50 Fun Facts About Rutgers

Under what name was Rutgers originally chartered in 1766?

Rutgers was chartered in 1766 as Queen's College, honouring Queen Charlotte, wife of George III; King's College was the original name of Columbia.

New Jersey's last royal governor, who signed the 1766 charter, was the son of which Founding Father?

William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, was royal governor of New Jersey from 1763 to 1776 and signed the 1766 charter; he stayed loyal to the Crown during the Revolution, unlike his famous father.

The college was founded by ministers of which denomination to train future clergy?

Dutch Reformed ministers founded the college to train clergy; the tie survives in the motto 'Sol iustitiae et occidentem illustra', adapted from Utrecht University's in the Netherlands.

Rutgers is one of how many 'colonial colleges' chartered before the Revolution?

Nine colleges were chartered before the Revolution: Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Rutgers and Dartmouth; Rutgers and William & Mary are the only two that became public.

Where were the college's first classes held in 1771?

In a tavern, Frederick Frelinghuysen, the college's first tutor, taught the first classes in 1771; Old Queens, its first purpose-built home, was not begun until 1809.

Who was Henry Rutgers, for whom the college was renamed in 1825?

A Revolutionary War colonel in the New York militia, Henry Rutgers (1745–1830) was a wealthy Manhattan landowner and philanthropist; the trustees renamed the college for him in 1825.

Which two gifts from its namesake did the newly renamed college receive in 1826?

A bell and a $5,000 bond came from Henry Rutgers in 1826; the bell was hung in the Old Queens cupola, and the bond's income steadied a college that had twice closed for want of money.

Rutgers became New Jersey's land-grant college in 1864 under which federal law?

The Morrill Act of 1862 funded land-grant colleges; New Jersey chose Rutgers in 1864, creating the Rutgers Scientific School with departments of agriculture, engineering and chemistry.

In which decade was Rutgers designated the State University of New Jersey by the legislature?

In the 1940s, a 1945 act of the legislature designated Rutgers the State University of New Jersey; a 1956 act completed the move to public control, though it kept some rights from its 1766 charter.

In what year did Rutgers' Board of Governors vote to admit women to Rutgers College?

The Board of Governors voted in 1970 to open Rutgers College to women, and the first coeducational class enrolled in 1972. Women had studied at the New Jersey College for Women, later Douglass, since 1918.

Rutgers' historic core, including Old Queens, sits in which New Jersey city?

The College Avenue Campus is close to downtown and the train station. Busch and Livingston lie across the river in Piscataway.

Which river separates the College Avenue campus from the Busch and Livingston campuses?

The Raritan separates the College Avenue campus from the Busch and Livingston campuses in Piscataway; the alma mater is 'On the Banks of the Old Raritan'.

Which sponsor's name did the Rutgers Athletic Center (RAC) take in 2021?

Jersey Mike's, the New Jersey-born sandwich chain, bought the naming rights in 2021, and the trapezoidal RAC, home of the men's basketball team and famous for its noise, became Jersey Mike's Arena.

Rutgers' northern campus was formed in 1946 when it absorbed what?

The University of Newark, itself a 1936 merger of several Newark schools, joined Rutgers in 1946 to form Rutgers–Newark; Rutgers–Camden followed in 1950 with the College of South Jersey and South Jersey Law School.

Which school did Governor Chris Christie try to merge Rutgers–Camden into in 2012?

Rowan University in Glassboro was to absorb Rutgers–Camden under a 2012 plan backed by Governor Chris Christie; protests from Camden faculty, students and alumni killed it, and that year's restructuring act kept Rutgers–Camden in Rutgers.

Who became the first sitting US president to speak at a Rutgers commencement, in 2016?

Barack Obama spoke at the May 15, 2016 commencement, the first sitting president to do so, as part of the university's 250th-anniversary celebrations, which culminated on November 10, 2016.

What was changed in the Rutgers alma mater in 2013?

