Fairleigh Dickinson University (/ˈfɛərli/) is aprivate university with its main campuses inNew Jersey, located inMadison /Florham Park and inTeaneck /Hackensack. Founded in 1942, Fairleigh Dickinson University offers more than 100 degree programs. In addition to two campuses in New Jersey, the university has a campus inVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, one inWroxton, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, and an online platform. Fairleigh Dickinson University is New Jersey's largest private institution of higher education, with over 12,000 students.
Fairleigh Dickinson University was founded as theFairleigh Dickinson Junior College in 1942 as ajunior college by Peter Sammartino and wife Sally, and was named after early benefactor ColonelFairleigh S. Dickinson, co-founder ofBecton Dickinson.[6] Its original campus was located inRutherford, New Jersey. By 1948, Fairleigh Dickinson Junior College expanded its curriculum to offer a four-year program when theGI Bill and veterans' money encouraged it to redesignate itself asFairleigh Dickinson College. In that same year, the school received accreditation from theMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
In 1953, Fairleigh Dickinson College merged with the 400-studentBergen Junior College, acquiring its campus inTeaneck, New Jersey. At the time of the merger, Fairleigh Dickinson had more than 2,800 students and would be able to accommodate a total enrollment of 4,000 with its two campuses.[7]
In 1956, the institution was recognized asFairleigh Dickinson University by the New Jersey State Board of Education. In 1958, the university acquired the formerTwombly-Vanderbilt estate in Madison and Florham Park, New Jersey, to serve as its third campus.[8] Fairleigh Dickinson University is a member of theNational Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.[9]
Landscape architectFrederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, had designed the landscape for the Twombly-Vanderbilt estate (now the Florham Campus). The main house of the Twombly-Vanderbilt estate, now Hennessy Hall, was designed by architectural firmMcKim, Mead, and White in theGeorgian Revival style. The mansion was completed in 1897 and was modeled after the wing ofHampton Court Palace designed by architectSir Christopher Wren.[8] The Friends of Florham, founded in 1990 by Emma Joy Dana, university librarian James Fraser, and a group of friends and colleagues works with the mission of advising and assisting the administration and board of trustees in the care, maintenance, and preservation of the Twombly Estate, known as "Florham".[10]
The Florham Campus finished construction on the John and Joan Monninger Center for Learning and Research. It opened during the spring 2013 semester. Student enrollment at the Florham Campus consists of over 2,757 undergraduates coupled with 690 graduate students giving a total of 3,417 students. Thefull-time equivalence (FTE) for undergraduates on the campus is 2,481. The FTE for graduates on campus is 796.[16]
The Metropolitan Campus, close toNew York City and spanning theHackensack River inTeaneck andHackensack, New Jersey,[17][18] has a greater focus on business and professional majors compared to the Florham Campus. The Metropolitan Campus has 5,734 undergraduates and 1,748 graduate students, with an undergraduatefull-time equivalence (FTE) of 3,003.[19] About 21% of Metropolitan Campus students are minority and international students. Approximately one thousand students live on campus in the residence halls.
Fairleigh Dickinson University'sWroxton College is located inWroxton,Oxfordshire, inSouth East England. When Fairleigh Dickinson University acquiredWroxton Abbey in 1965, FDU became the first American university to own and operate a campus, Wroxton College, outside of the United States.[20][21] Although Wroxton College dates to the 18th century, the housing has been modernized.
In November 2025, the university announced that the 56-acre (23 ha) Wroxton campus would be sold to a group of alumni.[22]
In addition to the present campuses, Fairleigh Dickinson University previously operated campuses inRutherford, New Jersey (where the university was founded in 1942) and inSaint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. Operations on the Rutherford Campus were merged with the Metropolitan Campus in 1993.[24] The Rutherford Campus was sold toFelician College in 1997.[25] The West Indies Laboratory which opened in 1972 was damaged beyond repair duringHurricane Hugo in 1989 and was closed shortly afterwards in 1990.[26]
Fairleigh Dickinson's national student body consists of a total 10,899 students, 8,461 of whom are undergraduates, with the remaining 2,438 being graduate students with afull-time equivalence (FTE) of 7,434, making it the largest private institution in the state of New Jersey.[16] FDU has over 1,100 international students from approximately 17 countries around the world, ranking it 15th nationally among their Carnegie peer group.[27] The majority of international students attend the Metropolitan Campus and FDU's Vancouver Campus, which was founded primarily to educate international students.[28] The Vancouver Campus is the first U.S.–owned and operated institution inBritish Columbia to receive University status.[29]
The university is ranked 44th by U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges 2022 Regional University rankings (North).[30]
Fairleigh Dickinson consists of two academic colleges: the Maxwell Becton College of Arts and Sciences and the Silberman College of Business, along with seven independent schools: the Gildart Hasse School of Computer Sciences and Engineering; the Peter Sammartino School of Education; the International School of Hospitality, Sports, and Tourism Management; the Henry P. Becton School of Nursing and Allied Health; the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; the School of Psychology and Counseling; and the School of Public and Global Affairs.[32]
The Silberman College of Business is a tri-campus college of Fairleigh Dickinson University. It offers graduate and undergraduate degrees at the Florham Campus, the Metropolitan campus, and offers bachelor's degree studies in Business Management and Information Technology at the FDU-Vancouver campus.
