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provided by the Office of Communications, occ@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Roots of the University | RU Replaces U of N | Growing Pains
| Changes in the Nature of the Campus | Development as a Center of Research & Graduate Studies
| Innovation & Outreach | Collaboration & Outreach | R-N Today
Long before there was a Rutgers-Newark, the City of Newark was a college town. In the 18th century the city was home to the College of New Jersey, which later moved to central New Jersey and took the name Princeton University.
The beginnings of what was to become Rutgers-Newark date to 1908, when the New Jersey Law School opened its doors. In 1909 the Newark Institute of Arts and Sciences was founded. By 1927, the New Jersey Law School, already the largest in the country, occupied a three-story building at 33 E. Park Street, Newark. The Newark Institute of Arts and Sciences called 17-25Academy Street home, and the one-year-old Mercer Beasley Law School was teaching students at 1060 Broad Street.
Within a few years, the New Jersey Law School expanded to include Dana College, a four-year college awarding the baccalaureate degree, and the Seth Boyden School of Business, offering courses leading to the business degree, and all three had moved into the former Ballantine Brewery at 40 Rector Street, Newark.
In the early 1930s, the Newark Institute and the Mercer Beasley Law School merged, forming the University of Newark.
Then, in 1936, the triad of schools within the New Jersey Law School, and the University, took the next logical step. They came together to form the new University of Newark, comprising a central college, a school of law and a school of business administration. The new institution, in its entirety, was housed in the old brewery at 40 Rector Street.
Much progress was made over the next decade following the bleak Depression years: Additional faculty members were hired, the curriculum was broadened, the university was accredited and was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa chapter. A nursing department was added in the early 1940s. During World War II the University of Newark offered a series of programs developed by the military, and even maintained both a barracks and a pilot-training station in Essex Fells, New Jersey, as well as near Easton, Pennsylvania.
But the war nearly suffocated the young university. Enrollments plummeted as young men -- the bulk of the student body -- marched off to war, along with many instructors. The number of graduating seniors dropped from 36 in 1939 to nine in 1945, with only 13 faculty members remaining.
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