A line about fathers sending sons to become men was rewritten in 2013: 'My father sent me to old Rutgers, and resolved that I should be a man' became 'From far and near we came to Rutgers'.

Rutgers' only official school colour is what?

Scarlet won out after the student newspaper argued for a striking colour whose ribbon was easy to buy; an earlier push for orange, honouring the Dutch heritage, failed, and trustees made scarlet official in 1900.

What was Rutgers' mascot from 1925 until 1955?

A fighting rooster called the Chanticleer, named for the rooster of the medieval Reynard the Fox tales, served from 1925 to 1955, but the link to 'being chicken' made it a punchline.

Which football coach dismissed the rooster mascot as 'a chicken' and bought the first knight costume in 1955?

The knight won a campus-wide vote over 'Queensmen', 'Red Lions' and 'Flying Dutchmen'. Today's costumed knight is called Sir Henry.

Which future star of a 1950s family sitcom was Rutgers' quarterback from 1924 to 1926?

Ozzie Nelson played quarterback for Rutgers before graduating in 1927, long before The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet made him a television fixture on ABC from 1952 to 1966.

Rutgers is 'the birthplace of college football' thanks to a game on November 6 of which year?

On November 6, 1869, Rutgers beat Princeton 6–4 at home under rules adapted from England's 1863 Football Association code, which made the game closer to soccer than to modern football.

How many players did each side field in that first football game against Princeton?

Each side fielded 25 players; no throwing or running with the ball was allowed, and the match was decided over ten 'games', each ending with a goal, Rutgers winning six to four.

What did the Rutgers players wear in the 1869 game to tell themselves apart from Princeton?

The habit stuck: it is the origin of the school colour that trustees made official in 1900.

Before the first football game, Rutgers and Princeton students had long feuded over what object?

A Revolutionary War cannon that Princeton students had hauled away from Rutgers' home town decades earlier fuelled the rivalry; the first football challenge gave Rutgers a chance at revenge.

What was Rutgers' first intercollegiate athletic event, in 1866?

A baseball game lost 40–2 to Princeton in 1866 was Rutgers' first contest against another college; the lopsided score helped stoke the rivalry that produced the first intercollegiate football game.

Rutgers and Princeton staged the first intercollegiate contest in what sport in 1972?

The first intercollegiate Ultimate Frisbee game was played by Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1972, on the anniversary of their first football game, and Rutgers won 29–27.

In which year did Rutgers men's basketball reach the Final Four after an unbeaten regular season?

In 1976 Rutgers went 31–0 before losing to Michigan in the national semifinal and to UCLA in the third-place game, finishing the season 31–2.

Rutgers officially joined which athletic conference on July 1, 2014, alongside Maryland?

Rutgers joined the Big Ten on July 1, 2014, alongside Maryland; before that it had played in the Big East from 1991 and spent the 2013–14 season in the American Athletic Conference.

What name did Rutgers' Piscataway football stadium take in a 2019 sponsorship deal?

SHI Stadium is the name the Piscataway stadium took in 2019 under a deal with the Somerset-based IT reseller SHI International, replacing the High Point Solutions Stadium name.

Which other team joined 9–0 Rutgers as unbeaten and untied in 1961?

Alabama went 11–0 in 1961 and won the national title under Bear Bryant; with Rutgers at 9–0, they were the only two unbeaten, untied teams in the nation that season.

Which inaugural bowl game did an unbeaten 11–0 Rutgers decline to play in?

The inaugural Independence Bowl in Shreveport would have pitted 11–0 Rutgers against unranked McNeese State; Rutgers declined, and its first bowl came two years later, a Garden State Bowl loss to Arizona State.

What is the nickname of the 2006 comeback win over No. 3 Louisville sealed by Jeremy Ito's field goal?

'Pandemonium in Piscataway' is the name given to the 28–25 win over No. 3 Louisville on November 9, 2006; Rutgers went on to beat Kansas State in the Texas Bowl for the program's first bowl win.

Which running back left Rutgers in 2007 as its career rushing leader with 4,926 yards?

