Dean’s Letter to Class of 1974: Be Proud of Acting in Unity Amid Shaken Society

George W. Carey, acting dean of Livingston College, wrote the following letter to the Class of 1974, included in the college yearbook, We the People. Note that the yearbook misspells his last name as “Cary.”

 

To the Graduating Class of 1974, Livingston College

This has been a year in which we have seen the legitimacy and credibility of some of the most central institutions of our society shaken. At all scales of concern — national, regional, state and local — there has been a breakdown of public faith and confidence attended by the explosive growth of disillusionment and cynicism.

What has occurred in society as a whole, has always manifested itself in Livingston College as well. We have gone through our own crisis of confidence. The reason for this is surely related to the fact that our college, more than most, represents a cross-section of society in its students and faculty: affluent, middle class, and poor: white, black and Puerto Rican, we represent a heterogenous mix of all of the elements of our social order. Since we have chosen not to be homogenized into only one class or ethnic group, we have brought with us into our collegiate halls many of the issues which are left at the threshold of more homogenous colleges. We are a part of society, not apart from society.

In Livingston during this year, pressures arising from the inadequate support of certain vital areas threatened to divide us into competing interest groups. Despite the relentless pressures of resource scarcity which we feel so acutely, we were able to respond by drawing together to fight for common goals, rather than split apart to compete with each other. Our success in this regard has been greater than society’s. We may be proud of it.

As the Spring semester progresses, there seems to be growing a renewed interest in the organization of student participation in community governance. I hope and trust that students and faculty alike will continue to work out the means to enable Livingston College to respond in unity to the challenges which await us in the future.

If it is true that our college is of society rather than a thing apart, then we hope that you, the graduating class, will remain committed to our efforts to grow as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic institution dedicated to providing a quality education to the members of all of the communities to which you now return. We hope that as you work towards the betterment of those communities, that — by word and deed — you will be advocates of the College. And we hope that you will return active and interested participants in our efforts as alumni. Goodbye and good luck.

Sincerely,
George W. [Carey]
Acting Dean




Professor Carey McWilliams Brought Political Philosophy to Life for Students; Honored with Livingston Legacy Award

Carey McWilliams circa 1985

Carey McWilliams circa 1985Wilson Carey McWilliams (1933–2005), known as Carey, was posthumously honored in 2015 with the Livingston Legacy Award for his role as a distinguished political scientist throughout most of Livingston College’s history.

McWilliams was a political scientist at Livingston College and Rutgers University for 35 years.

McWilliams was born in Santa Monica, California. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1955, then served in the 11th Airborne Division of the United States Army from 1955–1961. He earned his master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the same university. He was also active in the early stages of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the student activist group SLATE.

Prior to teaching at Rutgers he taught at Oberlin College and Brooklyn College. He was also a visiting professor at Yale University, Harvard University and Haverford College. He came to Yale in spring 1969 with a timely and provocative seminar on “American Radical Thought.”

McWilliams was the recipient of the John Witherspoon Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities, conferred by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities, and also served as a Vice-President of the American Political Science Association.


McWilliams was the author of several books, including The Idea of Fraternity in America (1973, University of California Press), for which he won the National Historical Society prize in 1974. In this book, McWilliams argued that there was an “alternative tradition” to the dominant liberal tradition in America, which he variously traced through the thought of the Puritans, the Anti-Federalists, and various major and minor literary figures such as Hawthorne, Melville, Twain and Ellison. He argued that this tradition drew philosophical inspiration from ancient Greek and Christian sources manifested in an emphasis upon community and fraternity, which was properly the means to achieving a form of civic liberty. McWilliams was also a prolific essayist.

McWilliams died on March 29, 2005, at age 71. He had been married for 38 years to the psychoanalyst and author Nancy Riley McWilliams. Carey and Nancy have two daughters, the musician Helen McWilliams, and Susan McWilliams, an associate professor of politics.

McWilliams "really cared about individual students," his spouse Nancy Riley McWilliams tells us in the embedded video. "He made the ideas of long-dead thinkers be alive and relevant to students”>(You may also open the video in a new window.)

At the 2015 Livingston Legacy Award presentation, Patrick Deneen, a student of McWilliams at the undergraduate and graduate levels, remembered him as a friend and “about the best teacher and finest human this institution ever had the fortune to call its own.”

After her father’s death, Susan McWilliams spoke to Rutgers students about her father’s love for Rutgers and his great interest in his students’ lives.

Leonard M. Klepner, a Livingston College 1972 graduate, also wrote about McWilliams’ friendship and mentorship.

