FDU: A visual history Conceived at the dawn of World War II, FDU opened as a small junior college in September 1942 and grew into a comprehensive university with programs and partnerships throughout the world. Its vision began with educational pioneer Peter Sammartino and continues with world-class faculty who enlighten and inspire. Its impact is most obvious in the lives of more than 120,000 alumni, now taking leadership roles in just about every field possible.

Take a walk through the years as Fairleigh Dickinson University grows and expands its reach, while preserving its core values: access and opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurship, diversity and civility, and community service and global engagement.

1940s: In the Beginning

1941 — Dr. Peter Sammartino and his wife, Sylvia, conceive the idea for a small junior college. An advisory committee of dedicated area high-school principals works to develop school's mission and curriculum.

1942 — Fairleigh Dickinson Junior College, named for its early benefactor, Col. Fairleigh S. Dickinson, opens for class on September 16, 1942. It is housed in the former Ivison estate's main building, “The Castle,” in Rutherford, N.J. Sixty full-time students — 59 women and one man — and many more part-time students are enrolled.

1944 — The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights, brings an influx of veterans to study at FDU.

1948 — In response to the need for higher education in northern New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson expands its programs into a four-year curriculum, becoming Fairleigh Dickinson College.

1948 — The school is first accredited by the regional accrediting agency, the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.

1950s: A Multi-campus University Emerges

1954 — The first graduate-level program is offered — a master’s degree in business administration, still one of the University’s most popular programs.

1954 — Bergen Junior College in Teaneck, N.J., is purchased as FDU’s second campus.

1956 — By action of the New Jersey State Board of Education, Fairleigh Dickinson College becomes Fairleigh Dickinson University.

1956 — The School of Dentistry at FDU admits its first students.

1957 — The Literary Review, an international journal of contemporary writing published quarterly, is founded.

1958 — A third campus is created in Madison, N.J., on the former estate of Florence Vanderbilt Twombly and her husband Hamilton.

1960s: Crossing the Pond

1960 — Lyndon B. Johnson visits the Teaneck Campus during his vice presidential campaign under presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

1960 — The women's fencing team at the Teaneck Campus wins the first of its three national championships in the decade.

1963 — The Division I (DI) Knights men’s soccer team makes the first of 11 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament appearances it will make between 1963 and 1989.

1964 — Edward Williams College, a two-year school offering associate degrees with highly personalized instruction and guidance, starts classes on the Teaneck Campus.

1965 — The University opens its first overseas campus, Wroxton College in Oxfordshire, England.

1967 — Founding president Peter Sammartino retires from the presidency after 24 years of service and is appointed chancellor and president emeritus. J. Osborn Fuller is named president.

1967 — Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., addresses nearly 2,000 students and faculty at the Rutherford Campus, receiving a standing ovation for his stance on the evolution of civil rights and the Vietnam War. He appeared the year before at the Teaneck Campus.

1969 — Greek organizations are first sanctioned at the University.

1970s: Growth and Expansion

1971 — WFDU (89.1 FM) begins broadcasting on August 30. The first song the radio station plays is "Friends" by Elton John.

1972 — Fairleigh Dickinson University opens its second overseas campus, the West Indies Laboratory at St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.

1973 — FDU establishes the Devils Division III (DIII) football team at the Madison Campus, led by Head Coach Bill Klika, now director of Devils athletics.

1974 — Jerome Pollack becomes FDU’s third president.

1977 — The Gene Barnett Literary Society’s speaker series begins at the Teaneck Campus. The series went on to attract many of the foremost literary figures in the world to campus, including Arthur Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, John Updike, Saul Bellow, Amy Tan, David Remnick, and Billy Collins.

1980s: Staying the Course

1982 — The first students are admitted to a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology.

1983 — Jerome M. Pollack resigns as president; Walter Savage is appointed acting president.

1984 — Robert Donaldson becomes the fourth president of the University.

