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Rutgers University
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Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (also known as Rutgers University), is the largest institution for higher education in the state of New Jersey. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766 and is the eighth-oldest college in the United States. Rutgers was originally a private university affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church and admitting only male students, but evolved into and is presently a nonsectarian, coeducational public research university that makes no religious demands of its students. Rutgers is one of only two colonial colleges that later became public universities. (The other is the College of William and Mary.)
Rutgers was designated The State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. The campuses of Rutgers University are located in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden.
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1766 The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).
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Encyclopedia
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (also known as Rutgers University), is the largest institution for higher education in the state of New Jersey. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766 and is the eighth-oldest college in the United States. Rutgers was originally a private university affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church and admitting only male students, but evolved into and is presently a nonsectarian, coeducational public research university that makes no religious demands of its students. Rutgers is one of only two colonial colleges that later became public universities. (The other is the College of William and Mary.)
Rutgers was designated The State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. The campuses of Rutgers University are located in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden. The Newark campus was formerly the University of Newark, which merged into the Rutgers system in 1946, and the Camden campus was created in 1950 from the College of South Jersey. Rutgers is the leading university within New Jersey's state university system, and it was ranked 46th in the world academically in a 2006 survey conducted by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The university offers more than 100 distinct bachelor, 100 master, and 80 doctoral and professional degree programs across 175 academic departments, 29 degree-granting schools and colleges, 16 of which offer graduate programs of study.
HistoryShortly after the College of New Jersey (Princeton College) was established in 1766, ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, seeking autonomy in ecclesiastical affairs in the American colonies sought to establish a college to train those who wanted to become ministers within the church. Through several years of effort by Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1691–1747) and Rev. Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh (1736–1790), later the college's first president, Queen's College was chartered on 10 November 1766. Established as the trustees of Queen's College, in New-Jersey in honor of King George III's Queen-consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818). The charter was signed and the young college was supported by William Franklin (1730–1813), the last Royal Governor of New Jersey and illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. The original charter specified the establishment both of the college, and of an institution called the Queen's College Grammar School, intended to be a preparatory school affiliated and governed by the college. This institution, today the Rutgers Preparatory School, was a part of the college community until 1959.
The original purpose of Queen's College was to "educate the youth in language, liberal, the divinity, and useful arts and sciences" and for the training of future ministers for the Dutch Reformed Church The college admitted its first students in 1771—a single sophomore and a handful of first-year students taught by a lone instructor—and granted its first degree in 1774, to Matthew Leydt. Despite the religious nature of the early college, the first classes were held at a tavern called the Sign of the Red Lion. When the Revolutionary War broke out and taverns were suspected by the British as being hotbeds of rebel activity, the college abandoned the tavern and held classes in private homes.
In its early years, due to a lack of funds, Queen's College was closed for two extended periods. Early trustees considered merging the college with the College of New Jersey, in Princeton (the measure failed by one vote) and later considered relocating to New York City. In 1808, after raising $12,000, the college was temporarily reopened and broke ground on a building of its own, affectionately called "Old Queens" designed by architect John McComb, Jr. The college's third president, the Rev. Ira Condict, laid the cornerstone on April 27, 1809. Shortly after, the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, founded in 1784, relocated from Brooklyn, New York, to New Brunswick, and shared facilities with Queen's College (and the Queen's College Grammar School, as all three institutions were then overseen by the Reformed Church in America). During those formative years, all three institutions fit into Old Queens. In 1830, the Queen's College Grammar School moved across the street, and in 1856, the Seminary relocated to a seven-acre (28,000 m²) tract less than one-half mile (800 m) away.
After several years of closure resulting from an economic depression after the War of 1812, Queen's College reopened in 1825 and was renamed Rutgers College in honor of American Revolutionary War hero Colonel Henry Rutgers (1745–1830). According to the Board of Trustees, Colonel Rutgers was honored because he epitomized Christian values, although it should be noted the Colonel was a wealthy bachelor known for his philanthropy. A year after the school was renamed, it received 2 donations from its namesake: a $200 bell still hanging from the cupola of Old Queen's and a $5,000 bond which placed the college on sound financial footing.
