Type: Exhibition case

Name: Mason Gross School of the Arts

Detail: In September 1959, Rutgers president Mason Gross stated that New Jersey was “educationally impoverished” and “culturally almost bankrupt” at the state’s Constitutional Convention Association and called upon the state to develop community cultural centers that would interlace cultural and educational programs. In 1974, three years after Gross’s retirement, the State Department of Higher Education designated Rutgers University as a “center of excellence” in the arts and authorized the university to develop a professional school of the arts. Mason Gross School of the Arts, formerly named The School of Creative and Performing Arts, opened in June 1975 and offered bachelors and masters degrees in fine arts and education. A rigorous arts curriculum was taught under an esteemed faculty to help artists further their crafts. In addition to the curricula, a number of ensembles formed. They include the Opera Institute, Collegium Musicum, Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble Too, Jazz Chamber Ensembles, the Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia, Brass Band, HELIX!, and the Percussion Ensemble. In 1981, the fine arts departments at Rutgers, Douglass, and Livingston colleges folded into Mason Gross School of the Arts. The school remains Rutgers University’s creative and performing arts college.

Type: Exhibition caption

Detail: Mason Welch Gross was President of Rutgers University from 1959 to 1971. Under his leadership, the university experienced many positive changes including the establishment of Livingston College and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the creation of new academic programs and centers.

President Gross’s legacy lives on in the creation of Mason Gross School of the Arts. As university archivist Thomas J. Frusciano wrote in Leadership on the Banks: Rutgers' Presidents, 1766-1991, “No one appreciated the arts more and no one worked harder to stimulate interest in the creative and performing arts in the university and in the state. It was only fitting that the School for the Creative and Performing Arts at Rutgers was named in his honor.”