1985 — The Knights men’s basketball team makes its first appearance in the DI NCAA tournament. The team also plays in the 1988, 1998, 2005 and 2016 tournaments.

1988 — Future president George H.W. Bush speaks at the Rothman Center on November 3, just days before his election win. With him is a young Republican named Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will later serve two terms as governor of California.

1990s: Reorganizing for the Future

1990 — The College of Dental Medicine graduates its final class.

1990 — Hurricane Hugo, at its most destructive, crosses the island of St. Croix, damaging an estimated 90% percent of its buildings, including FDU West’s Indies Laboratory. The University closes the facility as a result.

1992 — Francis J. Mertz becomes the fifth president of FDU.

1993 — The University merges its operations on the Rutherford Campus with those of the Teaneck and Madison campuses beginning with the 1994–95 academic year.

1996 — President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore address environmental issues in an event at the Rothman Center at the Teaneck Campus.

1998 — New College of General and Continuing Studies is formed to address the special educational needs of nontraditional students, including adult learners.

1999 — J. Michael Adams is appointed the sixth president of the University and is inaugurated in 2000.

2000s: Renewed Commitment to Global Education

2000 — The Board of Trustees approves a new mission statement: “Fairleigh Dickinson University is a center of academic excellence dedicated to the preparation of world citizens through global education. The University strives to provide students with the multidisciplinary, intercultural and ethical understandings necessary to participate, lead and prosper in the global marketplace of ideas, commerce and culture.”

2000 — Silberman College of Business receives prestigious accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB International).

2001 — PublicMind — FDU's opinion research center conducting public polls and survey research on politics, society, popular culture and consumer/economic trends — launches.

2002 — FDU earns designation as a nongovernmental organization (NGO) associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information.

2002 — To reflect the character of each distinct New Jersey campus, their names are changed to the College at Florham and the Metropolitan Campus.

2006 — The Knights women’s bowling team wins FDU's first DI NCAA championship. They repeat in 2010.

2007 — The University opens a new international campus, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

2008 — Fairleigh Dickinson presents an honorary doctor of humane letters degree to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the keynote speaker, during Academic Convocation. He also announces the new U.N. Academic Impact, a program that brings together universities committed to working with the United Nations, developed with the help of FDU President J. Michael Adams.

2009 —Continuing its tradition of supporting U.S. veterans in entering higher education, FDU joins the Yellow Ribbon program the year that it is implemented, offering an unlimited number of matching grants, for all academic programs, to veterans.

2009 — FDU graduates its first class in the doctor of nursing practice degree program. The program focuses on preparing nurses for leadership roles.

2009 — FDU welcomes President Barack Obama and diplomat Caroline Kennedy to the Rothman Center on the Metropolitan Campus.

2010s: Momentum Building for Tomorrow

2010 — FDU’s Words and Music Festival caps it third season with an incredible merging of the popular and literary arts: pairing two New Jersey natives, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen and former United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

2010 — The annual Commencement exercises celebrate the first graduating class from FDU’s Vancouver campus.

2012 — FDU welcomes the first class — more than 80 students — to its new School of Pharmacy, the first such school to open in New Jersey in more than 120 years and only the second in the state.

2012 — Sheldon Drucker, FDU’s chief operating officer, begins serving as the University's seventh president.

2013 — During a renovation project, workers discover a Prince Albert tobacco can in a wall of the Science Building at the College at Florham, a small, informal time capsule from 1932. The can contains a handwritten note from the Twombly-Vanderbilt era: “These Bathrooms was Remodled [sic] in 1932 E.J. Parsons of Morristown N.J. did the Plumbing work and Edw F Daniher of 70 Britten St Madison did the Tile work other men worked on the Job are J. T. Steating Madison Peter Moore “Joe Gero” Tom Skelly Morristown Chas. Clements” It was during Probition [sic] and it was a very dry Job. The finder of this note if the 18 Amendment has bin [sic] changed have a good Drink on us. E. Daniher”

2014 — The College at Florham is renamed the Florham Campus and FDU-Vancouver becomes known as the Vancouver Campus.

