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Credit: Addison Geary
Just as more students are choosing to
live on or near urban campuses of Newark
and Camden, a small wave of professors
and administrators -- both senior
faculty and younger appointees -- are
coming to live in these cities, as well.
J.W. (Bill) Whitlow, a psychology
professor in Camden, bought an
appartment in The Victor, a luxury
apartment building near campus that is
attracting a growing number of faculty.
Whitlow enjoys walking to work and his
unobstructed view of the Delaware River
and downtown Philadelphia. "It's
absolutely gorgeous at night," he says.
"There is nothing between me and the
river."
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For many years, both Rutgers-Newark and Rutgers-Camden were campuses for commuters. That description was as true for faculty and professional staff as it was for students.
Now, just as more students are choosing to live on or near the two urban schools, a small wave of professors and administrators – both senior faculty and younger appointees – are coming to live in those cities as well.
“It’s been happening in the last two to three years,” said Newark Provost Steven J. Diner. “They’re excited by the campus, excited by what’s happening in the city and its resurgence. They want to be a part of it.”
In Newark, the change has even given rise to a new group – the Newark University Faculty Club. To be a member, you must live in the city. “Such an organization would not have existed 10 years ago,” said Clement A. Price, Board of Governors’ Distinguished Service Professor of History. Price was, for a long time, one of few academics with a Newark home address. The faculty club, he said, is “a very formal statement about the virtues of living in Newark and doing the work of higher education in Newark.” The roughly two dozen members teach at five local institutions.
There’s no faculty club in Camden yet, but that may happen eventually. The recent conversion of a distinctive landmark building near campus into luxury loft apartments increased the city’s housing options for professionals. The same developer is building a condominium project nearby.
In a small city struggling with poverty, crime and high unemployment, those are big changes. “It’s important for a community like Camden to have mixed incomes,” said Camden Provost Roger J. Dennis. “Faculty and staff bring income stability to the community, which then leads to progress on all sorts of fronts.”
Martin Dillon, assistant professor of music at the Camden campus, had been living in New York City, commuting south three days a week. Last September, he moved into a loft in The Victor (so named because it once housed The Victor Talking Machine Company – later, RCA Victor, where Caruso, Rachmaninoff and Gershwin recorded). “It’s a wonderful building, just two blocks from campus,” Dillon said. When the apartments became available, he added, “I thought, ‘This is how I’d like to live.’”
Another Victor resident, psychology professor J.W. (Bill) Whitlow, was attracted by the convenience of walking to work and the unobstructed view he has from his apartment, which faces the Delaware River and downtown Philadelphia. “It’s absolutely gorgeous at night,” he said. “There’s nothing between me and the river.”
Non-professional campus workers have long been city residents. Developers now see potential for middle- and upper-middle-income housing in both locales, although Newark – with a Performing Arts Center, a new sports-and-entertainment arena and a new 600-student residence hall due to open on the Newark campus in 2006 – is drawing the most attention.
Responding to the growing demand for downtown housing in Newark, a 1929 office building on Raymond Boulevard is slated for an $80 million conversion to rental residences and retail space by Cogswell Realty Group. The same developer also plans to connect and renovate two buildings – the former Hahnes department store and the Griffith Piano Company – into rental apartments, shops and a parking garage, at a cost of $85 million. Both projects are scheduled to begin this year. In addition, “there’s talk about building a transit village, with condominiums, by the Broad Street station, which is very close to our campus,” Diner said. “If that happens, and there’s every reason to think that it will, there are going to be more and more attractive options for faculty and staff.”
Some well-established neighborhoods are also proving appealing. Glenn Shafer, a professor of accounting and information systems at the Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick, commuted from Princeton for 12 years. He then moved to a single-family home in Newark’s Forest Hill district with his wife, Nell Painter, a history professor at Princeton. Shafer was attracted to living closer to campus and near New York City. His wife, who is African-American, was “a bit weary of the all-white neighborhood” they were living in, Shafer said. They both wanted to be part of the renaissance happening in Newark.
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