FDU offersAACSB-accredited graduate and undergraduate business degrees through its Silberman College of Business.[34] Fairleigh Dickinson's Silberman College of Business was ranked as one of the top 295 business schools in the country for 2014 byThe Princeton Review.[35]
Fairleigh Dickinson University's International School of Hospitality and Tourism Management features the US national headquarters of the international gastronomic societyConfrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs located at the Chaîne House on the Florham Campus.[36]
Graduate programs are offered at all four of the university's campuses, and a number are offered solely through online delivery, including a postdoctoral MS in clinical psychopharmacology (MSCP) through the School of Psychology and Counseling. Graduate studies include the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) offered by the School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in clinical psychology, the Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) in school psychology, and a large number of master's degree programs, including the Master of Public Administration (MPA) and an MA in global affairs offered to nearby consular and diplomatic staff.[37]
In 2012, Fairleigh Dickinson opened New Jersey's first school of pharmacy associated with a private higher education institution, at the Florham Campus.[38] It is the second pharmacy school in New Jersey and the first to open in the state in over 120 years.[39][40]
After a major gift from alumnus James Orefice in 2017, Fairleigh Dickinson formed a new graduate School of Public and Global Affairs comprising the Master of Public Administration, the Master of Administrative Science, the M.A. in Global Affairs, the M.S. in Cyber and Homeland Security Administration, the Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration, and the survey research group,PublicMind.[41]
The university maintains libraries on all four of its campuses. Between the two libraries and one archive located at FDU's Florham and Metropolitan campuses, the university library system holds over 450,000 titles.[42]
The Florham Campus library is part of the John and Joan Monninger Center for Learning and Research. A portion of the library is housed in the oldOrangerie of the Twombly-Vanderbilt estate which was built in the 1890s by McKim, Mead, and White.
The Metropolitan campus features the Metropolitan Library and the North Jersey Heritage Center (an archival collection of New Jersey books, documents, maps, newspapers and reference material, as well as FDU history). The New Jersey collection began in 1961 when FDU became one of the earliest participants in the New Jersey Document Program listed as fourth in precedence out of 80 depositories behind the Council of State Government, Rutgers University and the NJ State Library.[43][44] The Metropolitan Library holds theColumbia Pictures Archive, a collection of over 230 movies from the Columbia Pictures Studios on 16mm film. The archive was given by Columbia in the 1980s to FDU through the work of Jack Kells, FDU alum and former Columbia executive.[45]
In intercollegiate athletics, the Metropolitan Campus competes inNCAA Division I, while the Florham Campus competes inDivision III, making it one of only a few schools in the United States to field both Division I and Division III teams.[46] The teams at the Metropolitan Campus are known as the Knights, while the Florham Campus teams are known as the Devils.
The FDU Florham Campus sports teams are called the Devils. They are in NCAADivision III and theEastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) and they compete in theMiddle Atlantic Conferences' (MAC)MAC Freedom. Their mascot is Ian the Devil.[48] The women's basketball team won the national collegiate basketball championship in the year 2013–2014.[49] The Women's basketball team also made it to the NCAA tournament four times in a row from the year 2012 to 2016.[50]
Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind is an independent research group that conductspublicopinion polling and other research on politics, society, popular culture,consumer behavior andeconomic trends.[51] PublicMind associates undertake scientific survey research for corporations, non-profits, and government agencies as well as for the public interest, as well as information regarding the FDU community as a whole.[52]
Mel Schrieberg (1942–2017), co-founder of Election.com, running the only major public sector election ever run on the Internet, the Arizona Democratic primary in March 2000[85][86]
^Michael Avaltroni Biography, Fairleigh Dickinson University. Accessed January 18, 2024. "Michael J. Avaltroni was appointed the ninth president in Fairleigh Dickinson’s history on April 26, 2023."
^[1], Fairleigh Dickinson University. Accessed January 18, 2024.
^"Our History".fdu.edu. Fairleigh Dickinson University. 2021.Archived from the original on September 20, 2021. RetrievedOctober 1, 2021.