The Livingston College Distinguished Alumni and Livingston Legacy Awards are held approximately every two years by the Livingston Alumni Association of Rutgers University. The 2015 celebration was held Tuesday, November 10 at the Rutgers Club in New Brunswick, New Jersey.




Documentation of Livingston College History

Documents and Photos Related to Livingston College’s 50th Anniversary and Beyond

— A short history of Livingston College, from its planning in 1965 to its final commencement in 2010, is available on another page on this site.

— Several authors have written about Livingston College’s history in both popular and scholarly works. See a selected bibliography.

— For a list of student yearbooks produced during Livingston College’s history, including links to cover-to-cover online versions of the yearbooks, please see this page.

In addition to the yearbooks, handbooks, newspapers and other publications and documents from Livingston College, scanned by the Internet Archive, are available.

Louis Economopoulos, 1973Many of the materials are from the collection of Louis T. Economopoulos (pictured at left), a 1973 graduate of Livingston College.

— Kenneth Lew has included a few Livingston College documents within his collection of publications and other documents on New Brunswick and Rutgers history. The Livingston College items are:

* Livingston College – Admission to the University in New Brunswick, New Jersey (1971). (The 1969 and 1970 editions of the same document are available in LAA’s collection hosted by the Internet Archive.)

* To Members of the Class of 1983 (March 1, 1979)

* Dear Freshman (May 12, 1979)

Student playing pool in Livingston student union, 1978— Rutgers’ Special Collections and University Archives (held within Alexander Library on the College Avenue campus in New Brunswick) holds numerous documents on Livingston College’s history. Note that the documents themselves are available for review in person only at the library. Among the relevant Livingston College documents are:

  • Records of the Office of the Dean of Livingston College, Ernest A. Lynton, 1965-1973
  • Guide to the Walton R. Johnson Papers, 1949-2001
  • Guide to the Rutgers Grass Roots – Progressive Activists Files, 1921-1993 (1979-1993, bulk)

— The Penn State University (PSU) Libraries website DOES offer online access to some documents related to Livingston College’s history, via the Horowitz Transaction Publishers Archive. 

In August 2006 the Historical Collections and Labor Archives (HCLA) division of the Special Collections Library of the PSU acquired the corporate archives of Transaction Publishers, a gift of Dr. Irving Louis Horowitz, chairman of the board of Transaction Publishers and the Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor (Emeritus), Department of Sociology, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Top photo: A model showing the three Quads dorms and Tillett Hall. Frank Grad and Sons, Architects, 1965–70, photo dated April 20, 1966. The quads were reinterpretations of the quadrangular colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, broken up into smaller volumes along each side. The shape creates an intimate outdoor courtyard. Source: R-Photo, Buildings and Grounds, Box 33, Livingston College, Architectural Model folder, as published in the article, The early years of Livingston College, 1964–1973: Revisiting the “college of good intentions.” Courtesy of Rutgers University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives.

Center photo: Louis T. Economopoulos (LC’73), covering Rutgers lacrosse as a reporter for The Home News in 1973.

Bottom photo: Student playing pool at the Livingston student union, 1978. The current Livingston Student Center opened in 1986 and was expanded in 2010. Tillett Hall was the previous home of student activities, including the dining hall and pub.




Livingston College in the Early 1970s: A Great Social Experiment

By Richard D. Apgar, LC’75

[Read more Livingston College Students’ Memories.]

I attended Livingston College while the Vietnam War was still raging although we were told it was winding down. I survived three selective service draft lotteries and considered myself lucky enough to continue my degree despite the fact that my classmates were still dying in a useless war. There were still plenty of things to protest, and Livingston College saw its share. In those days (1973 -1975), Livingston College became a great social experiment. Rutgers University opened its doors to every citizen of New Jersey and at Livingston we all gathered for what I consider the best education in the world. I was raised in a farming community in western Morris County and earned an AA degree from Morris County Community College in the summer of 1973. I was excited about being accepted at Rutgers and looked forward to real college dorm life. After seeing years of war and protest and finally seeing real social change I knew my time at Rutgers would be special.

