Two decades after the College of New Jersey, which is now Princeton University, was established in 1746 by the New Light Presbyterians, ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, seeking autonomy in ecclesiastical affairs in the Thirteen Colonies, sought to establish a college to train those who wanted to become ministers within the church.
Rutgers University (/ˈrʌtɡərz/ RUT-gərz), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States, the second-oldest in New Jersey (after Princeton University), and one of nine colonial colleges that were chartered before the American Revolution.
Rutgers was designated the state university of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956. Although Rutgers thus became a public university, it still retains—as the successor to the private college founded and chartered in 1766—some important private rights and protections from unilateral state efforts to change its fundamental character and mission.
Through several years of effort by Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1691–1747) and Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh (1736–1790), later the college's first president, Queen's College received its charter on November 10, 1766, from New Jersey's last royal governor, William Franklin (1730–1813), the son of Benjamin Franklin. The original charter established the college under the corporate name the trustees of Queen's College, in New-Jersey, named in honor of Queen Charlotte (1744–1818), and created both the college and the Queen's College Grammar School, intended to be a preparatory school affiliated and governed by the college. The Grammar School, today the private Rutgers Preparatory School, was a part of the college community until 1959. New Brunswick was chosen as the location over Hackensack because the New Brunswick Dutch had the support of the Anglican population, making the royal charter easier to obtain.
In 1771, the college admitted its first students, which included a single sophomore and a handful of first-year students taught by a lone instructor, and granted its first degree in 1774, to Matthew Leydt. Despite the religious nature of the early college, the first classes were held at a tavern called the Sign of the Red Lion. When the Revolutionary War broke out and taverns were suspected by the British as being hotbeds of rebel activity, the college abandoned the tavern and held classes in private homes.
At Queen's College's first commencement in 1774, one graduate, Matthew Leydt, received his baccalaureate degree in a brief ceremony.
Rutgers hosts over 700 student organizations; among the first student groups was the first college newspaper in the United States. The Political Intelligencer and New Jersey Adviser began publication at Queen's College in 1783, and ceased operation in 1785. Continuing this tradition is the university's current college newspaper, The Daily Targum, established in 1869, which is the second-oldest college newspaper published in the United States, after The Dartmouth (1843). Both poet Joyce Kilmer and economist Milton Friedman served as editors. Also included are The Medium, a weekly satirical newspaper billed as Rutgers Entertainment Weekly, Rutgers Centurion, a conservative newspaper, the Rutgers University Glee Club, a male choral singing group established in 1872 (among the oldest in the country). Rutgers a cappella groups have routinely placed well in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, including in 2010 when The OrphanSporks placed second in the semifinals. Governed by the Rutgers University Student Assembly and funded by student fees, students can organize groups for practically any political ideology or issue, ethnic or religious affiliation, academic subject, activity, or hobby.
In its early years, due to a lack of funds, Queen's College was closed for two extended periods. Early trustees considered merging the college with the College of New Jersey, in Princeton, but the measure failed by one vote. They later considered relocating it to New York City. In 1808, after raising $12,000, the college temporarily reopened and broke ground on a building of its own, called "Old Queens," designed by architect John McComb, Jr. The college's third president, Ira Condict, laid the cornerstone on April 27, 1809. Shortly after, the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, founded in 1784, relocated from Brooklyn, to New Brunswick, and shared facilities with Queen's College and the Queen's College Grammar School, and all three institutions were then overseen by the Reformed Church in America. During those formative years, all three institutions fit into Old Queens. In 1830, Queen's College Grammar School moved across the street, and in 1856, the seminary relocated to a seven-acre (28,000 m ) tract less than one-half mile (800 m) away.
After several years of closure resulting from an economic depression after the War of 1812, Queen's College reopened in 1825 and was renamed "Rutgers College" in honor of American Revolutionary War hero Henry Rutgers (1745–1830). According to the board of trustees, Colonel Rutgers was honored because he epitomized Christian values. A year after the school was renamed, it received two donations from its namesake: a $200 bell still hanging from the cupola of Old Queen's and a $5,000 bond (equivalent to $135,000 in 2023) which placed the college on sound financial footing.
In 1825, Queen's College was renamed Rutgers College in honor of Colonel Henry Rutgers, whose substantial gift to the school had stabilized its finances during a period of uncertainty. For most of its existence, Rutgers was a private liberal arts college. It has evolved into a coeducational public university research university since being designated the State University of New Jersey by the state's legislature in 1945 and 1956.
