Rutgers University: Difference between revisions

Rutgers University

Official Seal of Rutgers University
Motto	Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra (Sun of righteousness, shine upon the West also.)
Type	Public, research university
Established	November 10, 1766
Endowment	$496,292,000 (USD)
President	Richard L. McCormick
Academic staff	2,661
Undergraduates	37,072
Postgraduates	12,944
Location	New Brunswick/Piscataway Camden Newark , New Jersey , USA
Campus	Urban
Athletics	27 sports teams
Mascot	Scarlet Knight
Website	http://www.rutgers.edu/

"Rutgers" redirects here. For other uses, see Rutgers (disambiguation).

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 university's primary campus is located in the cities of New Brunswick and Piscataway, with two smaller campuses in Newark and Camden. Rutgers offers more than 100 distinct bachelor, 100 master, and 80 doctoral and professional degree programs across 29 degree-granting schools and colleges, 16 of which offer graduate programs of study.

Rutgers is the eighth-oldest institution of higher learning established in the United States, originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. While originally a Dutch Reformed Church-affiliated institution, it is now a nonsectarian public university and makes no religious demands on its students. Along with the College of William and Mary, Rutgers is one of two colonial colleges which later became public universities and though invited because of its antiquity, did not join the Ivy League athletic conference.

Rutgers was designated the State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. The University of Newark merged with Rutgers in 1946, expanding the school to include the current campus in Newark. The College of South Jersey, which became the Camden campus, merged in 1950.

About Rutgers University

Winter at Old Queens, the oldest building at Rutgers, built between 1808-1825.

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). 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 comprised of the 62 leading research universities in North America .

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.. The trustees constitute chiefly an advisory body to the Board of Governors, and are responsible as 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. Initially, the 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 combined from the following representation: "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 the Trustees and Governors, sits as an ex-officio member of both governing boards and does not possess a vote. The President of Rutgers University is Richard Levis McCormick.

Campuses and organization

Rutgers University has three campuses across the state of New Jersey, with its main campus located in New Brunswick and Piscataway, and two smaller campuses in the cities of Newark and Camden. These campuses are comprised of 29 degree-granting schools and colleges, offering undergraduate, graduate and professional levels of study.

Rutgers 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 the main campus, is spread across six municipalities in Middlesex County, New Jersey, chiefly centered in New Brunswick and Piscataway townships (but with small portions in Edison, East Brunswick and North Brunswick townships, and the Borough of Highland Park). It consists of 16 undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, including: Cook College, Douglass College, Livingston College, Rutgers College, University College, Graduate College, College of Nursing, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Graduate School of Education, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers Business School, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, School of Engineering, School of Management and Labor Relations, School of Social Work. As of 2006, 26,713 undergraduates and 7,736 graduate students (total 34,449) are enrolled at the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus.

Initially, several of the undergraduate residential colleges (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. However, the redundancy of bureaucracies and differing graduation and admissions requirements that remained between the residential colleges was identified as the source of much red tape and confusion.

In Autumn 2007, Douglass, Livingston, Rutgers, and University Colleges will be merged into an entity to be known as the Rutgers College of Arts and Sciences. Cook College will become the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. These changes, recommended by a 2005 task force report, will subject all undergraduates to the same admission and graduation requirements, and impose a universal core curriculum. Douglass College, an all-female residential college, which was established out of the New Jersey College for Women, will provide special academic and cocurricular programs for female students.

The Newark campus (or Rutgers-Newark), consists of 7 undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, including: Newark College of Arts and Sciences, University College, Graduate School, College of Nursing, Rutgers Business School, School of Criminal Justice, School of Law. As of 2006, 6,513 undergraduates and 3,733 graduate students (total 10,246) are enrolled at the New Brunswick-Piscataway 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, School of Business, School of Law. As of 2006, 3,846 undergraduates and 1,475 graduate students (total 5,321) are enrolled at the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus.

Financial Aid

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 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 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 unniversity (65%) funds.