Rutgers College became the land-grant college of New Jersey in 1864 under the Morrill Act of 1862, resulting in the establishment of the Rutgers Scientific School, featuring departments of agriculture, engineering, and chemistry. The Rutgers Scientific School would expand over the years to grow into the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (1880) and divide into the College of Engineering (1914) and the College of Agriculture (1921). Shortly after, Rutgers created several new divisions, the College of Pharmacy (1892), New Jersey College for Women (1918), and the School of Education (1924). With the development of graduate education, and the continued expansion of the institution, Rutgers College was renamed Rutgers University in 1924. Later, University College (1945), founded to serve part-time, commuting students and Livingston College (1969), emphasizing the urban experience, were created.
Rutgers was designated the State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. Shortly after, the University of Newark (1935) was merged with Rutgers in 1946, as was the College of South Jersey in 1950, and these two institutions were transformed into Rutgers University's campuses in Newark and Camden. In light of the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s, Rutgers, along with many of the older American institutions (including Princeton and Yale) became co-educational. On September 10, 1970, after much debate, the Board of Governors voted to admit women into the previously all-male Rutgers College.
Prior to 1982, the faculties at Rutgers were split among separate residential colleges and departments, which posed significant disparaties between programs at the undergraduate level. In 1982, under president Edward J. Bloustein, the faculties were centralized. The last aspects of this will be finalized in fall 2007, when the several of the undergraduate liberal arts colleges are scheduled to be merged into a School of Arts and Sciences which will allow Rutgers to drive forward with one set of admissions criteria, curriculum and graduation requirements where previously there were several disparate, confusing and often contrary standards. Currently, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has expressed interest in reviving a plan to merge Rutgers University with New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), a plan which has received support from Rutgers University president Richard L. McCormick.
OrganizationCampuses
Rutgers University has three campuses across the state of New Jersey, with its flagship campus located mainly in the cities of New Brunswick and Piscataway, and two smaller campuses in the cities of Newark and Camden. These campuses comprise 27 degree-granting schools and colleges, offering undergraduate, graduate and professional levels of study. The university is centrally administered from New Brunswick, although Provosts at the Newark and Camden campuses hold significant autonomy for some academic issues.
The New Brunswick-Piscataway Campus (or Rutgers-New Brunswick) is the largest campus of Rutgers; it is the flagship campus, due to its history as the site of the original Rutgers College. It is spread across six municipalities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, chiefly located in the City of New Brunswick and Piscataway Township. It is actually composed of five smaller campuses: the original and historic College Avenue campus is adjacent to downtown New Brunswick, and includes the seat of the University, Old Queens; Douglass Campus and Cook Campus are adjacent and intertwined with each other so much so that they are normally referred to as the Cook/Douglass Campus and is treated as one campus, Cook has extensive farms and woods that extend into North Brunswick and East Brunswick Townships; separated by the Raritan river are Busch Campus, in Piscataway; and Livingston Campus, also mainly in Piscataway but includes remote lands extending into Edison Township and the Borough of Highland Park.
As of the Fall 2007 semester, the New Brunwick-Piscataway campuses include 19 undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, including the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, the School of Engineering, the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, the Graduate School, the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Management and Labor Relations, the Mason Gross School of the Arts, the College of Nursing, the Rutgers Business School and the School of Social Work. As of 2007, 26,691 undergraduates and 7,701 graduate students (total 34,392) are enrolled at the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus.
The Newark Campus (or Rutgers-Newark), consists of 8 undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, including: Newark College of Arts and Sciences, University College, School of Criminal Justice, Graduate School, College of Nursing, Rutgers Business School and Rutgers School of Law - Newark. As of 2007, 6,503 undergraduates and 3,700 graduate students (total 10,203) are enrolled at the Newark campus.
The Camden Campus (or Rutgers-Camden) consists of five undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, including: Camden College of Arts and Sciences, University College, Graduate School, Rutgers School of Business - Camden and Rutgers School of Law - Camden. As of 2006, 3,696 undergraduates and 1,471 graduate students (total 5,165) are enrolled at the Camden campus.