In 1864, rowing became the first organized sport at Rutgers. Six-mile races were held on the Raritan River among six-oared boats. In 1870, Rutgers held its first intercollegiate competition, against the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard, the then top-ranked amateur crew of the time. Since its start in 1864, Rutgers has built a strong crew program consisting of heavyweight and lightweight men. Women's crew was added to the program in 1974. Financial support of the men's crew program was discontinued by the university in 2006, though the crew continues to compete (funded entirely by alumni and private support) at a high level in the prestigious Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges conference.
Rutgers College became the land-grant college of New Jersey in 1864 under the Morrill Act of 1862, resulting in the establishment of the Rutgers Scientific School, featuring departments of agriculture, engineering, and chemistry. The Rutgers Scientific School would expand over the years to grow into the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (1880) and divide into the College of Engineering (1914) and the College of Agriculture (1921). Rutgers created the New Jersey College for Women in 1918, and the School of Education in 1924.
Beginning in 1866, Rutgers was unaffiliated with any formal athletic conference and thus classified as "independent" for eighty years. From 1946 to 1951, the university was a member of the Middle Three Conference, and from 1958 to 1961, was a member of the Middle Atlantic Conference. In 1978, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights became a member of the Atlantic 10 conference. In 1991, it joined the Big East Conference for football. All sports programs at Rutgers New Brunswick subsequently became affiliated with the Big East in 1995.
The first intercollegiate athletic event at Rutgers was a baseball game on May 2, 1866, against Princeton in which they suffered a 40–2 loss.
Rutgers University's only school color is scarlet. Students had sought to make orange the school color, citing Rutgers' Dutch heritage and about the Prince of Orange. The Rutgers student publication Targum (which would become the Daily Targum) proposed that scarlet be adopted in May 1869, claiming that it was a striking color and because the scarlet ribbon was easily obtained. During the first intercollegiate football game with Princeton on November 6, 1869, the players from Rutgers wore scarlet-colored turbans and handkerchiefs to distinguish them as a team from the Princeton players. The board of trustees officially made scarlet the school color in 1900.
Rutgers University is referred to as "the birthplace of college football" as the first intercollegiate football game was held on College Field between Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1869, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on a plot of ground behind where the present-day College Avenue Gymnasium now stands. Rutgers won the game, with a score of 6 runs to Princeton's 4. A Rutgers-Princeton rivalry still exists today. According to Parke H. Davis, the 1869 Rutgers football team shared the national title with Princeton. (This game is believed to have been closer to soccer than to modern American football.)
Rutgers was among the first American institutions to engage in intercollegiate athletics, and participated in a small circle of schools that included Yale University, Columbia University, and long-time rival, Princeton University (then called the College of New Jersey). The four schools met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in Manhattan on October 19, 1873, to establish a set of rules governing their intercollegiate competition, and particularly to codify the new game of football. Although invited, Harvard chose not to attend. In the early years of intercollegiate athletics, the schools that participated in these athletic events were located solely in the American Northeast. However, by the turn of the 20th century, colleges and universities across the United States began to participate.
Seven alumni have served as New Jersey governor; two as president of Rutgers; Garret A. Hobart (A.B. 1863) as Vice President of the United States; Louis Freeh (B.A. 1971, J.D. 1974) as director of the FBI; Frederick T. Frelinghuysen (A.B. 1836) a U.S. Senator, as U.S. Secretary of State. Alumnus Joseph P. Bradley (A.B. 1836) served for two decades as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and cast the tie-breaking vote on the bipartisan commission that decided the contested American presidential election in 1876. Diplomat Maria Fernanda Espinosa served as President of the United Nations General Assembly. Senators Elizabeth Warren (JD) and Bob Menendez (JD) both attended Rutgers Law School. Some alumni became activists such as Jack Babuscio (MHist.).
