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Drew University

Coordinates: 40°45′40″N 74°25′37″W / 40.761°N 74.427°W / 40.761; -74.427
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Drew University
Drew University Seal
Mottoδωρεαν ελαβετε δωρεαν δοτε ('Freely have you received, freely give —Matthew 10:8')
TypePrivate University
Established1867
Endowment$171 million[1]
PresidentRobert Weisbuch
Academic staff
244
Undergraduates1656
Postgraduates991
Location
Madison
,
New Jersey
,
USA
Campus186 acres (753,000 m²) wooded, Suburban
Athletics19 teams in 11 sports
ColorsOxford Blue and Forest Green
AffiliationsUnited Methodist Church[2][3]
Websitewww.drew.edu

Drew University is a private university located in Madison, New Jersey.

Originally established as the Drew Theological Seminary in 1867, the university later expanded to include an undergraduate liberal arts college in 1928 and commenced a program of graduate studies in 1955. Nicknamed the "University in the Forest" because of the relative serenity of its wooded 186 acres (753,000 m²) relative to the school's suburban surroundings, Drew University maintains a combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment of approximately 2,500 students, with the majority living on-campus.[4]

While Drew is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, it makes no religious demands on its students. Many of the Theological School's students and faculty are United Methodist, and the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church is housed on campus.

History

In 1867, Daniel Drew (1797-1879), a financier and railroad tycoon, endowed his antebellum estate in Madison for the purpose of establishing the Drew Theological Seminary. To this day, the Theological Seminary continues to graduate candidates for service in the ministry; however, the institution grew to include a liberal arts curriculum.

Dr. James Strong first published his seminal work, Strong's Concordance, in 1890, during his tenure as Professor of exegetical theology at Drew Theological Seminary.

The College of Liberal Arts admitted its first class of 12 students in 1928, after the trustees of the Drew Theological Seminary voted to accept a gift of $1.5 million from brothers Arthur and Leonard Baldwin to build and endow such an institution, and to change the name of the institution to Drew University. In 1955, a Graduate School became the third of the university's degree-granting entities.

From its beginnings, the College of Liberal Arts has honored its founders' wish that it be ecumenical in its choice of faculty and students. The Baldwins also asked that the new institution be named Brothers College in recognition of their extraordinary relationship. The name was later changed to the College of Liberal Arts, but its major academic building still bears its original name.

In its early years, Drew provided educational opportunities for women, through enrollment in religious classes. However, for a brief time, Drew became an all-male institution, during the 1930s until 1942.

During the Second World War, the draft threatened to take too many of Drew's students and the college of liberal arts responded by enrolling both women and US Navy recruits, through a V-12 Navy College Training Program. At this time, Drew became coeducational.

During the 1970s, the College also established, with generous assistance from the Mellon Foundation, a now widely-imitated freshman seminar program. It allows first-year students to participate, with faculty who also serve as their academic advisers, in intensive study of a topic of hopefully mutual interest. Interdisciplinary study became a focus of the curriculum as well, with the creation of majors in behavioral studies, neuroscience and Russian Studies, and minors in such fields as American studies, arts administration and museology, business management, dance, public health and writing.

In 1984, psychology professors Philip Jensen and Richard Detweiler led an effort to provide a personal computer and application software to all incoming freshman, a program referred to as the "Computer Initiative". Drew was the first liberal arts college to have such a requirement. The Computer Initiative differentiates Drew from other liberal arts colleges, and continues to this day. As a result, Drew has considerably fewer public computing labs than comparable schools its size, utilizing the centrally-managed student laptops for instructional and general-purpose computing use.

Thomas Kean, former Governor of New Jersey (1982-1990) and Co-Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was Drew's president for 15 years and stepped down in June, 2005. Robert Weisbuch, former President of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, was named Drew's eleventh president in July 2005 and formally inaugurated on April 28, 2006.

During his tenure as president, Kean succeeded in adding new faculty in African, Asian, Russian, and Middle Eastern Studies, significantly increased opportunities for students to study abroad, increased applications from prospective students, nearly tripled the school's endowment, and committed more than $60 million to construction of new buildings and renovation of older buildings—principally student residence halls. In the event, several of these faculty were not retained, and the program in Asian Studies fell victim to a lack of cooperation among concerned faculty.

