett2@tcnj.edu

Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement

TCNJ Home : Academics : Bonner :

Special Project: PolicyOptions

TCNJ has joined another national network that is on the cutting edge of connecting the resources of the higher education world with the needs and interests of the local community. It is the lead institution in the region for the PolicyOptions project and will be in charge of the “Trenton Bureau,” one of many city-based divisions that have been established around the nation.

As part of this project, professors and students will primarily work on “issue briefs” in response to questions that are posed by the Bonner Center’s community partner organizations. One agency, for example, is interested in the issue of reintegrating individuals with criminal records into the workforce; another wants to learn the different strategies to develop the life skills of urban adolescents.

A student or team working on an issue brief will clarify the extent or scope of the problem in the area as well as what policies are in place to address it. They will then examine alternative policies or approaches exist in other jurisdictions and attempt to present three options visually via a “learning tree." Eventually, the issue brief would provide a recommendation to the non-profit staff as well as identify model programs—so the local nonprofit community can learn from their peers in other places.

This project is unique because local nonprofit partners will be able to access this information and much more (e.g. legislative updates, conference announcements, funding notices etc…) via the web. They will do so by going to the PolicyOption Wiki and selecting the link that is most relevant to their agency’s mission. With this project; our higher education colleagues from other institutions will be able to build upon our work over time, thereby providing increasing amounts of information and expertise to Trenton area leaders.

For more information on this project, please contact Patrick Donohue (pdonohue@tcnj.edu). The founder of this project is Bobby Hackett (rhackett@bonner.org), Vice President of the Bonner Foundation, located in Princeton, New Jersey.