GovernanceGovernance at Rutgers University rests with a Board of Trustees consisting currently of 59 members and a Board of Governors consisting of 11 members: six appointed by the Governor of New Jersey and five chosen by the Board of Trustees. The trustees constitute chiefly an advisory body to the Board of Governors and are the fiduciary overseers of the property and assets of the University that existed before the institution became the State University of New Jersey in 1945. The initial reluctance of the trustees (still acting as a private corporate body) to cede control of certain business affairs to the state government for direction and oversight caused the state to establish the Board of Governors in 1956. Today, the Board of Governors maintains much of the corporate control of the University.
The members of the Board of Trustees are voted upon by different constituencies or appointed. "Two faculty and two students are elected by the University Senate as nonvoting representatives. The 59 voting members are chosen in the following way as mandated by state law: 28 charter members (of whom at least three shall be women), 20 alumni members nominated by the Nominating Committee of the Board of Trustees, and five public members appointed by the governor of the state with confirmation by the New Jersey State Senate. The six members of the Board of Governors appointed by the governor also serve as members of the Board of Trustees. Of the 28 charter seats, three are reserved for students with full voting rights."
The president of Rutgers University, chosen by and answerable to the Trustees and Governors, sits as an ex-officio member of both governing boards. He, as the chief administrator of the university, is charged with its day-to-day operations. Since 2002, the president of Rutgers University is Richard Levis McCormick (born 1947).
AcademicsProfileRutgers, The State University of New Jersey is a leading national research university and is unique as the only university in the nation that is a colonial chartered college (1766), a land-grant institution (1864), and a state university (1945/1956). Rutgers is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (1921), and in 1989, became a member of the Association of American Universities, an organization of the 62 leading research universities in North America.
A Public Ivy, Rutgers University was ranked 39th worldwide and 43rd within the United States in the 2005 Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. According to the Washington Monthly's 2006 rankings, Rutgers ranks 53rd in the United States. The Top American Research Universities an annual statistical report by The Center at the University of Florida ranks Rutgers 39th. In the 2007 U.S. News & World Report ranking of American national universities, Rutgers is ranked as the third best public university in the Northeastern United States and 59th in the ranking's "National Universities" category.
Eleven of Rutgers' graduate departments are ranked by the National Research Council in the top 25 among all universities: Philosophy (2nd), Geology Ranked 9th Nationally based on NSF funding 9th ,Geography (13th), Statistics (17th), English (17th), Mathematics (19th), Art History (20th), Physics (20th), History (20th) Comparative Literature (22nd), French (22nd), and Materials Science Engineering (25th).
Both Rutgers School of Law - Newark and Rutgers School of Law - Camden are ranked as Top 100 Law Schools by U.S. News and World Report.
The Rutgers Business School is ranked 39th in the Wall Street Journal's Regional Ranking of Top Business Schools.
The Philosophy Department ranked first in 200204 tied with New York University and Princeton University, and second in 200406 (NYU was first, Princeton 3rd, Oxford 4th) in the Philosophical Gourmet's biennial report on Philosophy programs in the English-speaking world.
According to U.S. News & World Report, in the top 25 among all universities: Food Science (2nd)Library Science (6th), Drama/Theater (12th), Mathematics (16th), English (18th), History (19th, with the subspecialty of African-American History ranked 4th and Womens History ranked 1st), Applied Mathematics (21st) and Physics (24th). Also in the 2006 U.S. News & World Report ranking of Computer Science Ph.D. programs, Rutgers was ranked 29th.
Admissions and financial aidU.S. News & World Report considers the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus of Rutgers University to be a "more selective" school in terms of the rigour of its admissions processes. 56% of undergraduate applicants are accepted. In comparison, 62% of applicants to nearby Pennsylvania State University (for the University Park campus) and 47% of applicants to the University of Delaware are accepted. Average scores for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of enrolling students at Rutgers range from 530630 on the critical reading section, 560670 for the mathematics section, and 530-640 for the writing section. Admitted applicants to nearby Pennsylvania State University average scores between from 530640 on the verbal section and 570680 on the math section; the University of Delaware's student body averages between 550640 verbal and 560660 math.