The day I checked into my dorm room I was paired with a black student. I was willing to share my dorm room and hoped that we could prove that blacks and whites could be friends after all. We were all ready to stop the rioting and it seemed the war would end and real change could take place. That night I couldn’t get to sleep. My new roommate insisted on playing music all night even after he fell asleep. When he did, I reached over and turned the radio off and fell asleep myself. The next morning my roommate moved out after a brief discussion about keeping my hands off his stuff. I guess the great social experiment wasn’t going to work right away. There were still plenty of protests going on. I would wake up some nights to hear close order military drill going on in the courtyard at 2 a.m. by uniformed young Black Panthers. I would talk about what I saw to others students in the dorm later on. They were part of the great social experiment as well. They were from inner cities and rural towns from across the tri-state area. They were Catholics, Orthodox Jews, Muslims and Protestants. They were black, white and Spanish, and foreign students from all five continents. Eventually we all got to know each other, and learn from each other, and finally love each other.

One dorm mate was a tunnel rat recently back from Vietnam. He was a brilliant chess player and it took me six months to finally win a game from him. He called me the Professor because I would help him in his English composition class. One day I knocked on his door to have another chess game and when he answered he wouldn’t let me in. He told me to go away because he joined the Black Panthers and had taken an oath to kill a white man a year. It was for my own good, he told me. I was a bit surprised but after witnessing years of riots and shootings it was understandable. I never saw him again after he left the dorm.

There were also other examples of racial tension around campus. Sometimes angry black students would knock down food trays from nerdy white students in the cafeteria. There were a few fistfights but mostly everyone learned to get along, especially after the college approved an on-campus tavern. It was in the Livingston College beer hall that the great social experiment finally succeeded.

The education I received was spectacular. Some professors taught from a somewhat socialistic approach, others from a strong capitalistic approach and yet others from a wonderfully creative approach. The best teacher of Shakespeare I ever encountered was Miguel Algarin. He truly brought the works of Shakespeare to a modern political light. Perhaps when the Livingston College tavern came to be, Professor Algarin conceived his idea of the Nuyorican Poet Society. It was sheer pleasure to read poetry in New York City with Miguel and be a part of his dream in the early days. Sometimes other English literature classes were held in the tavern or at times in the home of a professor in a more relaxed, less formal way where true creativity and expression was unencumbered.

Livingston College was indeed a trip. The class of 1975 graduation ceremony was like a carnival. Some wore the traditional cap and gown while others dressed in African ceremonial tribal dress. Still others wore tattered blue jeans and some decided not to attend at all. I remember my father saying it was the strangest graduation ceremony he ever saw. Thinking back, I would have to agree. And as I think back, I remember trying to date girls from Douglass College and trying to make out with them at the Passion Puddle. Sometime I would take my dates into the woods at Livingston where there was a large tree with a rope tied to its branch where you could swing over a muddy ravine and pretend to be Tarzan. Finally, there were plenty of fun frat parties to attend on Union Avenue in New Brunswick or simply have fun dining out at Tumulty’s Pub or a wonderful pizzeria whose name I can’t remember.

Looking back, all I can say is that the education and life’s lesson learned at Livingston served me well. I was able to have a wonderful career in the fire service Industry. I became a fire chief and a business owner. And now that I am retired my only regret is that during my time at Livingston I never attended enough football games. Go Scarlet Knights!

Richard D. (Rick) Apgar is a 1975 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University.

(Contact Rick via email.)

(Spam-resistant email link provided by WillMaster; email address image provided by Nexodyne.)

 




Livingston College of the 1980s: Social Awareness in a ‘Small School’ Setting

By Robert Breckinridge, LC’88

I went to Livingston College (LC) between 1984 and 1988. I came from Illinois and my first day on campus was freshman orientation. When I applied to Rutgers University, I chose LC primarily because LC did not require a foreign language class to attend. I had no real idea of what LC was all about or its history but after I arrived, I figured it out quickly and was even happier I chose LC to attend.

College to me was more than “book learning,” it was the social aspect. Where I grew up, I had little contact with other cultures and other sexual preferences. At LC, I learned tolerance and I learned to respect other races, cultures, and sexual orientations that I would not have otherwise learned about until much later. While at LC, I was a sports editor for a year or so for the Medium. I was on the LCGA as a junior and then the University Senate as a senior and was able to interact on a positive level with Dean W. Robert Jenkins, Dean of Students George Jones, and others in the LC administration.

I worked as a referee at the Livingston Gym, reporting most of the time to Sue Beaudrow though I did briefly report to two other women who proceeded her in that position. I met some amazing people and living in the basement floor of House 17 for all but a brief time. I got to meet several of the basketball team including Mark Peterson, who always had a smile and always was very friendly and gracious.

My years at LC were some of the happiest of my life and I look back on those years with precious memories and cherished the mission of LC to find and educate “diamonds in the rough,” as it were. As I was wrapping up my time there with the School of Business starting to take off, I was concerned that LC would eventually lose its identity and with the combining of all of the schools, it probably has. That’s a shame. LC allowed me to enjoy all of the advantages of going to a large university (most of my classes were on College Avenue) while being able to take advantage of what being a part of a “small school” had to offer.