The University of Newark was established in 1935 and merged with Rutgers in 1946

Academics

Graduate and professional programs

Rutgers offers more than 100 master’s and 80 doctoral and professional degree programs to 12,203 students on the New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden campuses. In New Brunswick, 7,299 students are pursuing advanced degrees within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or at Schools of Arts, Engineering, Pharmacy, Education, Planning and Public Policy, Psychology, Communication, Information and Library Studies, Management and Labor Relations, or Social Work. In Newark, 3,484 are studying within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or at Schools of Nursing, Management, Criminal Justice and Law. In Camden, 1,420 students are pursuing degrees within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or at Schools of Business or Law.

Faculty

Three Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Rutgers as either faculty or students (Milton Friedman, David A. Morse, and Selman Waksman).

Research

Rutgers has had a long history of innovation and discovery.

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 discovered streptomycin an 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, the creation of several antibiotics, and development of the ceramic tiles for the heat shield on the Space Shuttle.

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. 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, houses the Special Collections and University Archives, and several million volumes focusing on an extensive humanities and social science collection. 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. On the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus, in addition to Alexander Library, many individual disciplines have their own libraries, including alcohol studies, art history, Chemistry, East Asian studies, Mathematical studies, Music, and Physics. 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.

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.

The New Jersey Museum of Agriculture is located on the campus of Cook College and 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.

Rutgers Gardens, located on the university's Cook campus, offers 50 acres (20 hectares) of horticultural, display, and botanical gardens, as well as arboretums.

Rankings

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 (13th), 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).

The Philosophy Department ranked first in 2002-04 tied with New York University and Princeton University, and second in 2004-06 behind NYU, in the Philosophical Gourmet's biennial report on undergraduate- and graduate-level Philosophy programs in the English-speaking world. Other programs that are well regarded, are Rutgers' English, History, Mathematics, and Physics departments.

In the 2006 U.S. News & World Report ranking of American national universities, Rutgers is ranked as the third best public university in the Northeast and the 60th best school in the United States. 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).

Rutgers University was ranked 43rd globally and 35th nationally in a 2005 survey by Shanghai Jiao Tong University of the world's best universities, comparing universities by multiple numerical criteria, including faculty publications in peer-reviewed journals, the number of faculty and alumni with such honours as the Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, and other awards.

History

Early history and conception

Jacob Hardenbergh and Theodorus Frelinghuysen's son John lived in this building, known as the "Old Dutch Parsonage," in Somerville, New Jersey.

Shortly after the creation of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in 1746, ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church sought to establish autonomy in ecclesiastical affairs. At that time, those who wanted to become ministers within the church had to travel to the Netherlands to be trained and ordained, and many of the affairs of churches in the American colonies were managed from Europe. Thus, the ministers sought to create a governing body known as a classis to give local autonomy to the church in the colonies, and offer opportunities for the education of ministers.

Throughout the 1750s, Dutch ministers joined the effort to create a classis in the colonies, including Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen who travelled on horseback in winter of 1755 to several congregations throughout the northeast to rally ministers and congregations to the cause. Soon after, Frelinghuysen travelled to the Netherlands to appeal to the General Synod, the Dutch Reformed Church's governing council, for the creation of the classis. In 1761, the effort having failed, Frelinghuysen set sail for the colonies, but as his vessel approached New York City he mysteriously perished at sea.

After Frelinghuysen's death, Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh (later Rutgers' first president) established himself as spokesperson for the cause, and a strong supporter of establishing a college in New Jersey. Hardenbergh travelled to Europe, renewing Frelinghuysen's efforts to gain the Synod's approval, but was also rejected. Much to the Synod's chagrin, however, Hardenburgh returned to the colonies with money for the establishment of a college.

Queen's College

The school now called Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, was chartered on November 10, 1766 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 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 1957.

