Information about Rutgers University


 

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UNIVERSITY HISTORY

 

Chartered in 1766 as Queen’s College, Rutgers is the nation’s eighth oldest institution of higher learning and has a centuries-old tradition of rising to the challenges of each new generation. Soon after opening in New Brunswick in 1771—with one instructor and a handful of students—the college was caught up in the struggle for independence. During the war, classes were suspended on several occasions as students, faculty, and alumni joined the fight for freedom. That revolutionary legacy is preserved today in the university’s name—in 1825, Queen’s College became Rutgers College to honor trustee and Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Henry Rutgers.

 

    

 

UNIVERSITY MISSION

 

As the sole comprehensive public research university in the state's system of higher education, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has the threefold mission of:

  • providing for the instructional needs of New Jersey's citizens through its undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs;
  • conducting the cutting-edge research that contributes to the medical, environmental, social and cultural well-being of the state, as well as aiding the economy and the state’s businesses and industries; and
  • performing public service in support of the needs of the citizens of the state and its local, county, and state governments.

 

UNIVERSITY FACTS

 

  • New Brunswick Campus is 2,681 acres
  • There are more than 52,470 students from all 50 states and more than 125 countries at RU
  • There are 38,902 undergraduates and 13,569 graduate students
  • More than half the members of the first-year class identify themselves as non-Caucasian
  • More than 1/3 of entering students rank in the top 10 percent of their high school class
  • The top 1,000 students enrolling at Rutgers rank in the top 6 percent of their class
  • 43,000: Number of undergraduate applications—a record—received in 2008
  • 7,000: Number of first-year students Rutgers welcomed in fall 2008—the largest in 30 years
  • 11,000+: Number of Rutgers students who received degrees in May 2009
  • 7,660: Number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in May 2009
  • 3,770: Number of graduate degrees awarded in May 2009

 

DID YOU KNOW?

 

  • Rutgers scientists found the first cure for tuberculosis
  • Alumnus Michael Gottlieb was the first to identify what would come to be known as AIDS
  • Alexander Hamilton fended off the British during a Revolutionary War Battle at Rutgers–New Brunswick
  • Alumnus Simeon DeWitt was General George Washington’s Revolutionary War cartographer
  • Rutgers is the birthplace of intercollegiate football
  • Rutgers is the birthplace of intercollegiate ultimate Frisbee
  • Rutgers developed the first cultivated blueberries
  • The Roebling family designed and built the Brooklyn Bridge, and Rutgers houses their archives
  • Rutgers professors are the archivists for the papers of Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton