Education is the foundation for every profession.
At Rowan University, education—the College of Education—is the foundation of the institution’s storied, proud 100-year history.
On Sept. 4, 1923, 236 students climbed the eight marble steps of College Hall—now Bunce Hall—and began their journeys toward becoming teachers.
They were the first students at the New Jersey State Normal School at Glassboro, established by the state to educate teachers for South Jersey schools. Today, more than 22,000 students on multiple campuses attend what is now Rowan University, a comprehensive, Carnegie-classified national doctoral research institution that offers bachelor’s through doctoral programs.
The evolution of the University—now the third fastest-growing public research university in the nation—is intimately tied to the success, a century in the making, of Rowan’s College of Education.
That road to success began in 1917 with 107 Glassboro residents committed to bringing a normal school to South Jersey.
According to Robert D. Bole’s “More than Cold Stone: A History of Glassboro State College, 1923-1973,” reprinted this year by Rowan University Press, communities including Hammonton, Pleasantville, Vineland, Bridgeton, Woodbury and Pitman, were vying to be the site of the normal school. But state officials were swayed in large part by the resolve of the Glassboro residents.
The residents joined together to raise $7,066 to purchase 25 acres for the proposed normal school—and then offered the land to the state free of charge. That, combined with other factors, including that Glassboro was in the center of South Jersey and boasted a railroad center, a stable community of 3,000, two new schools, nine churches, and areas for faculty and student housing, made Glassboro the perfect choice, according to Bole.
Equally important, according to a history produced to document the school's earliest years, was that Glassboro had few cases of typhoid fever in its community.
Dr. Jerohn Savitz, the school’s first principal, was intimately involved in the building of the school. Savitz was known as a stern leader who viewed the Glassboro position as both a challenge and an opportunity.
“It gave Savitz the opportunity to build a teacher preparation institution from the ground up,” Bole wrote. “He could select his own faculty, devise his own curriculums and mold future teachers for places where they were sorely needed in South Jersey’s rural schools.”
Of the 236 enrolled students, 10 were males, 62 were transfers from Trenton State College and all enrolled to complete a two-year teaching degree. The charter faculty included 16 teachers, none of whom had doctorates. They earned salaries as high as $4,000—a “princely sum” at the time, according to Bole—and taught three curricula: kindergarten-primary, general elementary and upper grades. Faculty taught up to six classes per day.
By 1929, the program extended to three years and, by 1934, the school became a college, offering four years of training for elementary teachers, according to a commemoration published to mark the college’s 25th anniversary in 1948. At the time, curricula included kindergarten-primary (pre-K to grade 3); general elementary (2nd-6th grade); and junior high school (5th-8th grade).
In 1956, a program to teach English and social studies for grades 7-12 began and, in 1958 and 1960, art, music, science and mathematics education were added, culminating in a full secondary education teacher training program for 7th-12th grades.
Even in the 1920s and ’30s, in early stages of development, the college was a leader in areas that are still embraced in education—and at Rowan—in the 21st century.
The college’s first foray into graduate education began in 1938, when Ambrose Suthrie, a New York University professor, taught two courses every Thursday, according to Bole. Bachelor’s degree students enrolled in his courses earned credits toward a master’s degree at NYU. Unfortunately, the program fell by the wayside during World War II.
But Edgar Bunce, the college’s second president, sought a full-fledged graduate program, something which, Bole writes, came about in part due to alumni demand. In 1949, the State Board of Education approved a program of graduate studies and, in 1950, first courses were offered during a summer session. Just two years later, 15 students earned the college’s first master’s degrees.
In 1997, graduate offerings expanded again when the college established the Doctor of Educational Leadership (Ed.D.)—the first doctoral program in the New Jersey state college system. The first cohort of students graduated in 2001.
Another doctoral program—the college’s Ph.D. in Education—was founded in 2016. It is designed to prepare students to become higher education faculty, policymakers and researchers to address persistent social justice issues in education.
The college today also offers robust master’s degree programs in 11 areas, as well as an Educational Specialist in School Psychology with school psychologist certification. Multiple certificates of graduate and undergraduate studies, advanced graduate studies, and a graduate endorsement in bilingual/bicultural education also are part of the curriculum.