Early nineteenth century drawing of Old Queen's

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—though the university is now non-sectarian and makes no religious demands on its students. It 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 college, it first held classes at a tavern called the Sign of the Red Lion, located on the corner of Albany and Neilson streets on what is today the grounds of the Johnson & Johnson corporate headquarters in New Brunswick. 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 houses, in and near New Brunswick.

In its early years, Queen's College was plagued by a lack of funds. In 1793, with the fledgling college falling on hard times, the board of trustees voted on a resoluton to merge with the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). The measure failed by one vote. The problem did not go away, and in 1795, lacking both funds and tutors, the trustees consider moving the college to New York. Instead, they decide to close, only to reopen in 1808 after the Trustees raised $12,000.

The next year, the College got a building of its own, affectionately called "Old Queens" (still standing), designed by the noted architect, John McComb (who also designed City Hall in Manhattan) which is regarded today by architectural experts as one of the nation's finest examples of Federal architecture. The college's third president, Rev. Ira Condict, laid the cornerstone on April 27, 1809. However, financial woes delayed completion of the building for 14 years.

The New Brunswick Theological Seminary, founded in 1784, relocated from Brooklyn, New York to New Brunswick in 1810, and shared facilities with Queen's College (and the Queen's College Grammar School as both were then under the oversight of the Reformed Church in America. During those formative years, all three institutions were fit in the Old Queens Building, (then the only structure on campus). During its early years, the college developed as a classic liberal arts institutions, and this development (coupled with both institutions growing larger and resulting in overcrowding at the site), caused Rutgers College and the New Brunswick Theological Seminary to sever this arrangement, and the Seminary relocated to a 7-acre (28,000 m²) tract of land less than one half mile (800m) away in 1856. Both institutions maintain a close-knit relationship to this day, and the Seminary's Gardner Sage Library participates in the Rutgers University Library system.

Col. Henry Rutgers (1745–1830)

Under the Rutgers name

A nationwide economic depression, combined with impending war, forced Queen's College to close down a second time, in 1812. In 1825, Queen's College was reopened, and its name was changed to "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 renamed itself, it received 2 donations from its namesake. Rutgers, a descendant of an old Dutch family that had settled in New Amsterdam (now New York City), gave the fledgling college a $200 bell that hangs from the cupola of the Old Queen's building; then later in 1826 he donated the interest on a $5,000 bond. This second donation finally gave the college the sound financial footing it had sorely needed. The college's early troubles inspired numerous student songs, including an adaptation of the drinking song Down Among the Dead Men, with the lyrics "Here's a toast to old Rutgers, loyal men/May she ne'er go down but to rise again."

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. Further expansion in the sciences came with the founding of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in 1880 and the division of the Rutgers Scientific School into the College of Engineering (now the School of Engineering) in 1914 and the College of Agriculture (now Cook College) in 1921. The precursors to several other Rutgers divisions were also established during this period: the College of Pharmacy (now the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy) in 1892, the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) in 1918, and the School of Education in 1924.Later, University College, founded to serve part-time, commuting students and Livingston College, emphasizing the urban experience, were created.

The first Summer Session began in 1913 with one six-week session. That summer program offered 47 courses and had an enrollment of 314 students. Currently, Summer Session offers over 1,000 courses to more than 15,000 students on the Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick/Piscataway campuses, off-campus, and abroad.

Rutgers College was renamed Rutgers University in 1924.

New Jersey's flagship university

Rutgers was designated the State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. Before the 1956 law went into effect, the Board of Trustees voted to divest itself of the Rutgers Preparatory School, which became fully independent in 1957 and relocated to a campus on on the Wells Estate (purchased from the Colgate-Palmolive Company) in nearby Somerset, New Jersey. Under the 1956 law, Rutgers was to be governed both by its Board of Trustees, chiefly an advisory body, charged also with maintaining the assets of the college and its continuity from the 1766 charter, as well as a Board of Governors consisting of eleven members: five members selected by the Board of Trustees, and six appointed by the Governor of New Jersey.