In July, 2007, it was reported that Drew University's rising undergraduate tuition cost, at a then minimum of $34,230, had outranked Princeton University at $33,000 minimum and Stevens Institute of Technology at $32,000 minimum, making Drew the most expensive school in the state of New Jersey. [5] This report, however, uses a purely geographic context that does not reflect the divergent natures of these institutions. Drew University remains in the middle range of the schools with which it is directly comparable. The university also offers considerable financial aid, which, in 2007, reduced the average tuition for an entering student to $18,500.

Drew University is home to the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and the archives of the United Methodist Church.

Academics

Undergraduate

Drew University offers programs leading to the traditional undergraduate degree of Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) through its College of Liberal Arts. Known for its academic programs, Drew University has been compared to some of the top liberal arts college in the nation and ranks among the premier small colleges in the tri-state area.

The school's philosophy is that Drew students fulfill a general education program that allows them to shape an individual academic program to serve their own needs and interests, while taking traditional core liberal arts courses. The school states that its programs emphasize depth, independent research, and experiential and collaborative teaming. A declared minor is required in the general education program, and students choose from structured disciplinary and interdisciplinary offerings, or may design a minor course of study, subject to faculty approval.

The College of Liberal Arts provides major concentrations in 27 academic areas, including: Anthropology, Art, Behavioral Science, Biology, Biological Anthropology, Biochemistry, Business Studies, Chemistry, Chinese, Classics, Computer Science, Economics, Environmental Studies & Sustainability, English, French, German, History, Mathematics, Mathematics & Computer Science, Music, Neurosciences (includes psychobiology), Pan-African Studies, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology, Spanish, Theater Arts, Women's Studies.

Minor concentrations are available in all areas that offer majors except neuroscience, behavioral science and the joint mathematics and computer science program. In addition, the college offers these interdisciplinary minors: American Studies; Archeology; Arts Administration and Museology; Asian Studies; Business, Society, and Culture; Comparative Literature; Chinese; Dance; European Studies; Humanities; Holocaust Studies; Italian; Jewish Studies; Latin American Studies; Linguistic Studies; Middle Eastern Studies; Public Health; Russian; Western Heritage; and Writing.

Graduate

The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies offers the traditional Master of Arts (M.A.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. The Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree is awarded to Ph.D. students at the completion of their comprehensive exams, as a recognition of having A.B.D., or All But Dissertation status in completion of the Ph.D. Areas of study include: Book History (M.A. only), English Literature, Modern History & Literature, and Women's Studies (M.A. only, Ph.D. concentration). It also offers an innovative interdisciplinary arts and letters program offering Master of Letters (M.Litt.) and Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) degrees as well as a program in Medical Humanities, offering a Certificate of Medical Humanities (C.M.H.), as well as Masters (M.M.H.) and Doctoral degrees (D.M.H.). The Caspersen School is currently developing a graduate program in Education. The Caspersen School is known for its particular faculty strengths in the study of Willa Cather, intellectual history, and medical humanities.

In 2006, the Graduate Division of Religion (GDR), with programs in Biblical Studies, Historical Studies in Religion, Liturgical Studies, Religion & Society, Theological & Philosophical Studies, and Wesleyan & Methodist Studies, was created as an administrative move of the graduate programs in religion from the Caspersen School to the Theological School. The change was made to reflect current trends in the academic study of religion. Like students in the Caspersen School, M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D degrees are offered in these areas, and most students may elect to concentrate in Women's Studies. Drew is particularly strong in the areas of constructive and systematic theology, liturgical studies, theological ethics, feminist issues in religion, and post-colonial Biblical studies.

The transition of the GDR from the Caspersen School was the first of many changes initiated in the school recently. Since 2006, the school has opened a Master of Arts in Teaching and reformulated its Ph.D. programs to focus on a single, interdisciplinary History program, entitled History and Culture, which will be admitting M.A. candidates for the Fall of 2009 and Ph.D. candidates for the Fall of 2010. The school is, furthermore, in the process of considering the addition of other programs that will further emphasize its approach to an interdisciplinary approach to the Humanities.

Drew Theological School offers degree programs designed to train candidates for the ministry. While affiliated with the United Methodist Church, its programs are open to individuals of all faiths. Degrees offered include the Master of Divinity (M.Div.), Master of Arts (M.A.), Master of Arts in Ministry (M.A.), Master of Sacred Theology (S.T.M.), and the Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.). The faculty of the Theological School are largely the same as in the Graduate Division of Religion, and are additionally noted in the areas of evangelism and environmental issues in religion. The Theological School is often noted for its strong ties to Korean Methodism.

