Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Rutgers University has come a long way since it was granted a royal charter in 1766. As it grew to become New Jersey's flagship university, attracting thousands of students from across the world, its physical size had to increase accordingly. But unlike land-grant flagship universities in other states, Rutgers was constrained by the urban development around it, so the University's expansion was a slow process that required collaboration and improvisation.
Rutgers, Then and Now tells the story of how the university grew from a humble six-acre campus on the banks of the Raritan River to a sprawling set of campuses extending beyond the New Brunswick city limits. Each chapter covers one of ten different development phases that helped to reshape Rutgers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing photographic and pictorial documentation of the university's stunning growth, the book also considers the Rutgers campuses that might have been, examining plans that were changed or abandoned. Shedding light on the sacrifices and gifts that transformed a small college into a vital hub for research and beloved home for students, it explores how Rutgers grew to become a world-class university.