Ray Rice ran for 4,926 yards from 2005 to 2007, including 2,012 in 2007, and the university mounted a Heisman campaign for him before he left early for the NFL.

Which coach left Rutgers for the Buccaneers in 2012 and returned in 2019 on an eight-year deal?

Greg Schiano coached Rutgers from 2001 to 2011, winning the program's first bowl game and going 5–1 in bowls, left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2012 and returned in December 2019 on an eight-year contract.

Rutgers punter Adam Korsak won which national award in 2022?

The Ray Guy Award, given to the nation's top college punter, went to Adam Korsak in 2022 after the Australian's fifth season at Rutgers.

Which Rutgers scientist discovered streptomycin with Albert Schatz and won the 1952 Nobel?

Selman Waksman's Rutgers laboratory isolated streptomycin in 1943, the first antibiotic to cure tuberculosis; he also discovered actinomycin and neomycin there and won the 1952 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine.

In which decade did Rutgers release the widely grown 'Rutgers' tomato variety?

The 1930s produced the Rutgers tomato: released in 1934 by the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers, it was bred for canning and became one of the most widely planted tomatoes in the United States.

Which singer and civil-rights activist graduated from Rutgers in 1919 after being an All-American end?

Paul Robeson, twice named an All-American end, graduated in 1919 as class valedictorian, played three seasons in the early NFL, and has a cultural centre, a library and a campus centre named for him across the three campuses.

Which future Supreme Court justice taught at Rutgers Law School from 1963 to 1972?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught at Rutgers Law School in Newark from 1963 to 1972 before moving to Columbia; she joined the Supreme Court in 1993. Alumnus Joseph P. Bradley sat on the Court from 1870 to 1892.

Which Rutgers alumnus founded ESPN?

Bill Rasmussen, who earned a Rutgers MBA in 1960, founded ESPN in 1979; fellow alumni founded Home Depot (Bernard Marcus) and co-founded Bloomberg L.P. (Duncan MacMillan), and David Stern ran the NBA.

Which Sopranos star graduated from Rutgers in 1983?

James Gandolfini earned a communication degree from Rutgers in 1983, long before playing Tony Soprano; other alumni of the Mason Gross drama school include Calista Flockhart and Sebastian Stan.

Which poet, who attended Rutgers before finishing at Columbia, wrote 'Trees' in 1913?

Joyce Kilmer studied at Rutgers from 1904 to 1906 before transferring to Columbia; 'Trees' appeared in Poetry magazine in 1913, and he was killed in action in France in 1918.

What are the 'Grease Trucks', a beloved campus tradition?

They serve grill fare and Middle Eastern specialities; three remain on College Avenue and two moved to Cook/Douglass.

Which Rutgers alumnus served as vice president of the United States under William McKinley?

Garret A. Hobart, Rutgers class of 1863 and a Paterson lawyer, was William McKinley's vice president from 1897 until his death in office in November 1899.

What was the name of the New Brunswick tavern where Queen's College held its first classes?

The college fled the tavern during the Revolutionary War, when the British suspected such places of harbouring rebels.

Who became the first African American president of Rutgers in 2020?

Jonathan Holloway, a historian who had been provost at Northwestern, became Rutgers' 21st president in July 2020; his tenure saw the first faculty strike in the university's history, in April 2023.

The Zimmerli Art Museum on the College Avenue campus is noted for its collection of art from where?

Russia and the Soviet Union dominate the Zimmerli's holdings through the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Soviet nonconformist art; its 60,000-plus works also cover 19th-century French art and early 20th-century American prints.

The Dana Library on the Newark campus houses a famous institute devoted to which music genre?

The Institute of Jazz Studies is one of the world's largest collections of jazz archives and research material.

By what nickname do students know the Archibald S. Alexander Library, Rutgers' oldest and largest?

Club Alex is the students' nickname for the Archibald S. Alexander Library on College Avenue, home of the university's main humanities and social science collection.