Rutgers 250

Revolutionary Statue

To mark the 250th anniversary of our founding, Rutgers carried out a yearlong and broadly inclusive commemoration, with informational, scholarly, musical, contemplative, and celebratory programs around New Jersey, in Washington, D.C., and in the Netherlands. The year’s most noteworthy highlight: hosting President Barack Obama as commencement speaker in a packed stadium on May 15, 2016, when he declared, “America converges here.”

Rutgers 250 built pride and generated more than 14,000 favorable news stories that earned millions of impressions worldwide.

Related links
Report: A Look Back at Our Yearlong 250th Anniversary Commemoration
Scarlet and Black Project

Scarlet and Black

Scarlet and Black Report Cover

The 250th anniversary also occasioned a critical examination of Rutgers’ early history and the publication of Scarlet and Black, which documents our founders’ participation in the slave trade, our debts to enslaved men and women whose labor was used to build Rutgers, and our role in displacing the Lenni Lenape.