|
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Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
|
|
|
| Motto |
Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra
(Sun of righteousness, shine upon the West also.) |
| Established |
November 10, 1766 |
| Type |
Public, research university |
| Academic term |
Semester |
| Endowment |
US $496.2 million [1] |
| President |
Richard L. McCormick |
| Faculty |
2,636[2] |
| Undergraduates |
36,888[2] |
| Postgraduates |
12,872[2] |
| Location |
New Brunswick/Piscataway
Camden
Newark, New
Jersey, USA |
| Campus |
Urban |
| Alma Mater |
On the Banks of the Old Raritan |
| Sports |
27 sports teams |
| Colors |
Scarlet, Black and White |
| Nickname |
Old Queen's |
| Mascot |
Scarlet Knight (New Brunswick)
Scarlet Raptor (Camden)
Scarlet Raider (Newark) |
| Fight song |
The Bells Must Ring |
| Affiliations |
Association of American Universities,
Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools,
Big East Conference |
| Website |
http://www.rutgers.edu/ |
 |
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. The
eighth-oldest college established in the United
States, Rutgers was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766.
Although it was established as a private institution affiliated with the
Dutch Reformed Church and admitting only male students, Rutgers evolved into and
is presently a nonsectarian, coeducational
public research university that makes no religious
demands of its students. Along with the College of William and Mary,
Rutgers is one of only two colonial colleges that later were transformed into public
universities.[3]
Rutgers is known as the Birthplace of College Football, being the site of the first intercollegiate game ever played on 6 November 1869, against Princeton University.[4][5] It is noted as the alma mater of Nobel laureate economist Milton
Friedman;[6] and for hosting as faculty the
influential circle of 1960s artists called the "Rutgers Group" which included Roy
Liechtenstein and George Segal. Also notable is the laboratory work of
nobel laureate biochemist and microbiologist Selman Waksman, which led to the development
of over twenty antibiotics (a term coined by Waksman). One of these discoveries,
streptomycin, has saved millions of lives as part of the first known cure for
tuberculosis.
Rutgers was designated the State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey
Legislature in 1945 and 1956.[7] 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.[5] 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.[8] Several academic departments are individually ranked among the best programs in
the United States.[9] 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.[10]
History
-
Shortly after the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) was
established in 1746, 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.[11][12] 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.[11] 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).[12] 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.[12] This institution,
today the Rutgers Preparatory School, was a part of the college community
until 1959.[12][5]
Early nineteenth century drawing of Old Queen's (1809), the oldest building on the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick,
New Jersey.
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[13][12][5] 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.[12][5] Despite the religious nature of the early college, the first classes were held at a
tavern called the Sign of the Red Lion.[14] 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.[12][5]
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.[12].[5] 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.[15]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).[12][5] 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.[12][5]
Revolutionary war hero and philanthropist, Colonel Henry Rutgers (1745–1830), early benefactor and namesake of Rutgers
University.
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.[12][5]
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.[12].[5] 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).[12][5] Shortly after, Rutgers created several new divisions, the College of Pharmacy (1892), New Jersey College for Women (1918), and the School of Education
(1924).[12][5] With the development of graduate education, and the continued expansion of
the institution, Rutgers College was renamed Rutgers University in 1924.[5] Later, University
College (1945), founded to serve part-time, commuting students and Livingston College (1969), emphasizing the urban experience, were
created.[12][5]
Rutgers was designated the State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey
Legislature in 1945 and 1956.[7]
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.[12][5]
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.
Organization
Campuses
The College Avenue Student Center at Rutgers New Brunswick campus.
The
University of Newark was established in 1935 in Newark, New Jersey and later merged with Rutgers University in
1946.
- See also: Rutgers-Newark and
Rutgers-Camden
Rutgers University has three campuses across the state of New Jersey, with its largest
campus located in 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. Rutgers
Fact Book
The New Brunswick-Piscataway Campus the largest campus, is spread across six municipalities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, chiefly located in the City of New Brunswick and Piscataway
Township. It is actually comprised of five smaller campuses: 1) the original and historic "College Avenue" campus is adjacent to
downtown New Brunswick, and includes the seat of the University, Old Queens. 2) Douglass Campus is at the opposite end of town,
and is adjacent and intertwined with 3) Cook Campus, which has extensive farms and woods that extend into North Brunswick and
East Brunswick Townships. On the other side of the Raritan River are 4) Busch Campus, in Piscataway, and 5) Livingston Campus,
also mainly in Piscataway but including 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.[2]
In fall 2007, Douglass, Livingston, University College, and Rutgers Colleges merged
into the School of Arts and Sciences. Cook College became the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences with
areas of study exclusive to that school, and no longer offers the ability to major in the liberal arts. These changes,
recommended by a 2005 task force report, subjects all undergraduates in the liberal arts to the same admission and graduation
requirements, and impose a universal core curriculum.[16]
Douglass, an all-female residential college,
which was established out of the New Jersey College for Women, will provide special academic, cocurricular, and
residential programs for female students.[17] Initially,
several of the undergraduate residential colleges (the former Rutgers, Cook, Douglass, Livingston and University Colleges) on the
New Brunswick-Piscataway campus were designed to be autonomous, possessing their own faculties, curricula, and admissions requirements. In
1982, a move by the administration to
decentralize the faculty, while heavily protested, was successful.[5] However, the redundancy of bureaucracies and
differing procedures, policies, graduation and admissions requirements that remained between the various colleges was identified
as the source of much red tape and confusion, commonly referred to as the "R.U. Screw" by
students. [18]
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, School of Public Affairs and Administration, 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.[2]
Winter at Old Queens, the oldest building at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, built between 1808–1825. Old Queens
currently houses much of the Rutgers University administration.