Since the 1950s, Rutgers has continued to expand, especially in the area of graduate education. The Graduate School-New Brunswick, and professional schools have been established in such areas as business, management, public policy, social work, applied and professional psychology, the fine arts, and communication, information and library studies. (A number of these schools offer undergraduate programs as well.)

In both 1947 and 1966, the College Avenue Gymnasium—built on the site of the first intercollegiate football game—hosted New Jersey's Constitutional Conventions.

A nationwide trend, caused mostly out of the civil rights and women's rights movements, caused many male-only colleges to alter their admissions policies to accept women and thus become coeducational. Rutgers, along with many of the older American institutions (including Princeton and Yale) became co-educational in the 1960s and 1970s. On September 10, 1970, after several years of debate and planning, the Board of Governors voted to admit women into the previously all-male Rutgers College. Today, Douglass College (originally the New Jersey College for Women) remains all-female, while the rest of the University is coeducational.

In 2002, former Governor James E. McGreevey appointed a committee chaired by P. Roy Vagelos to explore the possibility of merging Rutgers University with the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). While this committee's report advocated such a merger, citing benefits such as increased power in applying for and receiving funds from medical, scientific and techological grant programs and corporate investment, this plan was unpopular with alumni, students, and faculty at these institutions and was misunderstood by the residents of New Jersey who were to vote on the proposal. Under mounting political pressure, Governor McGreevey withdrew plans for the merger. As of 2006, Governor Jon Corzine has expressed interest in renewing the plan.

Presidents of Rutgers University

	President	Birth Year–Death Year	Years as President
1	Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh	(1735–1790)	(1785–1790)
2	William Linn	(1752–1808)	(1791–1795)
3	Ira Condict	(1764–1811)	(1795–1810)
4	John Henry Livingston	(1746–1825)	(1810–1825)
5	Philip Milledoler	(1775–1852)	(1825–1840)
6	Abraham Bruyn Hasbrouck	(1791–1879)	(1840–1850)
7	Theodore Frelinghuysen	(1787–1862)	(1850–1862)
8	William Henry Campbell	(1808–1890)	(1862–1882)
9	Merrill Edward Gates	(1848–1922)	(1882–1890)
10	Austin Scott	(1848–1922)	(1891–1906)
11	William Henry Steele Demarest	(1863–1956)	(1906–1924)
12	John Martin Thomas	(1869–1952)	(1925–1930)
13	Philip Milledoler Brett	(1871–1960)	(1930–1931)
14	Robert Clarkson Clothier	(1885–1970)	(1932–1951)
15	Lewis Webster Jones	(1899–1975)	(1951–1958)
16	Mason Welch Gross	(1911–1977)	(1959–1971)
17	Edward J. Bloustein	(1925–1989)	(1971–1989)
18	Francis L. Lawrence	(b. 1937)	(1990–2002)
19	Richard Levis McCormick	(b. 1947)	(2002–present)

Student Life

Atmosphere

Rutgers University's three campuses are located in culturally-diverse, redeveloping urban areas (Newark, Camden, and New Brunswick) with an ease of 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 comprised of several constituent colleges and professional schools—is sprawled across six municipalities), the individual campuses are connected by an inter-campus bus system.

Student organizations

Main article: Rutgers University student organizations

Rutgers hosts over 700 student organizations, covering a wide range of interests. Governed by the Student Activities Council, and funded by student fees disbursed by student government associations, students can organize groups for practically any political ideology or issue, ethnic or religious affiliation, academic subject, activity, or hobby. Notable student groups include the Daily Targum, the second oldest collegiate newspaper in the United States, established in 1869, the Rutgers Centurion a conservative newspaper, the Philoclean Society, a literary society with origins dating back to 1825, 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.

Greek life

Main article: Rutgers University Greek organizations

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. 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.

Traditions and legacies

Mascot, school colors, and symbols

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.

The names (and mascots) of the athletic teams at Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden are the "Scarlet Raiders" and the "Scarlet Raptors," respectively.

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.