^"Fairleigh and Bergen Junior Colleges to Merge",The News, November 23, 1953. Accessed January 13, 2024, viaNewspapers.com. "Fairleigh Dickinson College of Rutherford and Bergen Junior College of Teaneck, will merge under the name of Fairleigh Dickinson College....Merger of the two institutions will provide educational facilities fur potentially 4,000 students. Fairleigh Dickinson, presently the third largest college in the state, has a total enrollment of 2,851, approximately 1,200 of whom are day students. Bergen Junior College presently has an enrollment of 197 day students and 207 in its Evening Division."
^Jennings, Rob."‘Downton Abbey’-like college campus in England sold to N.J. alumni group", NJ Advance Media forNJ.com, November 3, 2025. Accessed November 7, 2025. "Fairleigh Dickinson University has finalized an agreement to transfer ownership of Wroxton College — its historic campus in England — to a group led by university alumni.... Wroxton College, owned by Fairleigh Dickinson since 1965, uses a 17th-century Jacobean mansion known as Wroxton Abbey. It is located on 56 acres in the county of Oxfordshire, about 60 miles from London."
^Sullivan, Joseph F."Fairleigh Dickinson to Close Rutherford Campus",The New York Times, August 13, 1993. Accessed January 18, 2024. "Officials of Fairleigh Dickinson University said today that they would close their campus in Rutherford to cut operating costs while spending $27 million for expansion on their other two campuses.... But business students who attended the Teaneck-Hackensack campus for their first two years disliked moving to Rutherford for their last years, leading to the decision to close that campus and consolidate classes at the Teaneck and Florham Park-Madison campuses, said the university spokesman, Paul Huegel."
^Horvitz, Peter S.; and Horvitz, Joachim.The Big Book of Jewish BaseballArchived March 18, 2023, at theWayback Machine, p. 35. SP Books, 2001.ISBN9781561719730. Accessed July 30, 2018. "Ron Blomberg.... Later, he continued his education at Fairleigh Dickinson University, majoring in psychology."
^Lisa Blunt Rochester BiographyArchived August 12, 2022, at theWayback Machine,United States House of Representatives. Accessed July 27, 2022. "She graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University with a degree in International Relations and put herself through graduate school as a working mom – earning a master's degree in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware."
^Markus, Don."Gaithers 29 spark FDU win"Archived November 27, 2020, at theWayback Machine,The Record, December 22, 1983. Accessed November 19, 2020. "Marcus Gaither recently became Fairleigh Dickinson's all-time leading scorer, but the achievement was overshadowed by the confusion the 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard was going through."
^John Gottman, PhD profileArchived September 27, 2007, at theWayback Machine,Redbook, accessed May 7, 2007. "He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1962 with a B.S. in Mathematics-Physics, obtained his M.S. in Mathematics-Psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964."
^Gergen, Joe."Va. Tech coach experiences sense of family"Archived March 18, 2023, at theWayback Machine,Newsday, April 18, 2007. Accessed May 7, 2007. "Greenberg, a graduate of Plain.view JFK High School and Fairleigh Dickinson University, was drawn into the situation almost as soon as he walked into his office Monday morning."
^Sung-Mo "Steve" KangArchived July 31, 2018, at theWayback Machine,University of California, Santa Cruz. Accessed July 30, 2018. "Sung-Mo 'Steve' Kang received his B.S. (Summa Cum Laude) degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ in 1970, M.S. degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1972, and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975, all in electrical engineering."
^Stewart Krentzman: President and Chief Executive OfficerArchived October 22, 2008, at the Portuguese Web Archive, Oki Data Americas, Inc. Accessed June 24, 2007. "Mr. Krentzman graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, New Jersey with a BA in Psychology and earned his MA in Human Resources from the New School for Social Research in New York City."
^William Leiss. Accessed July 28, 2009. ". He graduated from FDU in 1956 with a B.A. summa cum laude (major in history and minor in accounting). He then completed an M.A. in the History of Ideas Program atBrandeis University (1963) and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego (1969) where he studied withHerbert Marcuse."
^abJohnson, Roy S.; and Fiffer, Steve."Sports World Specials; Giant Scholars"Archived July 28, 2022, at theWayback Machine,The New York Times, June 1, 1987. Accessed July 27, 2022. "Yet, there stood 34-year-old George Martin yesterday afternoon in cap and gown, with diploma in hand, proclaiming, 'this is the day I've been waiting for all of my life.'... Martin was among the 2,500 students who received bachelor's degrees from Fairleigh Dickinson University in a ceremony held at the Brendon Byrne Arena.... Martin and Williams are the first Giants to attain bachelor's degrees through the Degree Completion Program for Pro Athletes, which was started at F.D.U. in 1985."
^Peggy Noonan profileArchived April 29, 2007, at theWayback Machine,The Wall Street Journal. Accessed May 7, 2007. "She holds honorary doctorates from her alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and from St. John Fisher College, Adelphi University, Saint Francis College and Miami University. Ms. Noonan lives in New York."
