Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Rutgers students, faculty fight to keep name of college
By Brendan McInerney
Daily Targum (Rutgers)
01/29/2007

(U-WIRE) NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Bonnie McCay, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University, is leading the effort to keep 'Cook' part of the name of Cook College as the school undergoes a name change under the Transformation of Undergraduate Education initiative. According to the initiative, Cook College will be renamed the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences by the University Board of Governors.

"There is, of course, a background about why Cook College's name has been changed," McCay said. "The simple answer is that the recent Transition in Undergraduate Education effort has done away with 'colleges' in favor of 'schools.'"

The transformation from colleges to schools signifies the University's goal to be one college with different components.

Recently, McCay presented a petition to the BOG with 562 signatures from students, faculty, alumni and parents. However, the appeal was denied. The board said that instead of using the name 'Cook,' they preferred to leave open the possibility that a donor might be encouraged to give money to the college in exchange for the privilege of his or her name in the school name.

Fearing that the sense of community that pervades Cook College will vanish because of the name change, Suzanne Pilaar, a Cook College junior, is one of the students at the head of the movement to keep the name Cook in the title of the school.

"I think one of the things that separates Cook is its mission and dedication to the natural sciences in their humanitarian context," Pilaar said.

She is also dissatisfied that one class unique to Cook College, Perspectives on Agriculture and Environment, was recently done away with because of budget cuts.

"[The class] teaches you to think about things in a new way — an interdisciplinary way that is invaluable in this day and age," Pilaar said. "[The class] got that across to people, and now its gone, maybe along with our sense of community as this transformation continues."

After a number of name changes the school was designated Cook College in 1973 to honor George H. Cook.

George H. Cook came to the college in 1853 as an appointed professor of chemistry and researched the source of marl, a farming fertilizer. This research led to his appointment as New Jersey state geologist.

He traveled throughout the state and lecturing on the long term benefits of marl — these lectures gained him the confidence and support of the state's farmers.

In 1863, when the United States government decided to pass an act to grant land to one school in each state for agricultural research, he lobbied successfully to make Rutgers that school as a result.

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