Rutgers University is home to chapters of many Greek organizations, and a significant percentage of the undergraduate student body is active in Greek life. Several fraternities and sororities maintain houses for their chapters in the area of Union Street (known familiarly as "Frat Row") in New Brunswick, within blocks of Rutgers' College Avenue Campus. Chapters of Zeta Psi and Delta Phi were organized at Rutgers as early as 1845. The Alpha Rho chapter of Chi Psi fraternity, founded at Rutgers College in 1879, was the first fraternity at Rutgers to own a fraternity house, purchased in 1887 and still in use by the fraternity today. There are over fifty fraternities and sororities on the New Brunswick-Piscataway campus, ranging from traditional to historically African-American, Hispanic, Multicultural, and Asian interest organizations. The New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University has a chapter of the only active co-ed pre-medical fraternity, Phi Delta Epsilon, as of 2008 . Most Greek organizations are governed by the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, but twelve organizations maintain chapters in New Brunswick without sanction by the university's administration.
Rutgers Day is an annual festival established in 1906.
Rutgers alumni have been influential in many fields. Singer, athlete, attorney, and Civil Rights Movement activist Paul Robeson graduated in 1919 and is the namesake of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center on the Busch Campus, the Paul Robeson Library on the Camden Campus, and the Campus Center on the Newark Campus. Among the first students enrolled at Rutgers (when it was Queen's College), Simeon De Witt (A.B. 1776) became the Surveyor-General for the Continental Army (1776–1783) during the American Revolution and classmate James Schureman (A.B. 1775), served in the Continental Congress and as a United States senator. Two alumni have been awarded Nobel prizes— Milton Friedman (A.B. 1932) in economics, and Selman A. Waksman (B.Sc. 1915, M.Sc.1916) in Medicine. Poet Robert Pinsky (B.A. 1962) was appointed the nation's poet laureate and novelist Junot Díaz (B.A. 1992) awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008.
With the development of graduate education, and the continued expansion of the institution, the collection of schools became Rutgers University in 1924. Rutgers College continued as a liberal arts college within the university. Later, University College (1945) was founded to serve part-time, commuting students and Livingston College (1969) was created by the Rutgers Trustees, ensuring that the interests of ethnically diverse New Jersey students were met.
In its early days, Rutgers athletes were known informally as "The Scarlet" after the school color, or as "Queensmen" after the institution's first name, Queen's College. In 1925, the mascot was changed to Chanticleer, a fighting rooster from the medieval fable Reynard the Fox (Le Roman de Renart) which was used by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales. At the time, the student humor magazine at Rutgers was called Chanticleer, and one of its early arts editors, Ozzie Nelson (later of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet fame) was quarterback of the Rutgers team from 1924 to 1926. The Chanticleer mascot was unveiled at a football game against Lafayette College, in which Lafayette was also introducing a new mascot, a leopard. However, the choice of Chanticleer as a mascot was often the subject of ridicule because of its association with "being chicken." In 1955, the mascot was changed to the Scarlet Knight after a campus-wide election, beating out other contenders such as "Queensmen," the "Scarlet," the "Red Lions," the "Redmen" and the "Flying Dutchmen." Earlier proposed nicknames included "Pioneers" and "Cannoneers." When Harvey Harman, then coach of the football team was asked why he supported changing the Rutgers mascot, he was quoted as saying, "Awnish You can call it the Chanticleer, you can call it a fighting cock, you can call it any damn thing you want, but everybody knows it's a chicken." Harman later is said to have bought the first "Scarlet Knight" mascot costume for the 1955 season, which was to be his final season as football coach at Rutgers. Today, the Scarlet Knight costumed mascot appearing at Rutgers football and basketball games and other campus events is called "Sir Henry".
Governance at Rutgers University rests with a board of trustees consisting of 41 members, and a board of governors consisting of 15 voting members: 8 appointed by the Governor of New Jersey and 7 chosen by and from among the board of trustees. The trustees constitute chiefly an advisory body to the board of governors and are the fiduciary overseers of the property and assets of the university that existed before the institution became the State University of New Jersey in 1945. The initial reluctance of the trustees (still acting as a private corporate body) to cede control of certain business affairs to the state government for direction and oversight caused the state to establish the Board of governors in 1956. Today, the board of governors maintains much of the corporate control of the university.
The Newark Campus (or Rutgers–Newark) consists of eight undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, including Newark College of Arts and Sciences, University College, School of Criminal Justice, Graduate School, School of Nursing, School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers Business School and the Newark location of the Rutgers Law School. As of 2012 , 7,666 undergraduates and 4,345 graduate students (total 12,011) are enrolled at the Newark campus. Originally the University of Newark, the campus was renamed and rebranded as Rutgers–Newark in 1945.