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.[2]
Governance
Governance 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.[19][20][21] 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.[22] 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."[23]
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).
Academics
Profile
Rutgers, 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).[24] 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.[25] In their book, The Public Ivies: America's Flagship Public
Universities, Howard and Matthew W. Greene list Rutgers University as a "Public Ivy", a
selection of public universities at which they assert a student can receive an Ivy League
education at a fraction of the price.[26]
Rutgers University was ranked 43rd worldwide and 35th within the United States in the 2005 Academic Ranking of World Universities by the Institute of Higher Education
at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.[27] According to the Washington
Monthly's 2006 rankings, Rutgers ranks 53rd in the United States.[28] The Top American Research Universities an annual statistical report by The Center at the
University of Florida ranks Rutgers 39th.[29] 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.[30]
Many Rutgers departments are nationally and internationally recognized for important scholarly contributions and the quality
of education received by students at undergraduate and graduate levels. 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).[31][32][33][34][35]
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.[36]
The Rutgers Business School is ranked 39th in the Wall Street Journal's Regional Ranking of Top Business Schools.[37]
The Philosophy Department ranked first in 2002–04 tied with New York University
and Princeton University, and second in 2004–06 (NYU was first, Princeton 3rd, Oxford 4th) in the Philosophical Gourmet's biennial report on Philosophy
programs in the English-speaking world.[38][39]
According to U.S. News & World Report, in the top 25 among all universities: Library
Science (6th), Drama/Theater (12th), Mathematics (16th), English (18th), History (19th, with the subspecialty of African-American History ranked 4th and Women’s History ranked 1st),
Applied Mathematics (21st) and Physics
(24th).[19] Also in the 2006 U.S. News
& World Report ranking of Computer Science Ph.D. programs, Rutgers was ranked 29th.[40]
Admissions and financial aid
U.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.[41] 61% 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 530–630 on the critical reading section, 560–670
for the mathematics section, and 530-640 for the writing section. Admitted applicants to nearby Pennsylvania State University
average scores between from 530–640 on the verbal section and 570–680 on the math section; the University of Delaware's student
body averages between 550–640 verbal and 560–660 math.[42]
Due to recent successes in athletic Div I-A competition leading to higher applicant pools to the state university, admission
rates have been growing stricter; in the 2007 academic year, admission to the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus has been reduced to
roughly 55% since 2006. The Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy had recently lowered acceptance rates to about 19% for the Fall 2007
semester.
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.[2]
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
2004–2005 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.[2]
Faculty
-
For the August 2005 to May 2006 academic year. Rutgers University had 2,261 full-time and part-time academic faculty
members.[2] Among Rutgers notable former
professors are John Ciardi, George H. Cook,
Michael Curtis, Ralph Ellison, Paul Fussell, 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 (1868–1963) and was also the winner of
the Bancroft and Parkman prizes.
Five Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Rutgers as
either faculty or students (Milton
Friedman, Toni Morrison, David A. Morse,
Heinrich Rohrer and Selman Waksman).
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.
Libraries and museums
The 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.[43] The American Library
Association ranks the Rutgers University Library system as the 44th largest library in the United States in terms of
volumes held.[44]
The Archibald S. Alexander Library, in New Brunswick, is the oldest
and the largest library in Rutgers.[45] 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.[45] 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.[46] 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.[47] 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.[48] 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.[49] 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.[50] 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.[51]
Research
Prof. Selman A. Waksman (B.Sc. 1915), who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for developing 22 antibiotics—most notably
Streptomycin—in his laboratory at Rutgers University.
It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman (1888–1973) discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein,
neomycin, fradicin, candicidin,
candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz (1920–2005), 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 [2], '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 life
Residential life
Rutgers 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 (Newark, Camden, and New Brunswick) 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.[52] 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.
Traditions and symbols
-
The 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.[5] 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!."
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. The Daily Targum first proposed that scarlet be adopted in May 1869, claiming that it was a striking color and because scarlet ribbon was easily
obtained. During the first intercollegiate football game with Princeton on
6 November 1869, the players from Rutgers wore scarlet-colored
turbans and handkerchiefs to distinguish them as a team
from the Princeton players.[4] The
current mascot is the Scarlet Knight. In its early days, Rutgers athletes were known as "Queensmen" in reference to the
institution's first name, Queen's College. However, in 1925, the mascot was changed to
Chanticleer, a fighting rooster from the medieval
fable Reynard the Fox (Le Roman de Renart) which
was used by Geoffrey Chaucer's in the Canterbury Tales. However, this mascot was often the subject of ridicule
because of its association with "being chicken." In 1955, the mascot was changed to the Scarlet
Knight after a campus-wide election.[4]
The names (and mascots) of the athletic teams at Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden are the "Scarlet Raiders" and the "Scarlet
Raptors," respectively.