The Board of Trustees officially made scarlet the school color in 1900.

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. 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.

Alma Mater

Main article: On the Banks of the Old Raritan

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. 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 Cannon War

Main article: Rutgers-Princeton Cannon War

A few intrepid Rutgers students painting the cannon on the Princeton University campus

Howard Fullerton, a member of the Order of the Bull's Blood, goes down in Rutgers history not only for penning the alma mater, but also for allegedly inspiring the theft of a cannon from the campus of Princeton University on April 25, 1875, an event—and the ensuing debate between the two university presidents—reported sensationally in nationwide newspapers. The cannon was believed to have belonged to Rutgers when used in battle during the American Revolution. Under the cover of night, a dozen Rutgers students, stole the cannon from its place at Princeton, and brought it back by wagon to New Brunswick before the following dawn. In retaliation, Princeton students raided the Rutgers Armory and stole a few muskets. Reputedly—though this may have been baseless rhetoric originating from the heated debate after the theft—the Rutgers students are accused of having stolen the wrong cannon. Eventually the committee appointed by the two colleges recommended the return of the stolen items to their owners. When the cannon was returned, Princeton University officials ordered it buried in the ground, encased in cement, with only a few feet of the butt end exposed above ground.

Several Rutgers students attempted to repeat the crime, unsuccessfully, in October 1946, attaching one end of a length of heavy chain to the cannon and the other to their Ford. Surprised by Princeton men and the local constabulatory, they gunned the engine of the Ford so viciously that the car was torn in half. The Rutgers army managed to escape, but with neither the car, nor their prize, the cannon.

To this day, intrepid Rutgers students journey the 16 miles to Princeton University to place their declaration of ownership of the cannon by painting the cannon scarlet red. . Unfortunately, like the students who stole the cannon in 1875, they usually paint the wrong cannon, as there are two on Cannon Green behind Nassau Hall at Princeton. Today, a cannon is placed in the ground before Old Queens at Rutgers, by the class of 1877, memorializing both this event and several alumni in the armed services who were killed in action.

Statue of Prince William the Silent on the Voorhees Mall

Around Campus

Fenton B. Turck, a New York physician and biologist, with the assistance of railroad magnate, and longtime Rutgers trustee Leonor F. Loree (RC 1877), anonymously donated a statute of Prince William the Silent (1533-1584) of the House of Nassau and later Prince of Orange, who was the leader of the Dutch rebellion against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648. Turck, of Dutch extraction, intended to give the statue known familiarly as "Silent Willie" to the University to signify the institution's Dutch roots. He kept the statute in the basement of his laboratory in Manhattan for eight years before it was unveiled on the Voorhees Mall on 9 June 1928. Allegedly, the statute is said to whistle when a virgin passes by. So far, Prince William has remained silent.

This statute is a rough replica of a similar monument that stands in The Hague.

Between the Cook and Douglass campuses is a location known as Passion Puddle. Superstiton holds that if a male student from Cook College and a female student from the Douglass College (all-female) hold hands and walk around the water three times they will be married.

Commencement

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.

Athletics

In History

Rutgers was among the first American institutions to engage in intercollegiate athletics, and participated in a small circle of schools that included Yale University, Columbia University and long-time rival, Princeton University. In light of the schools beginning to engage in athletic games in the 1860s, these four schools met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Manhattan on 19 October 1873 to establish a set of rules governing their intercollegiate competition, and particularly to codify the new game of football. Though invited, Harvard chose not to attend.

On May 2, 1866, in the first intercollegiate athletic event at Rutgers, the college's baseball team was defeated 40-2 by a team from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).

Rutgers University is often referred to as The Birthplace of College Football. Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football match on November 6, 1869, on a plot of ground where the present-day Rutgers gymnasium now stands. Rutgers won the game, with a score of 6 runs to Princeton's 4.