The newly-designated state university absorbed the University of Newark (1935) in 1946 and then the College of South Jersey and South Jersey Law School, in 1950. These two institutions became Rutgers University–Newark and Rutgers University–Camden, respectively. On September 10, 1970, after much debate, the board of governors voted to admit women into Rutgers College.
The campus was founded as the College of South Jersey and South Jersey Law School in the 1920s, and became part of Rutgers in 1950.
It was at Rutgers that Selman Waksman discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, candidin, and others. Waksman, along with graduate student Albert Schatz, discovered streptomycin—a versatile antibiotic that was to be the first applied to cure tuberculosis. For this discovery, Waksman received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952.
Although the Rutgers Scarlet Knights' football team had losing seasons in 2016 and 2015 (won-lost records of 2–10 and 4–8, respectively) it achieved success previously, being invited to the Insight Bowl on December 27, 2005, in which they lost 45 to 40 against Arizona State University. This was Rutgers' first bowl appearance since the December 16, 1978, loss against Arizona State, 34–18, at the Garden State Bowl. The 2006 football season also saw Rutgers being ranked within the Top 25 teams in major college football polls. After the November 9, 2006, victory over the 3rd ranked, undefeated Louisville Cardinals, Rutgers jumped up to seventh in the AP Poll, eighth in the USA Today/Coaches poll, seventh in the Harris Interactive Poll, and sixth in the Bowl Championship Series rankings. These were Rutgers' highest rankings in the football polls since they were ranked fifteenth in 1961. Rutgers ended the season 11–2 after winning the inaugural Texas Bowl on December 28, 2006, defeating the Wildcats of Kansas State University by a score of 37–10 and finishing the season ranked twelfth in the final AP poll of sportswriters, the team's highest season-ending ranking.
The Dana Library is the main research library for the Newark campus and is also home to the Institute of Jazz Studies, one of the world's largest collections of jazz archives and research. The Library of Science and Medicine (LSM) on the Busch Campus in Piscataway houses the university's collection in behavioral, biological, earth, and pharmaceutical sciences and engineering. LSM also serves as a designated depository library for government publications regarding science, and owns a U.S. patent collection and patent search facility. It was officially established as the Library of Science and Medicine in July 1964 although the beginning of the development of a library for science started in 1962. The current character of LSM is a university science library also serving a medical school.
There were setbacks in the growth of the university. In 1967, the Rutgers Physics Department had a Centers of Excellence Grant from the NSF which allowed the physics department to hire several faculty each year. These faculty were to be paid by the grant for three years, but after that time any faculty hired with the associate or full professor designation would become tenured. The governor and the chancellor forced Rutgers to lose this grant by rejecting the condition that tenure be granted.
In 1970, the newly formed Rutgers Medical School hired major faculty members from other institutions. In 1971, the governor's office separated Rutgers Medical School from Rutgers University and made it part of New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry, and many faculty left the medical school, including the dean of the medical school, Dewitt Stetten, who later became the director of the National Institutes of Health. As a result of the separation of the medical school from Rutgers University, Ph.D. programs that had been started in the medical center were lost, and students had to seek other institutions to finish their degrees. After the dissolution of the University of Medicine and Dentistry in 2013, the medical school again became part of the university.
The first intercollegiate competition in Ultimate Frisbee was held between students from Rutgers and Princeton on November 6, 1972, to mark the one hundred third anniversary of the first intercollegiate football game. Rutgers won 29–27. The Rutgers Scarlet Knights men's Basketball Team was among the "Final Four" and ended the 1976 season ranked fourth in the United States, after an 86–70 loss against the University of Michigan in the semifinals, and a 106–92 loss against UCLA in the consolation round of the 1976 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament.
In 1982, under president Edward J. Bloustein, the liberal arts faculties of these five institutions were centralized into one college, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which itself had no students. The separate residential colleges persisted for students, and while instructors for classes were now drawn from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, separate standards for admission, good standing, and graduation continued for students, depending on which residential college they were enrolled in. In January 1987, around 2,800 non-teaching employees went on strike for increased salaries, which ended after nine days after an agreement with the administration was made.