Robert Breckinridge is a 1988 graduate of Livingston College at Rutgers University.
(Contact Robert via email.)

 

(Spam-resistant email link provided by WillMaster; email address image provided by Nexodyne.)




Livingston College Yearbooks

[Also see Alumni Memories; Deans’ Reflections; Documentation of Livingston College History.] 

Livingston College opened its doors in 1969. No yearbooks were produced for the graduating classes of 1970, 1971 and 1972, which included transfer students from other colleges.

Livingston in the Retrospect, 1969-1973, was published as a memento for the first full four-year graduating class in 1973. It included photos of students and organizations, plus letters from officials, though not photos of the graduating seniors.

The first traditional Livingston College yearbook was published in 1974.

In 2006, Livingston College admitted its final four-year cohort, the Class of 2010. The final Livingston College yearbook was published in 2007.

Several Livingston College yearbooks, as well as older yearbooks from other Rutgers colleges and schools [* see note near bottom of page], are online and fully searchable through the Rutgers University Libraries (RUL) site.

Five Livingston College yearbooks are available through RUL:

  • 1974, We the People
  • 1977, The Rock, Volume II (includes photos of 1976 graduates)
  • 1978, The Rock, Volume III 
  • 1980, The Rock, Volume IV (includes photos of 1979 graduates) 
  • 1981, The Last

All of those yearbooks, plus many additional yearbooks, are available online through the Internet Archive as listed below. This project is made possible through financial support received from the Rutgers University Alumni Association.

There are no extra yearbooks available for purchase through Livingston Alumni Association or Rutgers University. 

The following Livingston College yearbooks are available as listed below. The volume numbers are as listed in each publication, even though the volume numbers are inconsistent (with some numbers skipped, repeated, or going backward). Note that the yearbook title was not always printed on the cover. This page will be updated as information is received.

Quick table of available yearbooks (more detail below images):

Year (link to info) 1973 1974 1977 1978
Image (link to full text via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 1980 1981 1982 1983
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 1984 1985 1986 1987
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 1988 1991 1992 1993
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 1994 1995 1996 1997
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 1998 1999 2000 2001
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 2002 2003 2004 2005
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year (link to info) 2006 2007
Image (link to full text
via Internet Archive)
Year Title Available at Carr (Kilmer) Library
[*
* see note below]
Online links / Notes
(All listed yearbooks have been scanned by the Internet Archive. Several early yearbooks have also been scanned by Rutgers University Libraries.)
1970
1971
1972
Yearbook not published N/A N/A
1973 Livingston in the Retrospect, 1969-1973 no Internet Archive: 
1974 We the People yes Rutgers University Libraries: :
Internet Archive:
1975 Yearbook not published no N/A
1976 Yearbook not published. no Photos of the Class of 1976 are included in the 1977 yearbook. See note below.
1977 The Rock, Volume II yes Rutgers University Libraries: :
Internet Archive:
Note: 1976 graduates are pictured on pages 22-31, and 1977 graduates are pictured on pages 204-244. (These page numbers correspond with the printed editions. The paging in the digital editions listed above is slightly different since the scanned files count every page, such as the cover, blank pages and index pages.)
1978 The Rock, Volume III yes Rutgers University Libraries: :
Internet Archive:
1979 Yearbook not published. no Photos of the Class of 1979 are included in the 1980 yearbook. See note below.
1980 The Rock, Volume IV [lists “1979” on spine] yes

Rutgers University Libraries: :
Internet Archive:

Note: 1979 graduates are pictured on pages 42-85, and 1980 graduates are pictured on pages 88-119. (These page numbers correspond with the printed editions. The paging in the digital editions listed above is slightly different since the scanned files count every page, such as the cover, blank pages and index pages.)

