William Paterson University’s 150th anniversary will be a time to celebrate our past, present and future. It will be a time to celebrate all that the University has accomplished through the years and all that we strive together to accomplish in the future.

The University has come a long way since classes were first held for children of Paterson’s millworkers on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings in the city’s East Ward School. Over the course of our history, the scope of our academic and extracurricular offerings has grown dramatically, the teaching techniques of our faculty have advanced continuously, and the technology applied in our classrooms and laboratories has developed beyond the dreams of our predecessors. Everyone in the William Paterson University community — past and present — should be proud, however, to note that the essence of our institution has remained remarkably constant through the years. Our core commitment to the success of every individual student is rock solid — it’s been this way throughout the history of this great institution. And it will always be this way.

We have much to celebrate and and I look forward to sharing this exciting time with our community of students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends. Our 150th anniversary committee has been working hard to create and implement a year of activities to honor our milestone. I encourage you to visit these anniversary Web pages frequently to learn about events and programs and to get a strong sense of our institutional history. Through the interactive portion of these Web pages, I also encourage you to participate in the anniversary by submitting some of your favorite recollections and contributing to the development of a University archive.

I hope to see you at our celebratory events!

Sincerely,

Arnold Speert