2014 — With an undefeated record, and their second consecutive Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Championship, the Devils women’s basketball team wins the national Division III NCAA title.

2014 — A larger-than-life bronze statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., is unveiled on the Hackensack River Pathway as it leads to the footbridge that crosses the Metropolitan Campus.

2016 — Christopher Capuano, FDU’s University provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, is appointed to the University’s presidency.

2016 — Sixty-nine students become the first class to graduate from the pharmacy school, receiving doctoral hoods and PharmD degrees. Later in the year, the school is renamed the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences to reflect its growth.

2016 — The University announces the formation of a new School of Public and Global Affairs. Operating University-wide, it will build on the success of FDU’s Public Administration Institute, its Master of Public Administration degree and other existing graduate programs and FDU’s PublicMind polling institute.

2017 — The University celebrates its 75 anniversary, honoring its traditions and core values: access and opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurship, diversity and civility, and community service and global engagement, while looking to the future.

2017 — FDU students won an MTVU national Twitter contest and earned the right to have Bon Jovi crash commencement! The band performed “Reunion” and front man Jon Bon Jovi offered students some words of wisdom.

2018 — The State of New Jersey Military Order of the Purple Heart proclaims FDU a Purple Heart University for exemplifying outstanding veteran support, commitment, and a genuine concern for the well-being of veterans.

2019 — The newly renovated and designed Metropolitan Campus footbridge — which spans the Hackensack River — opens. With benches, tables, landscaping, new railings and lighting, the bridge has become one of the most popular destinations on campus.

2020s: A New Era

2020 — The Devils Care Food Pantry opened in 2019 and the Knights Care Food Pantry followed in 2020 — both becoming indispensable student and campus resources.

2020 — Fairleigh S. Dickinson, the University’s namesake, is inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

2021 — The Elizabeth Ruth Hennessy Field, made possible by a $1-million gift from alumnus and trustee emeritus Edward L. Hennessy, Jr., BS’55 (Ruth), and named for his daughter, opens. The synthetic multipurpose field hosts the Division III field hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse and men’s and women’s soccer teams. The field is surrounded by a 400-meter track with areas for throwing and jumping events and a state-of-the-art video scoreboard.

2021 — The Vincent J. and Lenda F. Naimoli Ballpark, named for the late benefactor, alumnus and former trustee, and his wife, Lenda, opens. The Devils facility also includes a permanent fixed grandstand, a press box, batting cages and a modern scoreboard.

2022 — Excelencia in Education — a nonprofit devoted to accelerating Latino student success — honors FDU as a national collegiate example of excellence for the advancement of Latino students in the classroom and in the workplace, citing the Latino Promise and HACER programs, in particular.

2022 — A Career Closet — a new student resource — opens at the Florham Campus. Students can visit the closets to pick out business attire, or to seek fashion advice and styling tips. Students can keep the clothes or accessories they select.

2023 — FDU alumnus Michael J. Avaltroni, BS’99 (Flor), is inaugurated as the ninth president of the University, becoming the first FDU graduate to lead the institution.

2023 — A magical March Madness run for the Knights men’s basketball team starts with a victory over Texas Southern 84-61 in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament. The No. 16 Knights then shook the world when they defeated No.1-seeded Purdue University — only the second time ever that a 16-seed beat a 1-seed. The underdogs captured America’s heart!

2023 — Students, faculty, staff, administrators, donors and friends gather at the Metropolitan Campus to dedicate the Greg Olsen Student Union. New signage and a plaque honor Olsen, BS’66, BS’68, MS’68 (Metro), who is FDU’s largest benefactor — with more than $10 million of lifetime giving — as well as a member of the Board of Trustees.