1981 The Last yes Rutgers University Libraries: :
Internet Archive:
1982 The Rock: A Plateau for a New Beginning  yes Internet Archive: 
1983 Strength Through Diversity  yes Internet Archive
1984 Strength Through Diversity  yes Internet Archive: 
1985 Senior Record  no Internet Archive: 
1986 The Experience  yes Internet Archive: 
1987 In Quest of Excellence  yes Internet Archive: 
1988 1988 [Livingston College yearbook]  yes Internet Archive: 
1989
1990
Yearbook not published no N/A
1991 Diversity: Not Just a Generic College, Volume 1  yes Internet Archive: 
1992 Diversity: A Style of Our Own, Volume Two  yes Internet Archive: 
1993 Diversity: A Higher Form of Education, Volume Three  yes Internet Archive: 
1994 Diversity: So Much More to See, Volume IV  yes Internet Archive: 
1995 Diversity: Out to Change the World – 25th Anniversary  yes Internet Archive: 
1996 Diversity: All But a Memory  yes Internet Archive: 
1997 Diversity: With the Passage of Time, Volume VII  yes Internet Archive: 
1998 Diversity: Memorable Reflections, Volume VIII  yes Internet Archive: 
1999 Diversity: Livingston College Common Ground, Volume IX yes Internet Archive: 
2000 Diversity: Livingston in the Millennium  yes Internet Archive: 
2001 Diversity: Making Connections, Volume XI  yes Internet Archive: 
2002 Diversity: A College Tale, Volume XI  yes Internet Archive: 
2003 Diversity: Roots of Knowledge, Volume XIII yes Internet Archive: 
2004 Diversity: Eyes of the World, Volume 12  yes Internet Archive: 
2005 Reflections: Reflect  yes Internet Archive: 
2006 Reflections: Changing Faces, Changing Places, Volume 14  yes Internet Archive: 
2007 Reflections: Here Today yes Internet Archive: 
2008
2009
2010
Yearbook not published N/A N/A

* RUL has also scanned yearbooks from other current and former colleges and schools of the university, specifically (listed from oldest to newest):

  • Rutgers College (1871-1872, 1874-1875, 1877, 1888-1913)
  • New Jersey State College of Agriculture (1913-1916, 1921)
  • Douglass College (1922-1926)
  • College of Pharmacy (1926, 1928-1929)
  • Newark College of Arts and Sciences (1937-1940)
  • Rutgers-Camden (1952-1956)
(Livingston Alumni Association is not involved in the archiving or scanning of the yearbooks from other colleges and schools. Please contact Erika Gorder with any questions or suggestions about any non-Livingston College yearbooks.)
 
** Most yearbooks are available in the second-floor reference area of the Carr (Kilmer) Library, on Rutgers’ Livingston campus in Piscataway, for in-person use only, under call number REFERENCE .



Early History: 1960s and 1970s

Hilda HidalgoAccording to a December 1973 article in The Journal of Teacher Education, by Hilda Hidalgo, Chairman of the Department of Urban Studies and Community Development at Livingston College:

  • “Livingston College … opened its doors in 1969 with a freshman class of about 600 men and women” (Hidalgo, 1973).
  • “Dr. Ernest A. Lynton, a physicist, scholar and humanist, has been the College’s main ideological architect; he was appointed dean by former Rutgers University President Mason W. Gross in 1965, when the College was just an idea” (Hidalgo, 1973).
  • According the college catalog for 1971-1972, This Is Livingston (quoted in Hidalgo, 1973), Livingston College students had formed “multiple ethnical and special interest groups, including the Black Student Union, the United Puerto Rican Students, The Foreign Students Group, the Third World Coalition, Women’s Liberation Group, and the Commuters’ Association. In addition, students may join the Philosophy Club, Psychology Association, Student Employment Service, Peer Counseling Group, and others. Any group of at least fifteen students may start a club; they may then apply to the Club Finance Board for funding.”
  • “Livingston College’s message can best be summarized by quoting excerpts of Dean Ernest Lynton’s commencement address to our first full graduating class of 500 seniors on May 20, 1973” (quoted in Hidalgo, 1973):

This Is Livingston - cover of Livingston College catalogWe have shown, unmistakably that a College within a university can contribute to the highest levels of scholarship, research, and instruction of a university, while at the same time it can meet the educational needs of a broadly heterogeneous student body — the needs of black and Puerto Rican, the needs of the poor as well as the rich, the needs of the sons and daughters of working-class parents as much as those of the progeny of merchants and bankers — the needs as well of older and of part-time students as much as those of younger, and full-time ones.

There are two common threads running through this multifaceted educational enterprise. One is a universal commitment to quality — and that is something which we have had to learn from each other slowly and sometimes painfully. It is only in a truly multiracial institution like ours that the white liberal can learn, from his black and Puerto Rican colleagues and critics, that the greatest arrogance of whites is their low expectation with regard to the performance of minority students — and gradually the lesson is being learned that high expectations and demanding goals are what each of us owes to every one of our students.