As a state university, Rutgers charges two separate rates for tuition and fees depending on whether an enrolled student is a resident of the State of New Jersey (in-state) or not (out-of-state). The Office of Institutional Research and Academic Planning estimates that costs in-state student of attending Rutgers would amount to $18,899 for an undergraduate living on-campus and $22,395 for a graduate student. For an out-of-state student, the costs rise to $26,497 and $27,476 respectively.
Undergraduate students at Rutgers, though a combination of federal (50%), state (22%), university (22%), and private (6%) scholarship, loans, and grants, received $291,956,597 of financial aid in the 20042005 academic year. Of 37,429 undergraduate students at Rutgers, 30,398 (or 81.2%) receive financial aid. During the same period, 73.2%, or 9,604 graduate students out of a population of 13,124, received assistance in the total of $121,269,211 in financial aid sourced chiefly from federal (33%) and university (65%) funds.
FacultyFor the August 2005 to May 2006 academic year. Rutgers University had 2,261 full-time and part-time academic faculty members. Among Rutgers notable former professors are John Ciardi, George Hammell Cook, Michael Curtis, Ralph Ellison, Paul Fussell, Robert Trivers, Francis Fergusson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mason W. Gross, Leonid Khachiyan, David Levering Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, George Segal and Selman Waksman. During his 20 year tenure at Rutgers, David Levering Lewis (born 1936), a professor in the Department of History was twice awarded the Pultizer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1994 and 2001) for both volumes of his biography of W.E.B. DuBois (18681963) and was also the winner of the Bancroft and Parkman prizes.
Five Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Rutgers as either faculty or students.
Many members of the faculty at Rutgers have achieved top honors in their disciplines, including Michael R. Douglas, a prominent string theorist and the director of the New High Energy Theory Center and winner of the Sackler Prize in theoretical physics in 2000. Jerry Fodor, Zenon Pylyshyn and Stephen Stich were awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in philosophy and cognitive science.
Rutgers is also home to Melville scholar H. Bruce Franklin, whose academic tenure was revoked by Stanford University for actions that were arguably the exercise of his First Amendment right to free speech. Franklin was a visiting professor at Wesleyan and Yale for a few years, then was offered a tenured post by Rutgers. He now holds an endowed chair at Rutgers.
Furthermore, Rutgers ranks among the top three public AAU institutions in the overall percentage of women faculty.
Libraries and museumsThe Rutgers University library system consists of 26 libraries and centers located on the University's three campuses, housing a collection of over 10.5 million holdings, including 3,522,359 volumes, 4,517,726 microforms, 2,544,126 documents, and subscriptions to 42,875 periodicals, and ranking among the nation's top research libraries. The American Library Association ranks the Rutgers University Library system as the 44th largest library in the United States in terms of volumes held.
The Archibald S. Alexander Library, in New Brunswick, is the oldest and the largest library in Rutgers. It houses several million volumes focusing on an extensive humanities and social science collection. It mainly supports the sort of research done in the School of Arts and Sciences, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy, the Graduate School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Work, and the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies. Alexander Library also maintains a large collection of government document, which contains United States, New Jersey, foreign, and international government publications. The Library of Science and Medicine on the Busch Campus in Piscataway houses the University's collection in behavioral, biological, earth, and pharmaceutical sciences and engineering. The LSM also serves as a designated depository library for government publication regarding science, and owns a U.S. patent collection and patent search facility. It was officially established as the Library of Science and Medicine in July of 1964 although the beginning of the development of a library for science started in 1962. The LSM currently has two administrative structures since it is a joint library serving both Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). UMDNJ, which was briefly known as Rutgers Medical School, separated from Rutgers in 1970. The current character of the LSM is a university science library also serving a medical school. On the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus, in addition to Alexander Library, many individual disciplines have their own libraries, including alcohol studies, art history, Chemistry, Mathematical studies, Music, and Physics. Special Collections and University Archives houses the Sinclair New Jersey Collection, manuscript collection, and rare book collection, as well as the University Archives. Although located in the Alexander Library building, Special Collections and University Archives actually comprises a distinct unit unto itself. Located within the Alexander Library is the East Asian Library which holds a sizable collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean monographs and periodicals. In Newark, the John Cotton Dana Library (which also houses the Institute of Jazz Studies) and the Robeson Library in Camden, serve their respective campuses with a broad collection of volumes.