Rutgers' motto, Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra (translated as
"Sun of righteousness, shine upon the West also") is derived from the motto of the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands, which is Sol
Iustitiae Illustra Nos (translated as "Sun of Justice, shine upon us"). It is a reference to the biblical texts of Malachi 4:2 and Matthew 13:43.[53] This
motto appears in the University's seal (pictured above), which is also derived from
that of the University of Utrecht, and depicts a multi-pointed sun.[54]
At Commencement exercises in the Spring, tradition leads undergraduates to break clay
pipes over the Class of 1877 Cannon monument in front of Old Queens,
symbolizing the breaking of ties with the college, and leaving behind the good times of one's undergraduate years. This
symbolic gesture dates back to when pipe-smoking was fashionable among undergraduates, and
many college memories were of evenings of pipe smoking and revelry with friends. During commencement exercises, graduating
seniors walk in academic procession under the Class of 1902 Memorial Gateway
(erected in 1904) on Hamilton Street leading to the Voorhees Mall where the ceremonies are
held for Rutgers College. Traditionally, students are warned to avoid walking beneath
the gate before commencement over a superstition that one who does will not graduate.
Student organizations and activities
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Rutgers hosts over 700 student organizations, covering a wide range of interests.
Among the first student groups was the first college newspaper in the United States of America. The Political Intelligencer and New Jersey Adviser began
publication at Queen's College in 1783, and ceased operation in 1785.[5] Continuing this tradition is the university's current college newspaper, The Daily Targum, established in 1869, which is the second-oldest college newspaper currently
published in the United States, after The Dartmouth (1843). Both poet
Joyce Kilmer and economist Milton Friedman served
as editors. Also included are the Rutgers Centurion, a conservative newspaper,
the Rutgers University Glee Club, a male choral singing group established in 1872 (among the oldest in the country), as well
as the Rutgers University Debate Union. Governed by the Student Activities Council, and funded by student fees
disbursed through student government associations, students can organize groups for
practically any political ideology or issue, ethnic or religious affiliation, academic subject, activity, or hobby.
Rutgers University is home to chapters of many Greek organizations, and a significant percentage of the undergraduate student
body is active in Greek life. Several fraternities and sororities maintain
houses for their chapters in the area of Union Street (known familiarly as "Frat Row") in New Brunswick, within blocks of Rutgers' College Avenue Campus. Chapters of Zeta Psi and Delta Phi organized at Rutgers as early as 1845. There are over 50 fraternities and sororities on the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus, ranging from
traditional to historically African-American, Hispanic, Multicultural, and Asian interest organizations.[55]
Greek organizations are governed by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs. Twelve organizations maintain chapters
in New Brunswick without sanction by the University's administration.[56]
In the late 1800s, the University banned fraternities because of their unusual hazing practices. This caused them to go
underground as secret societies. It also sparked the interest of some students to create their own societies. Cap and Skull, Order of the Bull's Blood, and
Order of the Red Lion were all founded at Rutgers before the turn of the
century.
Alumni
Rutgers alumnus Milton Friedman (A.B. 1932) was awarded the
Nobel Prize in
Economics in 1976 for his work in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his
demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.
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Since 1774, when the entire graduating class consisted of one student, Matthew Leydt,
there have been over 335,000 graduates, or alumni, of Rutgers University.[10] Many alumni remain active through
alumni associations—including the Rutgers Alumni Association founded in 1831—annual
Reunions and Homecomings, and other events. Rutgers alumni are often known as "Loyal Sons", a term of affection dating from the
days when Rutgers offered admission only to men. This term, since the dawn of coeducation has been extended to include Rutgers'
"Loyal Daughters".[citation needed]
One of Rutgers' most famous alums was Paul Robeson. Robeson, an African American, won an
academic scholarship to Rutgers University. When he went out for the Rutgers University football team, other players beat him up
and pulled out his fingernails. He bore the abuse to prove his worth and when he graduated he was a two-time All-American and the
school valedictorian, exhorting his classmates to "catch a new vision." Robeson was the third African-American student accepted
at Rutgers, and was the only Black student during his time on campus. Robeson was one of three classmates at Rutgers accepted
into Phi Beta Kappa. He was valedictorian of his graduating class and one of four students selected in 1919 to Cap and Skull,
Rutgers' honor society. A noted athlete, Robeson earned fifteen varsity letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track and
field. For his accomplishments as an end in football, he was twice named a first-team All-American in (1917 and 1918). Football
coach Walter Camp described him as "the greatest to ever trot the gridiron."
Rutgers has graduated three Nobel Laureates, including Selman A. Waksman (A.B. 1915)
in Medicine, Milton Friedman (A.B. 1932) in Economics, and David A. Morse (A.B. 1929), Director-General of the
