Rowan University has gone through many changes over the years, but probably none has been as significant, or as rapid, as the developments that have taken place in just the past few years.
“The university has grown – doubled in enrollment in the last decade,” said Rowan spokesperson Joe Cardona. “The story is incredible.”
That growth and the increased opportunities afforded to area residents can only be seen as a positive development for South Jersey as a whole.
“If you look across the country at economically prosperous counties, most of them have a research university (like Rowan) located in them,” Cardona said. “Employers want to be near workforce flows – an educated, talented workforce. You locate near a college or university, and now it’s easier.”
The school was founded just over 100 years ago as the Glassboro Normal School, designed as a two-year program specifically to prepare teachers for the classroom.
Over the years the school’s mission broadened and they saw a number of name changes, ultimately taking the name Rowan after industrialist Henry Rowan gifted the school with $100 million in 1992.
The school now offers undergraduate degrees in more than 100 academic programs, and dozens of postgraduate degrees. They’ve started a medical school, have campuses all over South Jersey, and practically built a completely new downtown area in Glassboro with their Rowan Boulevard project.
“Anyone that comes through Glassboro now, this is the gem of the county,” Cardona said.
Cardona said that one of the things the school is most proud of is the partnership they’ve been able to develop with South Jersey’s community colleges.
Rowan now offers a “3+1” education pathway towards an undergraduate degree, where students can take their first three years of courses at Rowan College at Burlington County or Rowan College of South Jersey, in Gloucester and Cumberland counties, at a much more affordable rate. They then finish their program’s final year at Rowan to earn their degree.
“When we started talking about those things, that wasn’t happening in the state,” Cardona said. “It went over so well, and was seen as a pathway for increasing the number of people having a degree, the state created legislation to support it state-wide.”
Cardona noted that Rowan’s sense of cooperation and collaboration extends to the other universities in the region as well, citing the role overall of higher education in building a strong regional economy and community.
“We are South Jersey,” Cardona said. “ We need to have a strong Stockton. We need to have a strong Rutgers. We need to have those entities to be strong. It’s not ‘give us everything.’ We need all three to be strong.”