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Rutgers, first chartered in 1766 as Queen's College,
is the eighth oldest institution of higher education in the United
States. The university changed its name in 1825 to honor Colonel
Henry Rutgers, a Revolutionary War veteran and former trustee
of the college. From a colonial college with few students and
a classic liberal arts curriculum, Rutgers has evolved into a
land-grant institution and major public university.
Through legislative acts in 1945 and 1956, all
of the university's divisions were designated "The State
University of New Jersey." Since that time, Rutgers has
continued to expand its undergraduate, graduate, and professional
offerings to better serve the changing needs of the state and
its citizens. Today, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey,
has approximately 48,000 students and more than 8,000 full-time
faculty and staff. The university comprises 29 degree-granting
divisions: 12 undergraduate schools, 11 graduate and graduate/professional
schools, and six schools that offer both degree levels. Of the
29 divisions, five are located in Camden, eight in Newark, and
16 in New Brunswick.
The university is also a land-grant institution
and home of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. The
Agricultural Experiment Station is the research arm of the state
dealing with renewable natural resources. Its mandate is to improve
the quality of life for New Jersey citizens. Among its activities,
the Agricultural Experiment Station runs the Rutgers Cooperative
Extension, a classroom without walls which brings the research
of the land-grant college to the citizens of New Jersey in their
homes and in their communities.
The university also operates centers, institutes,
and bureaus that translate the fruits of university research
into practical applications. Among the areas addressed by these
centers, institutes, and bureaus are: crime prevention (Center
for Crime Prevention Studies), health care (Institute for Health,
Health Care Policy, and Aging Research), women's issues (Institute
for Research on Women), the ecology of New Jersey waterways (Institute
of Marine and Coastal Sciences), alcohol and drug abuse (Center
of Alcohol Studies), and the environment (Environmental and Occupational
Health Sciences Institute, operated jointly with the University
of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey). Other centers establish
government / university / industry partnerships that bridge the
gap between pure research and practical application, creating
new jobs in the process. Examples include the Center for Discrete
Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, Fiber Optic Materials
Research Program, Computer Aids for Industrial Productivity,
Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, Advanced Food Technology,
Biotechnology for Agriculture and the Environment, Malcolm G.
McLaren Center for Ceramic Research, Multimodal Collaborative
Systems, Institute for Engineered Materials, Rutgers Business
Innovation Center, and New Jersey Entrepreneurs Forum. |