And this common emphasis on quality makes possible the second common thread of our effort — the refusal to accept any track system of education in which students are channelled and boxed in according to their background. The most important feature of Livingston’s fascinating educational mix is that it provides for all students the full range of opportunities — and encourages each to explore the very limits of his or her potential and aspirations, regardless of background and prior training. You who graduate here today have come from many different societal groups, many races and classes, many backgrounds. You go from here into a wide variety of occupations — further graduate and professional education, medical and law schools, jobs in private and public agencies, teaching and — inevitably — some with no jobs at all. A great diversity — but the achievement of the College is that there is no correlation between where you are going and where you came from.

To be many things to many people, to provide a broad spectrum of education and career opportunities, to serve the needs of a heterogeneous student body — such achievements should, indeed must, be the ultimate aims of all colleges and all universities — but as yet Livingston stands nearly alone in this.


TABLE 2: Racial Distribution — Livingston College 1972-73 (“Statistics provided by Livingston College registrar and office of the Dean,” as quoted in Hidalgo, 1973)

 

Categories White Black P.R.
[Puerto
Rican]
Asian Total
Students No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
2409 80 448 15 72 3 59 2 2988 100
Faculty 173 72 52 22 8 3 7 3 240 100
Administrators* 10 40 12 48 3 12 0 0 25 100


* Administrators — Under this category we have included only administrators listed by name and function in the Livingston catalog, representing only key positions with considerable responsibility and authority. Clerical staff has been omitted.
 


Hidalgo, H. (1973). No one model American: A collegiate case in point.  The Journal of Teacher Education, 24(4), 294-301.




William S. Bauer Jr., Former LAA President, Passes Away at 49

Bill Bauer at 1986 Livingston College graduation

Photo album: Bill Bauer, 1964-2013

Bill Bauer
Bill Bauer at Livingston College graduation in 1986.

William S. (“Bill”) Bauer Jr., a former president of the Livingston Alumni Association, passed away Tuesday, November 26, 2013. He was 49. Born in Camden, New Jersey, he had been a resident of Levittown, Pennsylvania. Bill was a 1986 graduate of Rutgers University’s Livingston College and a 1989 graduate of Rutgers’ Graduate School-New Brunswick.

Bill served for many years as an executive council (board) member of LAA, including several terms as president or first vice president of the organization.

He was preceded in death by his daughter Susanne Luise Bauer. Surviving Bill are his wife Karin A. (nee Sagendorph) Bauer; his parents William S. and Darla J. Bauer Sr. of Pennsauken, NJ, and his siblings Valerie M. Bauer of Merchantville, NJ, and Robert C. E. Bauer of Pennsauken, NJ.

Bill and Karin enjoyed annual trips to Europe, most frequently to Germany. Other recent trips included visits to Paris, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They were also frequent visitors to Rutgers for homecoming football games, reunions and other events. 

Several of Bill’s friends, in an online memorial guest book or speaking at his funeral, noted that Bill was always ready to lend a hand to solve technical problems — both professionally within the Office of School Facilities of New Jersey’s Department of Education, and personally, helping friends set up their home computers.

Current and former colleagues on the LAA board and former Livingston College deans remembered Bill as a friend and as a leader.

Michele Ostrowski, who served as LAA’s treasurer while Bill was president of the organization, recalled that Bill was an early adopter of the Internet, “a great guy, funny and smart.”

Mark Weller (Livingston College ’85), also a former LAA board member, became good friends with Bill and the Bauer family, spending holidays with them in Pennsylvania.

Eric Schwarz (Livingston College ’92), currently an LAA vice president, appreciated Bill’s dedication and generosity to the college and university he loved, as well as Bill’s joy for life, family and adventure.

George Jones, former dean of students of Livingston College, remembered Bill as fun-loving and as an alumnus who cared deeply for “his beloved Livingston.” (In 2007, Livingston College was subsumed into the Rutgers-New Brunswick School of Arts and Sciences.)

Bill Bauer from 1986 yearbookBefore Bill even entered college in 1982, he showed that he would be a leader.

Paul Herman, a former assistant dean of Livingston College, remembered: “Prior to Bill’s freshman year I ran an experimental summer orientation program and he was the first student to register for it, and as I recall, he was the first person to show up for the program. As I came to learn, that was typical Bill, always there, always ready to do whatever it takes to make something work, and always a loyal Livingston and Rutgers man. He will always be missed.”

Livingston College honored Bill with a special service award upon his graduation in 1986, in recognition of his “outstanding contributions and service” to the college.

Bill was laid to rest at Bristol Cemetery in Croydon, Pennsylvania on December 3, 2013, following a funeral service. Friends and family may view and sign an online memorial guest book. A copy of the guest book includes remembrances posted through December 10, 2013.