It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (1921), and in 1989, became a member of the Association of American Universities, an organization of the 62 leading research universities in North America. Rutgers–New Brunswick is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Rutgers–Newark and Rutgers–Camden are classified by the same organization as "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as a professor at Rutgers Law School for 9 years from 1963-1972 and later went on to serve as an associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. During his 20-year tenure at Rutgers, David Levering Lewis, a former history professor, was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1994 and 2001) for both volumes of his biography of W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) and was also the winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize. Poet Gregory Pardlo won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, he is both an alumnus and faculty member at the Camden campus. Michael R. Douglas, a prominent string theorist and the director of the New High Energy Theory Center and winner of the Sackler Prize in theoretical physics in 2000. Family Research Council director Jennifer Bauwens taught in the Rutgers School of Social Work. Avery Brooks, a Rutgers graduate, taught at Mason Gross School of the Arts. Former professor Ruth Chang is an expert in decision-making and a fellow at Oxford. Literature scholar Ankhi Mukherjee now at University of Oxford won the Rose Mary Crawshay prize. Jerry Fodor, Zenon Pylyshyn, Stephen Stich and Frances Egan were awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in philosophy and cognitive science. Endre Szemerédi was awarded the Abel Prize in 2012. Mario Szegedy was awarded the Gödel Prize twice, in 2001 and 2005.
Under Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer, the women's basketball program is among the elite programs in the country as they remain consistently ranked in the Top 25, consistently making the NCAA Women's Championship Tournament, and sometimes winning the Big East regular season championship. In 2006–2007, the Scarlet Knights won their first-ever Big East Conference Tournament Championship. The program has been highly competitive since its inception, winning the 1982 AIAW National Championship, reaching the 2000 Final Four, and reaching the Final Four and national championship game in 2007.
In 2007, Rutgers New Brunswick, Douglass, Livingston, and University Colleges, along with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences were merged into the new "School of Arts and Sciences" with one set of admissions criteria, curriculum, and graduation requirements. At this time, the liberal arts components of Cook College were absorbed into the School of Arts and Sciences as well, while the other aspects of that college remained, but as the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. These changes in 2007 ended the 241-year history of Rutgers College as a distinct institution.
In 2007, the university's Office for Enrollment Management launched the Rutgers Future Scholars Program as an initiative to help 7th graders from low-income families achieve academic success and be the first in their families to go to college. The program targets students from the school systems of Rutgers's hometowns, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Newark, and Camden. Once admitted, the students receive mentoring and college prep courses each summer leading up to the year of their college applications. If admitted to the university, they are given a full tuition scholarship for four years of undergraduate study. The program has been very successful and currently admits as many as 200 new 7th graders each year with most of the original 200 now attending the university as undergraduates.
In 2008, U.S. News & World Report ranked Rutgers University–Newark the most diverse university campus in the United States. Because the area of Rutgers' New Brunswick-Piscataway campus—which is composed of several constituent colleges and professional schools—is sprawled across six municipalities, the individual campuses are connected by an inter-campus bus system. The Rutgers bus system is the second-largest bus service in New Jersey and one of the largest in the country.
In 2011, there was an attempt by then New Jersey governor Chris Christie and members of the legislature to merge Rutgers–Camden into Rowan University, it ultimately was rejected in part due to several on-campus protests and pushback from Camden faculty, students, and alumni.
Rutgers' facilities across the four campuses include a golf course, botanical gardens, working agricultural, horse, dairy, and sustainable farms, a creamery, an ecological preserve with multiple use trails, television and radio studios, theaters, museums, athletic facilities, helipads, a makerspace, and more. The New Jersey Museum of Agriculture closed in 2011.
On June 20, 2012, the outgoing president of Rutgers University, Richard L. McCormick, announced that Rutgers will "integrate five acres along George Street between Seminary Place and Bishop Place into the College Avenue Campus." Most of the block had been occupied by the New Brunswick Theological Seminary. Rutgers agreed to rebuild the seminary in exchange for the land it gave up.
In November 2012, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, along with Louisville, Connecticut, and Cincinnati left the Big East to form the American Athletic Conference. Syracuse and Pittsburgh have decided to enter the Atlantic Coast Conference, while West Virginia entered the Big 12 Conference, taking effect as of the 2012–2013 season. Rutgers decided to leave American for the Big Ten Conference, effective July 1, 2014. Rutgers surpassed Penn State as the Big Ten's easternmost school.
Under the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act of 2012, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was dissolved. Most of its schools, including Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Jersey Medical School, and New Jersey Dental School, were merged into the new Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, formed in 2013.
