The Ghost of Rowans Campus Past and Future Draft #2

Rowan has gone through many changes over the past years when it transferred over from Glassboro State College and has many future projects planned to make Rowan larger for the betterment of the student body. In 1992, Henry Rowan and his wife donated $100,000,000. At the time this was the largest gift/donation given to a public school/college. With this money, Glassboro state college had the opportunity to grow into an official University in 1997 being renamed Rowan University. There have been many projects that have been completed and some that are still in progress.
One example of a project that has been completed was the College of Engineering building. Dr. Herman James resigned as president two years after a fatal shooting killing two on campus and Dr. Donald Farish was chosen to take his place. Dr. Donald Farish than went on to construct two more buildings; in 2003 the State of the Art building was built and in 2005 the College of Education building was built. On http://wn.com/Glassboro_State_College it states, “ Rowan University broke ground for the South Jersey Technology Park (SJTP) on April 10, 2006. The New Jersey Development Authority (NJEDA) gave Rowan University $5.8 million along with $1.5 million from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology, $1 million from Samuel H. Jones, and $1 million from Rowan itself. SJTP is planned to be a 188 acre (0.76 km2) site which will serve as an establishment for science and technology companies as well as academics. It is planned to have 25 buildings to provide competitively price, Class "A" facilities for budding entrepreneurs, start-up and established companies. SJTP was incorporated as a non-profit corporation with its own board of directors. The first building, the Samuel H. Jones Innovation Center, has been leased completely out and the revenue will help build a second building. The first floor will be controlled by Rowan and will pay a lease to the Tech Park Corporation and is divided up among the Rohrer College of Business and separate lab space for the College of Engineering. The second floor will be occupied by the Educational Information and Resource Center, which formerly owned a building on Delsea Drive in Washington Township.” The future project that is planned is the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. The plan is to have it open sometime in 2012.
As for student housing, there has been many changes and additions to housing. Oak Hall and Laurel Hall were some of the first buildings. At first the buildings were used as classrooms, but in 1999, Rowan went through renovations making them back into housing for students. Mansion Park apartments were part bought buy the college in 1958; since then they have been torn down. In 1966 Triad became part of the University and was used for Classrooms and public safety until 2000 when they renovated it all to housing. In 2005 and 2009, two more housing complexes were built, Townhouse Complex and Rowan Boulevard. There is a project in progress to build housing around the Bunce circle.
Rowan Alumnus Brian Simmermon, now CEO of Subaru of America and winner of the CEO of the Year in the Tristate area went on to say how much things have changed since he attended Glassboro State College. He said it has grown massively since he attended. Both the student body and the size of the campus has almost doubled. He said so much has changed except Rowan still has the same hotspot, which is now called Landmark. Brian went on to say how much safer things are with campus security and the “safe walk and ride program”. “When I attended Glassboro State College, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have someone from the College come pick me up and drop me off at my next destination, we had to walk. Students who attend Rowan now need to understand how lucky they are to have the things that they do, because when I attended Glassboro State College, we didn’t have half of this”.
Rowan University will keep growing as time goes by. With the projects that are in progress and the projects that are still being planned it will help the growth and development of the University. At the rate of rapid growth, Rowan University has the possibility of one day becoming an Ivy League school.

Works Cited


Brian Simmermon. Personal interview. 11 Feb, 2011.

Location. 11 Feb. 2011. .