.




Alumni Memories

Do you have a memory of your time at Livingston: a favorite professor, dorm, event, club/organization? Email us at info AT  to share your memories!

[Also see Deans’ Reflections.]

  •  The New Academic Building (later named Lucy Stone Hall) on Rutgers' Kilmer campus (later named Livingston campus), circa 1973. A 1974 Graduate’s Memories of a Groundbreaking College on a Diverse Campus, by Marian Murray, LC’74
  • An Appreciation of Gardening and an Inspiration to Study Anatomy: Livingston College in the Early 1970s, by Lisa Matusow-Futterman, LC’73
  • ‘Education Is the Main Topic of Discussion’ in 1973; Graduates Have ‘Set the Pace’ for Classes to Come, by Noah Hart, Jr., LC’73
  • Joyful Memories of Livingston College from a 1972 Alumna, by Patricia Graham, LC’72
  • Livingston College, 1971: An ‘Incredibly Radical Outlook on City Living’, by William Ciaburri, LC’76
  • Livingston College of the 1980s: Social Awareness in a ‘Small School’ Setting, by Robert Breckinridge, LC’88
  • Livingston College in the Early 1970s: A Great Social Experiment, by Richard D. Apgar, LC’75
  • Livingston College’s Challenges at Age 21, by Eric Schwarz, LC’92, SCILS’92,’07
  • Livingston College’s First Alumni Association President Reveals His Inspirations — and the Holy Grail of LC Alumni History, by Leonard M. Klepner, LC’72
  • Long Live Livingston, by Rob Snyder, LC’77
  • Memories of the Barracks: A Refuge for Rutgers Journalists on Livingston Campus, by Glen Weisman, LC’86
  • Music, Risk, Three-Eyed Frogs and Other Experiments: Life in Livingston College’s House 15, Circa 1972-1975, by Joe Birish, LC’75
  • Towering Memories: Livingston College Students Move In to Dorms on North Side of Campus, by Steven T. Walker, LC‘86
  • Yours in Blackness: Livingston College’s Weusi Kuumba Dancers and Drummers, by William Bellinger, LC‘73

Top photo: The New Academic Building (later named Lucy Stone Hall) on Rutgers’ Kilmer campus (later named Livingston campus), circa 1973.




Deans’ Reflections

Arnold Hyndman

[Also see Alumni Memories.]

Deans Hyndman, Johnson, and Jenkins included these three tributes to Livingston College in the May 2007 Commencement program:

Arnold G. Hyndman, Ph.D. – Dean, 1993-2007

Arnold HyndmanLivingston College was founded in 1969 with the mission of bringing together a diverse group of students, faculty, and staff in a shared learning community committed to the pursuit of excellence and academic innovation. Today, that mission is embraced by the entire university and will be carried forth in the new School of Arts and Sciences. It is my hope that Livingston College will be remembered for our commitments to social justice and building community through leadership and understanding.

We offered students the personal attention of a small college community in the midst of a major research institution rich in outstanding opportunities. Dedicated to helping students reach their full potential, we fulfilled our mission through our core curriculum, special academic opportunities (such as our minor in organizational leadership, distinctive honors program, and extensive internship program), and rich complement of student life activities. Our academic program stressed critical thinking skills and diverse intellectual, political, and cultural perspectives, designed to foster and deepen an understanding of community and prepare students to become responsible, contributing citizens in a changing global environment. Similarly, our co-curricular activities developed and enhanced the leadership skills we believe exist in each of our students.

As this chapter in the history of Rutgers University comes to an end, we remain confident in the principles of our college and proud of the positive impact Livingston College has had not only on Rutgers as an institution, but more importantly on the lives of faculty, staff and students who shared in this experience. The influence of that legacy will continue well into the future.

Walton R. Johnson, Ph.D. – Dean, 1990-1993

Walton JohnsonIt is well known that most of Rutgers University – not to mention the society at large – stubbornly resisted Livingston College’s founding program of progressive and pro-democracy higher education. This resistance expressed itself in a variety of ways, including stigmatizing Livingston as “the black college,” despite the fact that African American students never represented more than 12%-15% of the student body.

As luck would have it, my deanship coincided with a brief resurgence of the social activism and idealism for which the Livingston has always stood. The forward-looking leadership of Rutgers President Edward J. Bloustein with respect to affirmative action had set the stage. Livingston students were among the leaders of campus-wide protests against rising tuitions, which, even today, prevent many of New Jersey’s poor and first generation college-goers from realizing the American dream. With similar zeal, the faculty Fellows embarked on a comprehensive self-study of the college with the view to updating and fine-tuning its mission and strategies.

