Rutgers University facts for kids
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
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Latin: Universitas Rutgersensis Civitatis Novae Caesareae | |
Former names
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Queen's College (1766–1825) Rutgers College (1825–1924) Rutgers University (1924–1945) |
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Motto | Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra (Latin) |
Motto in English
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"Sun of righteousness, shine also upon the West." |
Type | Private (1766–1945) Public land-grant research university |
Established | November 10, 1766 |
Accreditation | MSCHE |
Academic affiliation
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Endowment | $1.98 billion (2021) |
Budget | $4.4 billion (2017–18) |
President | Jonathan Holloway |
Academic staff
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4,314 |
Administrative staff
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6,757 |
Students | 68,942 |
Undergraduates | 49,359 |
Postgraduates | 19,583 |
Location |
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United States
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Campus | Small City, 6,088 acres (2,464 ha) |
Newspaper |
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Colors | Scarlet |
Nickname | RU, Rutgers |
Sporting affiliations
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Mascot |
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Rutgers University ( RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of the nine U.S. colonial colleges that were chartered before the American Revolution. In 1825, Queen's College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college but it has evolved into a coeducational public research university after being designated The State University of New Jersey by the New Jersey Legislature via laws enacted in 1945 and 1956.
Rutgers today has four distinct campuses; Rutgers University–New Brunswick (including grounds in adjacent Piscataway), Rutgers University–Newark, Rutgers University–Camden, and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. The university has additional facilities elsewhere in the state, including oceanographic research facilities at the New Jersey shore.
Rutgers is a land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant university, as well as the largest university in the state. Instruction is offered by 9,000 faculty members in 175 academic departments to over 45,000 undergraduate students and more than 20,000 graduate and professional students. The university is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the Association of American Universities and the Universities Research Association. The Rutgers New Brunswick campus has been considered a Public Ivy.
Ranking
Rutgers was designated The State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. The campuses of Rutgers are in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden. Rutgers is the largest 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.
Notable people
Alumni
At Queen's College's first commencement in 1774, one graduate, Matthew Leydt, received his baccalaureate degree in a brief ceremony.
Rutgers alumni have been influential in many fields. Singer, athlete, attorney, and Civil Rights Movement activist Paul Robeson graduated in 1919 and is the namesake of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center on the Busch Campus. Among the first students enrolled at Rutgers (when it was Queen's College), Simeon De Witt (A.B. 1776) became the Surveyor-General for the Continental Army (1776–1783) during the American Revolution and classmate James Schureman (A.B. 1775), served in the Continental Congress and as a United States Senator. Two alumni have been awarded Nobel prizes— Milton Friedman (A.B. 1932) in economics, and Selman A. Waksman (B.Sc. 1915, M.Sc.1916) in Medicine. Poet Robert Pinsky (B.A. 1962) was appointed the nation's poet laureate and novelist Junot Díaz (B.A. 1992) awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008.
Seven alumni have served as New Jersey governor; two as president of Rutgers; Garret A. Hobart (A.B. 1863) as Vice President of the United States; Louis Freeh (B.A. 1971, J.D. 1974) as director of the FBI; Frederick T. Frelinghuysen (A.B. 1836) a U.S. Senator, as U.S. Secretary of State. Alumnus Joseph P. Bradley (A.B. 1836) served for two decades as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and cast the tie-breaking vote on the bipartisan commission that decided the contested American presidential election in 1876. Diplomat Maria Fernanda Espinosa served as President of the United Nations General Assembly. Senators Elizabeth Warren (JD) and Bob Menendez (JD) both attended Rutgers Law School.
In business, alumni include: Bernard Marcus (B.S. 1951), founder of hardware retail company Home Depot; Bill Rasmussen (MBA 1960), founder of ESPN; and Duncan MacMillan (B.S. 1966), co-founder of financial data and media company Bloomberg L.P.. In science and technology, alumni include: Peter C. Schultz (B.S. 1967), co-inventor of fiber optics; molecular geneticist Angela Christiano (PhD 1991); geneticist Stanley N. Cohen (B.Sc. 1956) who pioneered in the field of gene splicing; physician Howard Krein; and Louis Gluck (B.S. 1930) the "father of neonatology."
Alumni prominent in entertainment include actor James Gandolfini (B.A. 1983) (The Sopranos); chef Mario Batali (B.A. 1982); David Stern (B.A. 1963), former commissioner of the National Basketball Association; Henry Selick, film director (Disney's The Nightmare Before Christmas); actor Michael Sorvino; author Holly Black; actor Sebastian Stan (Captain America: The Winter Soldier); cartoon character Mr Magoo; actress Jessica Darrow, and voice actor John Dimaggio (Futurama, Adventure Time).
Faculty
65,000 undergraduate and graduate students currently study at Rutgers, instructed by more than 9,000 full-time and part-time faculty and supported by more than 15,000 full-time and part-time staff members. Former law professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933–2020) served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. During his 20-year tenure at Rutgers, David Levering Lewis, a former history professor, was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1994 and 2001) for both volumes of his biography of W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) and was also the winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize. 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. Noted chef and restaurateur Maricel Presilla taught in the history department at Rutgers. Avery Brooks, a Rutgers graduate, taught at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Literature scholar Ankhi Mukherjee now at University of Oxford won the Rose Mary Crawshay prize. Jerry Fodor, Zenon Pylyshyn, Stephen Stich and Frances Egan were awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in philosophy and cognitive science.
Many other members of the faculty have received the highest awards in their fields, including Guggenheim and MacArthur "Genius Award" fellowships, Pulitzer Prize winners, National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology recipients, a National Endowment for the Arts "Jazz Master," amongst others. As of 2013[update], 37 science, engineering and medical faculty are members of the four "National Academies"—the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council.
Images for kids
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Old Queens, the oldest building at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, built between 1809 and 1825. Old Queens houses much of the Rutgers University administration.
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Oil painting of Revolutionary War hero and philanthropist, Colonel Henry Rutgers (1745–1830), early benefactor and namesake of Rutgers University
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Placed on the western end of Voorhees Mall, a bronze statue of William the Silent commemorates the university's Dutch heritage.
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New Jersey Hall on the New Brunswick College Avenue Campus was the home of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Biology and Chemistry faculty. It now houses the university's Department of Economics.
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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
See also
In Spanish: Universidad Rutgers para niños