Other programs

Drew also offers a few other programs through the office of Continuing University Education. These programs include professional teacher continuing education; some community education programs; certificates in pharmacological laboratory analysis (in a partnership with Johnson & Johnson) and in historic preservation; and a post-baccalaureate, pre-medical preparation program.

Charles A. Dana Institute for Scientists Emeriti

This allows for emeritus scientists to maintain a space in the academic institution, continuing research at their leisure.

Drew Summer Science Institute
Semester on Wall Street
Semester on The United Nations
London Semester
Brussels Semester

Athletics

See also: List of college athletic programs in New Jersey, USA#Division III

The sports teams are called the Rangers. They participate in the Landmark Conference and NCAA Division III.

Media

Drew operates the radio station WMNJ, which serves an area that includes the neighboring towns of Madison, Morristown, Livingston and Chatham. It has two student-run publications: The Acorn, a student newspaper, and Insanity's Horse, a literary and arts journal.

Notable alumni

Notable faculty and staff

Points of interest

The Great Hall of S.W. Bowne was modeled after The Hall at Christ Church, Oxford.
  • The Florence and Robert Zuck Arboretum is an arboretum located on the southwest part of Drew University. The arboretum is open to the public by appointment. Created in 1980 in honor of faculty members Robert and Florence Zuck, the arborteum contains a mix of native and introduced trees. Its two small ponds serve as student laboratories. They contain turtles, goldfish, catfish, and muskrats, and are also stops for migrating Canadian geese, ducks, and herons.
  • The Drew University Admissions office does not require the SAT or ACT when evaluating potential students (a copy of a graded high school essay may be submitted instead of standardized test scores). Drew Makes SATs Optional
  • Drew has received numerous rankings by the Princeton Review including those for "Best Theater Colleges" and "Professors Get High Marks".
  • Drew is a repository for the archives of the United Methodist Church and houses a number of special collections in its Methodist Library as a result.
  • In addition to the Methodist Archives, Drew's Library also possesses a number of special collections. Of late, its collections of materials related to [Willa Cather] has received particular scholarly attention.
  • Several motion pictures and TV productions have used Drew University as a filming location: So Fine (1981); Deconstructing Harry (1997); The Family Stone (2005); Spinning into Butter (2006). In addition, the episode of The Sopranos entitled College was also filmed on campus, as well as the back-to-school episode of The Daily Show in 2001. A few MTV commercials have also been filmed on Drew's campus. The crew from The Incredible Hulk took some aerial footage of Brother's College doubling as Culver University, Virginia for use in the movie. In April 2008 Alicia Keys filmed her video for Teenage Love Affair on Drew's campus. The TV show, "Friday Night Lights," season 3 episode 8, New York, New York, was filmed on the Campus showing portions of campus including Asbury Hall and SW Bowne.
  • Asbury Hall Dormitory
    Asbury Hall Dormitory
  • Brothers College Courtyard
    Brothers College Courtyard
  • Asbury Hall on the right, Embury Hall on the left
    Asbury Hall on the right, Embury Hall on the left
  • List of those who served in World War 1 from Drew University
    List of those who served in World War 1 from Drew University
  • View of the top of Bowne Memorial Gateway
    View of the top of Bowne Memorial Gateway
  • Welch and Holloway Dormitory Halls
    Welch and Holloway Dormitory Halls
  • SW Bowne Hall, also also called The Great Hall
    SW Bowne Hall, also also called The Great Hall
  • Construction Sign for a new dormitory hall at Drew University
    Construction Sign for a new dormitory hall at Drew University
  • Graduation
    Graduation
  • File:Drewstatue.jpg

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2009_NCSE_Public_Tables_Endowment_Market_Values.pdf
  2. ^ "Drew University". International Association of Methodist Schools, Colleges, and Universities (IAMSCU). Retrieved 2007-06-29. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |publisher= at position 29 (help)
  3. ^ "About Drew". Drew University. Retrieved 2007-06-29.
  4. ^ "Quick Facts". Drew University. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
  5. ^ "AP News – Online Breaking News & Headlines from Associated Press - NJ.com".
  6. ^ "Biography of Robert M. Price".
  7. ^ "Personnel Announcement". White House. Retrieved 2007-04-04.

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40°45′40″N 74°25′37″W / 40.761°N 74.427°W / 40.761; -74.427

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