The spring of 2007 is a bittersweet time for Livingston. On the one hand, its mission of making America a more perfect democracy has not been fully achieved. On the other hand, all of Rutgers University has been irrevocably transformed for the better by Livingston’s spirit. Furthermore, the college can take great pride in the many thousands of graduates in whom the Livingston mission still lives. They are continuing to transform our society in ways that are truly significant. What a glorious legacy!

W. Robert Jenkins, Ph.D. – Dean, 1977-1990

W Robert JenkinsI joined the Livingston College Planning Committee in 1968, the last year before the college opened. From the nearly private “faculty meetings” of that last year through watching the campus take shape before our eyes, things were always exciting. The most glorious memory was the day in May when we welcomed our first class for advising. We were finally a real school with real students! A true hallmark of Livingston was its open meetings, nominally of faculty, but attended by anyone who wanted to do so. Our college government even gave faculty and students shared rights and responsibilities.

One can easily guess at the difficulties such a system posed, but it was mostly fun, generally productive, and certainly educational. During Livingston ‘s early years, demonstrations and occupations of dean’s offices were not uncommon. One march in opposition to the Viet Nam war was held with students from all the campuses, during which Livingston’s first dean, Ernest Lynton, led the contingent from our campus. Two figures stand out in my memory of that day: the Public Defender on the steps of the old courthouse in New Brunswick, who left his assemblage to join the march, and the photographers taking pictures of all of us for posterity.

Perhaps most important is the legacy of innovation Livingston left to the university. We created a different culture between the faculty and students. Faculty lived in the residence halls – a model being recreated now in many living/learning communities. They also made themselves available most of the time; walking down the halls of Lucy Stone, one saw faculty in their offices (with doors open) conferring with students. We were a focused group who were proud of what we were attempting and, in many cases, accomplishing. Not only were we the first co-educational, residential college in New Brunswick, we also welcomed a high percentage of non-white students and led the way for Rutgers to grow into the diverse community it is today. Livingston also opened up an entire new set of disciplines, several of which have themselves become well known as they went on to form the basis of new schools at Rutgers. Among them are the Journalism department (now part of the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies), and the Urban Studies and Planning departments (now part of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy).

It is my fervent opinion that Livingston College has had a profound impact on Rutgers University in that it was largely responsible for turning it into an institution that addresses issues of contemporary society on a host of complex dimensions. In the positive effects we see mirrored in the Rutgers University of the 21st century, it is gratifying to know that we succeeded in achieving many of our goals.

[Jenkins died in 2015 at age 88. Read his obituary.]


Livingston College’s earlier deans were:

Emmanuel George Mesthene, Ph.D. – Dean, 1974-1977

Emmanuel George MestheneEmmanuel George Mesthene was affiliated with the philosophy department and the Graduate School of Management at Rutgers for 13 years, The New York Times reported upon his death in 1990 at age 69. From 1974 to 1977, he was dean of Livingston College.

Before joining Rutgers, he was director of the Program on Technology and Society at Harvard University and a member of the business school faculty there from 1964 to 1973.

From 1953-1964 Mesthene was a research staff member for the RAND Corporation, specializing in public policy problems in science and technology. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy at Columbia.

George Warren Carey – Acting Dean, 1973-1974 

Carey served as Acting Dean for one year. He was a Professor and Chairman of the Division of Urban Studies at Livingston College, affiliated with Rutgers’ Center for Urban Policy Research. He died in 2012 at age 85. Read his obituary. 

Ernest A. Lynton – Dean, 1965-1973

Ernest LyntonErnest A. Lynton was Livingston College’s founding dean, appointed to the post upon Livingston College’s conception in 1965 (four years before the college opened). Lynton, a Yale-educated physicist who had taught at Rutgers College since 1952, had high expectations. He wanted Livingston to become “the MIT of the social sciences,” Rutgers magazine reported in a 2012 profile of the college. Lynton died March 18, 1998, at age 71.

According to an obituary published by The Star-Ledger, Lynton led a number of curriculum innovations, including the establishment of majors in computer science, African-American studies, urban studies and comparative literature. He also started programs in city and regional planning and anthropology at the school, The Star-Ledger reported. A physicist by training, he joined the physics department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick in 1952. 

He served as academic vice president at the University of Massachusetts in Boston from 1973-1980 and later was a professor there, according to a 1990 article from The Daily Targum about the future of Livingston College.