Today, the college has a staunch commitment to both diversity, equity and inclusion and, also, inclusive education. The college’s Center for Access, Success & Equity supports faculty, students and community members in developing initiatives to address local and regional issues of access, success and equity for students in P-10 institutions.
The college’s commitment to serving community children dates back nearly 85 years to the establishment, in 1939, of the Reading Clinic. Still a staple at the University, the year-round clinic has served as a community center for reading improvement for thousands of students in kindergarten through 12th grades. Rowan education majors—undergraduate literacy studies majors as well as graduate students pursuing reading specialist certification—are the tutors, providing critical one-to-one instruction to struggling readers. Tutors, in turn, learn to become stronger, better teachers.
The college also was ahead of its time—some two decades ahead—in programming to assist children with disabilities. In 1935, 20 years before the state mandated a public school education for students with disabilities, the college established the Children’s Clinic under faculty member Marion L. Little, according to Bole.
Initially part of the program founded to help South Jersey schoolchildren with reading disabilities, the clinic expanded to help hundreds of children with disabilities, including those with physical, visual, speech and mental disabilities. The clinic, which ran for 20 years, “was an oasis for youngsters with multiple handicaps,” according to Bole.
Faculty member Roland Esbojornson met with children twice weekly and on summer Saturdays and conducted physical therapy sessions, often using equipment he designed and constructed himself, according to Bole’s research. In turn, Glassboro teachers got in-service training on working with children with disabilities.
Post World War II, expanded junior high teaching curriculum and graduate programs attracted more males to the profession, something which Bunce worked particularly hard to ensure.
Today, the college has two programs to recruit males, particularly males of color, to increase diverse representation in teaching. The programs include Project IMPACT (Increasing Male Practitioners and Classroom Teachers) and MOCHA (Men of Color Hope Achievers).
The college also offers Project MOTIVATE, which recruits veterans for K-12 teaching, providing supports and mentorship throughout their teacher training and in their early years of teaching. The program works to diversify the state’s teacher pipeline.
According to the college’s 25-year history, Savitz “believed that teachers of children must see children often and must work and play with them in order to understand them.” That sentiment also was embraced by Bunce, his successor, Thomas Robinson, who was president from 1952-1968, and subsequent deans of the college.
Today, that mandate continues with the Early Childhood Demonstration Center, housed on the first floor of James Hall. Accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a mark of excellence in early childhood education, the center was founded at Rowan nearly 50 years ago and has evolved from a student-run club into a high-quality preschool program serving children ages 3-6. Rowan students gain valuable experience working in the ECDC.
Started in 1924 as the Training School and continued as the Demonstration School, the college supervised and staffed an on-campus elementary school for decades to give teacher candidates the chance to work with faculty on classroom training while teaching local children. Drawing tuition-paying students from throughout South Jersey through midcentury—“gaining acceptance to the school was about as difficult as entering an Ivy League college,” Bole wrote—the school had a “private school aura” that Dr. Robinson determined to strip.
The result in 1954 was the Campus School, located in what is now Bozorth Hall. It enrolled Glassboro students in first through eighth grades until the early 1970s, when it became the Bozorth Early Childhood Education Center to serve children with and without disabilities, from eight months to five years of age, according to Bole’s book.
Of the University’s 108,000 graduates, the college boasts more than 41,000 alumni who have earned education degrees—nearly 3,500 of which, by the college’s conservative estimates, currently serve schools in South Jersey—and the College of Education’s commitment to the region is unwavering.
That commitment continues to uphold Bunce’s ideal that the college should serve as the educational center of South Jersey.
Through the Professional Development Schools program, established with a school in Camden in 1991, 11 P-12 schools in South Jersey partner with the college. Rowan faculty members and pre-service teachers work side by side with teachers and administrators on a shared goal to improve educational outcomes for students. PDS schools provide professional preparation for teacher candidates while the schools and faculty members engage in long-term, on-going research-based initiatives that benefit all members in the learning community.