However, "football" at the time was a name given to variety of games, and the rules of the game played by Rutgers in 1869 resembled soccer much more than modern American football. Scores were computed in runs (roughly equivalent to goals). Instead of wearing uniforms, the players stripped off their hats, coats, and vests and bound their suspenders around the waistbands of their trousers. For headgear, the Rutgers team wound their scarlet scarves into turbans atop their heads. During the 1870s, games resembling rugby became popular at other American colleges, and Rutgers eventually adopted similar rules. These games ultimately developed into modern American football. (See the article History of American football, for further information.) Rutgers, which declined an invitation to join the Ivy League in the 1950s, maintains athletic rivalries with Princeton and Columbia in all intercollegiate sports but has not met either school in football since 1980.

The first intercollegiate competition in Ultimate Frisbee (now called simply "Ultimate") was held between students from Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1972—the one hundred third anniversary of the first intercollegiate football game. Rutgers won 29-27.

Today

Today, Rutgers is a member of the Big East Conference, (in football since 1991, all other sports since 1995) a collegiate athletic conference consisting of 16 colleges and universities from the East Coast and Midwestern regions of the United States. The Big East is a member of the Bowl Championship Series. Rutgers currently fields 27 intercollegiate sports programs and is a Division I-A school as sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Since joining the Big East, the Scarlet Knights have won two conference tournament titles: men's soccer (1997) and baseball (2000). Several other teams have won regular season titles but failed to win the conference's championship tournament. The Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden campuses compete within NCAA Division III.

Today, Rutgers University fields twenty-seven teams in NCAA Division I-A sanctioned sports, including Football, Baseball, Basketball, Crew, Cross Country, Fencing, Field Hockey, Golf, Gymnastics, Lacrosse, Soccer, Softball, Tennis, Track and Field, Swimming and Diving, Wrestling, Volleyball.

In 2005, Rutgers accepted a bowl bid to play Arizona State University in the Insight Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona. The Scarlet Knights lost to the ASU Sun Devils with a score of 45 to 40. The only other bowl appearance for the Scarlet Knights was in 1978 at the the now defunct Garden State Bowl, held at Giants Stadium, also against Arizona State; Rutgers lost that game as well by a score of 34 to 18.

Venues

New Brunswick/Piscataway

On the sidelines at the Rutgers vs. University of New Hampshire game played on 11 September 2004 at Rutgers Stadium. Rutgers' Scarlet Knights lost to the UNH Wildcats, 35-24.

Rutgers University fields 27 sports teams from their New Brunswick-Piscataway Campus for NCAA Division I-A competition. Most of the university's 14 athletic venues and facilities are currently located in Piscataway on the Busch and Livingston campuses, with two facilities in New Brunswick (the College Avenue Gymnasium and the Class of 1914 Boathouse).

One hundred and twenty-five years after Rutgers and Princeton first inaugurated the tradition of American football, Rutgers Stadium, a 42,000 seat facility, was opened during the 1994 football season. The field at Rutgers Stadium is large enough to host national and international soccer matches.

The Louis Brown Athletic Center, commonly known as the RAC (for its original name of Rutgers Athletic Center), is home to the Rutgers men’s and women’s basketball programs and has a capacity of 8,000 seats.

Soccer and Lacrosse are both played at Yurcak Field, which accommodates over 5,000 fans. Built in 1994, this site, recognized as one of the premiere venues for these two sports in the United States, was named in honor of Rutgers alumnus Ronald N. Yurcak, a 1965 All-American Lacrosse player.

Rutgers also operates an 18-hole 6,000-yard, par 71 golf course, designed by Hal Purdy and awarded four stars in 2004 by Golf Magazine and ranked by Golf Digest as "Best Place to Play"

Newark

Rutgers-Newark fields teams for NCAA Division III competition in Men's and Women's Soccer, Basketball, Tennis, Volleyball (women), Baseball (men) and Softball (women). The Men's Volleyball team is the only NCAA Division I sport on the campus. Their teams are known as the "Scarlet Raiders."

