Greetings From FDU
By Rebecca Maxon
Years ago, Chris Rasmussen, professor of history and deputy chair of the social sciences and history department, came across a handful of vintage Fairleigh Dickinson University postcards in the Kron Building on the Metropolitan Campus. He scoured eBay for more and his collection grew from there. Enjoy these standouts!
Today’s Florham Campus opened in 1958 on a parcel of land once part of the Twombly-Vanderbilt summer estate in Madison, N.J. A prized example of Georgian architecture, the mansion contained more than 100 rooms. Now known as Hennessy Hall, the restored building houses offices, classrooms, conference rooms and Lenfell Hall.
In 1953, Fairleigh Dickinson College purchased the Teaneck Campus, now called the Metropolitan Campus, from Bergen Junior College. Outside the second floor of the Student Commons building, now Alumni Hall, was a sun deck for students to lounge on in the warmer weather. Note the business professional attire — a school requirement at the time.
Williams Hall was one of the original classroom buildings on the Teaneck Campus. Its pylons, just to the left of the FDC signpost, lift it above a pond which was home to a pair of swans for many years, enhancing the campus’s park-like atmosphere. The building currently houses FDU’s School of Psychology and Counseling.
In 1956, Fairleigh Dickinson College (FDC) opened a new four-story building, Robison Hall, on the Teaneck Campus, visible in the background here. It housed a School of Engineering and, after FDC was declared a university, a School of Dentistry as well.
The famed Iviswold Castle formed the heart of FDU’s original campus in Rutherford, N.J. At the time it opened in 1942, the University was a junior college offering two-year degrees. The Castle, as it was known, was the only building at first, with classrooms, offices and a library inside.
Pictured in front of the Castle’s rotunda, these able Knights were equipped with spears and dressed in hose and tunics bearing a crest of the Castle. The Knights, a reference to the Rutherford and Metropolitan campuses’ mascot, appeared at many formal occasions including the Teaneck Campus’s opening ceremony.