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Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (also known as Rutgers University), is the largest institution for higher education in the state of New Jersey. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766 and is the eighth-oldest college in the United States. Rutgers was originally a private university affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church and admitting only male students, but evolved into and is presently a nonsectarian, coeducational public research university that makes no religious demands of its students. Rutgers is one of only two colonial colleges that later became public universities. (The other is the College of William and Mary.) [3] Rutgers was designated The State University of New Jersey by acts of the New Jersey Legislature in 1945 and 1956.[4] The campuses of Rutgers University are located in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark and Camden. The Newark campus was formerly the University of Newark, which merged into the Rutgers system in 1946, and the Camden campus was created in 1950 from the College of South Jersey.[citation needed] Rutgers is the leading university within New Jersey's state university system, and it was ranked 46th in the world academically in a 2006 survey conducted by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.[5] The university offers more than 100 distinct bachelor, 100 master, and 80 doctoral and professional degree programs across 175 academic departments, 29 degree-granting schools and colleges, 16 of which offer graduate programs of study.[6] Shortly after the College of New Jersey (Princeton College) was established in 1746, ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, seeking autonomy in ecclesiastical affairs in the American colonies sought to establish a college to train those who wanted to become ministers within the church.[7][8] Through several years of effort by Rev. Theodorus Jacobus Frelinghuysen (1691–1747) and Rev. Jacob Rutsen Hardenbergh (1736–1790), later the college's first president, Queen's College was chartered on 10 November 1766.[7] Established as the trustees of Queen's College, in New-Jersey in honor of King George III's Queen-consort, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818).[8] The charter was signed and the young college was supported by William Franklin (1730–1813), the last Royal Governor of New Jersey and illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. The original charter specified the establishment both of the college, and of an institution called the Queen's College Grammar School, intended to be a preparatory school affiliated and governed by the college.[8] This institution, today the Rutgers Preparatory School, was a part of the college community until 1959.[8][9] The original purpose of Queen's College was to "educate the youth in language, liberal, the divinity, and useful arts and sciences" and for the training of future ministers for the Dutch Reformed Church[10][8][9] The college admitted its first students in 1771—a single sophomore and a handful of first-year students taught by a lone instructor—and granted its first degree in 1774, to Matthew Leydt.[8][9] Despite the religious nature of the early college, the first classes were held at a tavern called the Sign of the Red Lion.[11] When the Revolutionary War broke out and taverns were suspected by the British as being hotbeds of rebel activity, the college abandoned the tavern and held classes in private homes.[8][9]
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