Built in 1977, the Golden Dome Athletic Center is the hub of Rutgers-Newark athletics, seating 2,000. Soccer and softball games are held on Alumni Field, while the Rutgers-Newark baseball team plays at Riverfront Stadium, a 6,200-seat ballpark that is home to the Newark Bears, a minor-league professional baseball franchise.

Camden

Rutgers-Camden fields teams for NCAA Division III competition in Men's and Women's Crew, Cross Country, Golf, Soccer, Volleyball, Basketball, Indoor Track, Baseball (men), Softball (women), and Track and Field. In 2006, Rutgers-Camden won the NCAA Division III Softball championship, defeating two-time defending champion St. Thomas, 3-2 to capture the school's first national title.

Rutgers-Camden basketball also holds the unfortunate distinction of the longest losing streak in college basketball, set in 1997. The team was disbanded, but student outcry lead to a re-instatement. Then Athletic Director "Pony" Wilson coached the team to its first win in 117 games over Iona College. Though yet to post a winning season, the team has returned somewhat to respectability.

Controversy and debate

Rutgers efforts to upgrade the quality of its football program have raised criticism of several alumni, faculty and students regarding the size of athletic department's budget, wishing to divert its funds elsewhere. The athletic department's budget is $35.5 million compared to a $1.6 billion budget for the entire university . A large portion of the athletics budget comes from mandatory student fees enacted in recent years. The rest comes from self-generating revenue (ticket sales, merchandise, broadcast rights) and from the general university budget.

Critics claim that the focus on Division I-A athletics lowers admissions and academic standards. However, at 980, Rutgers team had the second-highest Academic Performance Rate (APR) score of any Division I-A football team in 2005. Critics also claim that off-the-field criminal incidents will damage the university's reputation, believing that big-time athletics inevitably fosters corruption. These concerns have not been empirically tested, and incidents have been less frequent at Rutgers than at other major state universities. A final complaint was that the upgraded football schedule would prevent competing against long standing rivals Princeton, Columbia, Lehigh, and Lafayette. However, supporters of the move claim it would make Rutgers more comparable to large, prestigious state universities such as the University of Michigan and University of California and private institutions such as Stanford University which have been touted for balancing their academic reputation with athletic success.

William C. Dowling, a University Professor in the Department of English, and a few other like-minded faculty, students and alumni organized a group known as "Rutgers 1000" in 1993, favoring downgrading the school's football team to Division I-AA. This group disbanded in 2003 after Professor Dowling expressed dismay at President Richard McCormick's decision to continue supporting the athletic program.

Points of Interest

• Grease Trucks
• Old Queens
• Rutgers Gardens
• Voorhees Mall
• Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum

See also

• Colonial colleges
• Henry Rutgers
• List of notable Rutgers University people
• Lists of colleges and universities
• Philoclean Society
• Public Ivy
• Rutgers-Newark
• Rutgers-Camden

External links and references

Books and other background resources

• Demarest, William Henry Steele. History of Rutgers College: 1776-1924. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers College, 1924).
• History of Rutgers College: or an account of the union of Rutgers College, and the Theological Seminary of the General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church. Prepared and published at the request of several trustees of the College, by a trustee. (New York: Anderson & Smith, 1833).
• McCormick, Richard P. Rutgers: a Bicentennial History. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1966).
• Schmidt, George P. Princeton and Rutgers: The Two Colonial Colleges of New Jersey. (Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1964).

External links

Official University Sites Rutgers University Rutgers Admissions Rutgers University Libraries Rutgers: Through the Years Timeline Rutgers University Press WRSU Athletics www.scarletknights.com Rutgers Touchdown Club

Student Publications The Daily Targum (est. 1869) The Centurion The Medium Raritan Quarterly Review The Anthologist a posteriori Rutgers Law Review (Newark) Rutgers Law Journal (Camden) Business Law Journal (Newark) Rutgers Magazine (alumni)

Alumni Groups Rutgers Alumni Association (est. 1831) Rutgers Club of New York City

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