Cook College Threatened

Two major issues arose, both threatening the vitality, the mission, and the future success and potential of the college.

1) The first of these was combination of several proposals involving Cook land adjacent to and near Route 1; there were proposals to sell some of the land to gain resources for the University, and a very large proposal to swap agricultural research land (to a developer, for intensive development) in return for farmland for agricultural research in the more rural areas south of New Brunswick.

2) The second proposal involved funding for the agricultural experiment station, which traditionally had been partially assigned directly to the experiment station by the New Jersey legislature. The university administration wanted all funding for all facets of the university to go through the central administration.

The entire Cook community and its constituency throughout New Jersey were outraged by these proposals and saw them as a direct threat to the future of Cook College and to the agricultural experiment station.

A group of Cook College faculty proposed that Cook threaten to secede from the university if it implemented its land sale and funding change plans - - A bill was introduced by Sen. Walter “Moose” Foran in the state legislature that would have separated Cook College from Rutgers University and made it an independent professional college. Those faculty involved did not really want to separate from Rutgers University, but the tactic was very successful in getting the full attention of the administration and the Rutgers Board of Governors. Bruce Hamilton and Secretary of Agriculture Philip Alampi were heavily involved in the fight to “save the land” campaign.

The university established a blue ribbon committee chaired by Board of Governors member Michael Bongiovanni, to study the relationship of Cook College and the agricultural experiment station to the university.

The Bongiovanni Committee and later, the Board of Governors approved a document that clearly established that Cook College is a professional school with a unique mission and specific and special needs, and the keeping the lands currently being used along Route 1 and in that vicinity were crucial to the mission, and that the current funding methods had worked successfully for many years, and should not be changed. The committee also re-affirmed the importance of Cook College continuing as an important division of the university. Cook emerged from this major controversy as a stronger educational, research, and outreach segment of Rutgers University.