In 2013, Rutgers changed part of its alma mater, "On the Banks of the Old Raritan." Where the lyrics had stated, "My father sent me to old Rutgers, and resolved that I should be a man," now they state, "From far and near we came to Rutgers, and resolved to learn all that we can." The alma mater for the Camden campus "On the Banks of the Old Delaware" are lyrically similar aside from the river name.
In 2013, most of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey was integrated with Rutgers University and, along with several existing Rutgers units, was reformed as Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. This merger attached the New Jersey Medical School and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to Rutgers University.
The Grease Trucks are a group of truck-based food vendors located at various locations on the New Brunswick campus. They serve traditional grill fare, and Middle-Eastern specialties, and are especially well known for serving "Fat Sandwiches," a sub roll containing various ingredients such as cheesesteaks, burgers, pork rolls, chicken fingers, French fries, mozzarella sticks, eggs, bacon, gyro meat, and marinara sauce. The Rutgers Grease Trucks were located in a designated lot for nearly two decades until August 2013. Truck owners were forced to relocate due to the construction of an $84-million student apartment complex. Three trucks remain on the College Avenue Campus, while the remaining two were moved to the Cook/Douglass Campus.
It is Rutgers's tradition for students to participate in one of the largest student-run philanthropic events in New Jersey, the Embrace Kids Foundation for children with cancer and blood disorders. The annual Dance Marathon involves hundreds of dancers and volunteers. In 2015, the marathon collected $692,046.
In 2016, Rutgers celebrated its 250th anniversary. On May 15, President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to speak at the university's commencement. The university held a variety of celebrations, academic programs, and commemorative events which culminated on the 250th anniversary date, November 10, 2016. Rutgers invited multiple notable alumni from around the world to the celebration. Steven Van Zandt was the commencement speaker the following year and received an honorary doctorate.
In 2016, the Iota Psi chapter of Sigma Chi raised a national Greek record of $300,007 for the Children's Miracle Network with the help of seven sororities: Alpha Gamma Delta, Delta Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, Phi Sigma Sigma, Sigma Delta Tau, Sigma Kappa, and Zeta Tau Alpha.
In November 2016, Rutgers released research findings that revealed: "an untold history of some of the institution's founders as slave owners and the displacement of the Native Americans who once occupied land that was later transferred to the college."
On March 23, 2019, Nick Suriano and Anthony Ashnault won national titles for Rutgers Wrestling and provided Rutgers with their first 2 NCAA wrestling championships.
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey is a college-sponsor of the National Merit Scholarship Program and sponsored 21 Merit Scholarship awards in 2020. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 29 freshman students were National Merit Scholars.
In January 2020, Jonathan Holloway made history as the first African American and person of color to be named president of Rutgers. On April 9, 2023, three unions voted to go on the first strike by academics in the university's 257-year history, citing the lack of progress on contract talks between union representatives and university officials. As a result, classes and research were suspended until a tentative agreement was reached on April 15, 2023. Five months later, in September, the university's faculty senate voted "no confidence" in Holloway; in addition to issues related to the strikes, the motion also cited Halloway's decision to dismiss the chancellor of the university's Newark campus and his proposal to merge the university's two medical schools.
The current president is Jonathan Holloway who assumed the role on July 1, 2020.
In 2021, the Rutgers men's basketball team was selected to participate in the NCAA tournament. This marked the program's first appearance in the tournament since 1991.
Of the 45% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1240-1470. Of the 7% of enrolled freshmen in 2021 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 27 and 33.
In 2022, Rutgers men's lacrosse team was selected to participate in the NCAA Division I tournament. They defeated Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania to reach their first-ever Final Four. Their season ended with a 17–10 loss to Cornell.
The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranks Rutgers-New Brunswick 29th nationally and 50th globally as of 2020–2021. QS Top Universities ranked Rutgers-New Brunswick 264 in the world in 2022.
The Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) is a division of the university that serves as an umbrella organization for schools, centers, and institutes from Rutgers University and the old University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The organization was incorporated into the university following the 2013 merger of Rutgers and UMDNJ. While its various facilities are spread across several locations statewide, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences is considered a "campus" for certain organizational purposes, such as the appointment of a separate chancellor. From July 18, 2023 Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences renamed to Rutgers Health.(https://rutgershealth.org/chancellor/communications/rutgers-health-brand-name-announcement).