Rutgers oversees several museums and collections that are open to the public, including the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, on the College Avenue Campus in New Brunswick, maintains a collection of over 50,000 works of art, focusing on Russian and Soviet art, French 19th-century art and American 19th- and 20th-century art with a concentration on early-20th-century and contemporary prints. The Rutgers University Geology Museum—located in Geology Hall next to the Old Queens Building—features exhibits on geology and anthropology, with an emphasis on the natural history of New Jersey. The largest exhibits include a dinosaur trackway from Towaco, New Jersey; a mastodon from Salem County; and a Ptolomaic era Egyptian mummy. On the campus of Cook College, the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture houses an extensive collection of agricultural, scientific and household tools that spans 350 years of New Jersey's history. The bulk of the collection rests on the 8,000-item Wabun C. Krueger Collection of Agricultural, Household, and Scientific Artifacts, and over 30,000 glass negatives and historic photographs. Also located on the Cook College campus is Rutgers Gardens, which features 50 acres (20 hectares) of horticultural, display, and botanical gardens, as well as arboretums.
Research
It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (18881973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (19202005), discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.
Rutgers continues to be on the frontlines of science and innovation, and has given birth to discoveries and inventions such as water-soluble sustained release polymers, Tetraploids, robotic hands, artificial bovine insemination, and development of the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle. In health related field, Rutgers has the Environmental & Occupational Health Science Institute (EOHSI).
Rutgers is also home to the RCSB Protein Data bank , 'an information portal to Biological Macromolecular Structures' cohosted with the San Diego Supercomputer center. This database is the authoritative research tool for bioinformaticists using protein primary, secondary and tertiary structures world wide.'
Rutgers is home to the Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension office, which is run by the Agricultural and Experiment Station with the support of local government. The institution provides research & education to the local farming and agro industrial community in 19 of the 21 counties of the state and educational outreach programs offered through the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Office of Continuing Professional Education.
Student lifeResidential lifeRutgers University offers a variety of housing options. On the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus, students are given the option of on-campus housing in both traditional dorms or apartments. Despite some overcrowding, any student seeking on-campus housing will usually be accommodated with a space. Many Rutgers students opt to rent apartments or houses off-campus within the city of New Brunswick. Similar setups are to be found in Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden, however a substantial portion of the students on those campuses commute and are enrolled on a part-time basis.
Rutgers University's three campuses are located in the culturally-diverse, redeveloping urban areas with convenient access to New York City and Philadelphia by either automobile, Amtrak or New Jersey Transit. US News & World Report ranked Rutgers-Newark the most diverse university campus in the United States. Because the area of Rutgers' New Brunswick-Piscataway campus—which is composed of several constituent colleges and professional schools—is sprawled across six municipalities, the individual campuses are connected by an inter-campus bus system.
Rutgers University is ranked by numerous websites as a party school. Rutgers ranks 30 on collegehumor.com, as well as an honorable mention by partyschoolnetwork.com. The New Brunswick police do frequently issue noise violations to home owners which average between 350-500$, but do not usually go after individuals at parties, except when they posses open containers in public (including solo cups).
Traditions and symbolsThe alma mater of Rutgers University is the song entitled On the Banks of the Old Raritan, written by Howard Fullerton (Class of 1874) in 1873. It is often sung at University occasions, including concerts of the Rutgers University Glee Club, at Convocation and Commencement exercises, and especially at the conclusion of athletic events. The university's fight song is The Bells Must Ring, which features the school's spirit chant: "R-U Rah Rah, R-U Rah Rah, Hoo-Rah! Hoo-Rah Rutgers Rah! Upstream Red Team, Red Team Upstream, Rah Rah Rutgers Rah!." Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement, convocation, and athletic games are: The Bells Must Ring the Rutgers University fight song.
Scarlet was made the official school color of Rutgers University in 1900. Initially, students sought to make orange the school color, citing Rutgers' Dutch heritage and in reference to the Prince of Orange | |
