By John Farmer Jr.

Once upon a time, New Jersey had a great university. How great was it?

Well, for pure scholarship, it was hard to beat. It boasted the largest university-based cell and DNA repository in the world, and was a leading international center for the study of genetics and autism, mental health, drug abuse, diabetes, neurological disorders, and digestive and renal diseases.

Its Protein Data Bank was a worldwide repository for three-dimensional protein structures.

Its philosophy department was generally considered the best in the nation, and no fewer than 18 academic departments, ranging from marine and coastal sciences to discrete mathematics and combinatorics, were routinely ranked in the nation’s top 10.

Researchers from its engineering school, one of the highest ranked in the nation, designed a robotic underwater glider to map the ocean floor, a journey that was likened by the Smithsonian Institution, in accepting the submersible into its permanent collection, to the flights of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.

Its scientists attracted sufficient National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research funding to be ranked third among all universities.

Its alumni and faculty were awarded the Nobel Prize, the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship — the mathematics equivalent of the Nobel Prize — the National Medal of Technology, the White House Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights, the Franklin Institute Benjamin Franklin Medal for research on underseas ecosystems, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Crafoord Prize, Emmy and Tony awards, the Pulitzer Prize for literature, and the National Book Award, among many other distinctions.

But this excellence in scholarship was not accomplished in some ivory — (or, for that matter, ivy) — tower far removed from the real world. This great university’s work was grounded in a commitment to serve the public.

The university held more than 500 active patents, with more than 300 obtained from 2000 to 2010, and spun off in excess of 70 companies — more than 50 of which are located in New Jersey. In fact, for every $1 that New Jersey invested in this great university, $6 was generated for the New Jersey economy.

Its law schools pioneered clinical legal education, providing representation for thousands of indigent people on issues ranging from educational quality to housing, to transactional work on behalf of urban enterprises to the protection of constitutional rights.

Its Newark law school’s first online edition, a real time re-creation of the events of 9/11, attracted 7 million visits from 175 different countries in its first week of publication.

The demographic, political, and economic analyses performed by scholars in its Bloustein School and Eagleton Institute served to keep voters informed and enabled policymakers to reach informed decisions about issues ranging from the structure of legislative districts to the trends in the employment and real estate markets.

Its Small Business Development Centers helped establish 715 new businesses and more than 9,000 jobs in a single year.

It accomplished this — and so much more — while staying true to a commitment to both excellence and diversity. More than 1,000 of its entering students ranked in the top 6 percent of their high school classes and had SAT scores exceeding 2,100, and 29 Fulbright Scholarships were awarded to its students in a single year.

At the same time, 86 percent of its undergraduates received financial aid, and 55 percent of its students qualified for Pell grants, awarded to low-income students, and other federal grants.

It was ranked consistently in the top 30 universities in diversity and its Newark campus ranked No. 1 in diversity for more than a decade.

STILL EXCELLING



Once upon a time?

Not really. That “once upon a time” is now, and the university is Rutgers.

The reader may be forgiven for not recognizing Rutgers in the glow of such good news. The university, which reflects New Jersey in so many positive ways, also shares this unfortunate trait: Our foibles all too often overshadow our excellence. Good news about Rutgers has a half-life of about a day; our mistakes linger in the media for weeks, if not months.

Like New Jersey, however, where the genius of Einstein and Edison flourished, where the origins of the universe and the light bulb were discovered, where the sensibilities of cultural icons from Sinatra to Streep to Springsteen were formed, Rutgers must look beyond the noise of the moment — which may always be negative, like a Jersey joke — to the university’s essential and lasting excellence.

EXPANSION AHEAD



Tomorrow, the story of Rutgers will be transformed by the addition of two medical schools, a cancer institute and other units from the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey — another institution whose quality outstripped its reputation. The combination of Rutgers’ strengths in the sciences and practical arts, the medical schools’ strong academic and clinical programs, and New Jersey’s pharmaceutical industry, creates the potential for tremendous advances in research dollars, innovative programs and social progress.

Who knows? Once the medical schools are fully integrated into Rutgers, the rest of the world may begin to recognize Rutgers as a great school.

We should pause, however, before that day, to appreciate Rutgers for the great university it has been. Rutgers may be the most recent entrant to the Big Ten Conference, but it is also the oldest (no other Big Ten university was founded as early as 1766) and by any objective measure, one of the best.

Once upon a time New Jersey had a great public university.

Thankfully, that time has been ours.

John Farmer Jr., a former state attorney general, is senior vice president and general counsel of Rutgers University. The opinions expressed in this article are his only and do not reflect the university's.