Stockton University: From Humble Beginnings to Atlantic City Anchor
Stockton University, a public institution in Galloway Township, New Jersey, has a history marked by adaptability and growth. From its unconventional start in a repurposed Atlantic City hotel to its current presence as a revitalizing force in the city, Stockton's journey is a testament to its commitment to serving its students and the surrounding community.
Inception in the Mayflower Hotel
In 1968, New Jersey approved a substantial capital construction bond issue, allocating $15 million for a new state college in Southern New Jersey. Stockton University was founded in 1969, accepting its charter class in 1971. As construction of the Galloway Township campus fell behind schedule in 1970, the trustees sought an alternative location for the inaugural class.
Stockton University spent its first four months of existence in 1971 in an eight-story Atlantic City hotel. The Mayflower Hotel, located at St. James and Tennessee, was temporarily transformed into classrooms, offices, and dorm rooms. Tourists still occupied the top two floors, while Mickey Finn’s bar and restaurant on the ground floor served as a makeshift library. On the day some of the first students arrived, they witnessed the Miss America parade on the Boardwalk.
Harvey Kesselman, who began his first semester at Stockton in the inaugural class, recalls those early days at the Mayflower: "It wasn’t really condemned, but it almost seemed that way." Richard Dovey, another student, remembers sharing the elevator with tourists and "long-haired kids riding to class." Classes switched to the Galloway campus after the first 12-week trimester, but Dovey continued to live at the Mayflower, hitching rides back and forth.
The Mayflower experience fostered a sense of independence and self-reliance among the students. As Dovey stated, "We didn’t have any rules. We were on our own, but that was also the philosophy of the school: You were an adult and should be able to figure out life yourself. You had to grow up quick or fall by the wayside." This philosophy attracted students like Kesselman, who saw in Stockton a place where students were treated as adults and given significant input.
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Transition to Galloway Township and Continued Growth
Classes and offices soon transferred to Galloway Township when construction of the main campus was completed. In 1978, the US Congress passed legislation creating the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve to protect the area's ecology and aquifer. The original linear campus was cited as one of New Jersey's ten "architectural treasures" by New Jersey Monthly (April 1999) for its International modernist style, designed in the late 1960s by Robert Geddes of Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham Architects. Generous use of glass opens views to the Pinelands setting.
Richard E. Bjork led the college as it graduated its first classes, expanded programs and achieved accreditation in 1975, the year it completed Phase II of the campus. Mitchell led during continued growth as enrollment approached 5,000 students. Emphasizing green buildings, Herman Saatkamp directed completion of a campus master plan in 2005 and a major capital program, including construction of the largest building, the Campus Center, opening in 2011. He initiated the 2010 purchase of what is now Stockton Seaview Hotel and Golf Club, established the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality & Tourism in the School of Business, and a collaborative agreement in 2011 with the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration to expand opportunities for students at both institutions in hospitality and tourism. Under his leadership, Stockton expanded its geographic reach, opening instructional sites in Cape May County, Ocean County and western Atlantic County, NJ.
Kesselman became interim president September 1, 2015, and was named Stockton's fifth president at a December 2015 meeting of the university's board of trustees. Construction of the $33.2 million Unified Science Center 2 and a $15.2 million classroom building were completed in 2018, creating three sections of a new Academic Quad and entrance to the university.
In 1993, the college's name was changed to the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Rochelle Hendricks, New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education, approved Stockton's petition to become a university on February 13, 2015. On February 18, 2015, Stockton's board of trustees voted to change the former college's seal to reflect the new name, Stockton University.
Stockton has six housing units on campus. Founder's Hall (Housing II and III): Housing II is an 11-building, suite-style complex, housing around 520 students, with 17 residents per floor and 51 per three-story building. Housing III is a five-building complex, housing approximately 300 students with 20 students per floor and 60 per building. The residential halls offer a more traditional university lifestyle for the first-year experience. The Apartments (Housing I, IV, and V) consist of three multi-building complexes. Housing IV consists of eight buildings, each with eight two-bedroom apartments, with a total 246 beds. Each apartment holds four residents. Housing V, completed in 2008 as part of the capital program, consists of a complex of six buildings with a total of 384 beds. The Housing V suites house four students, with four key-entry bedrooms.
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Return to Atlantic City: A New Chapter
As gambling declined and Stockton grew, Atlantic City beckoned with fire-sale prices. In December 2014, Stockton purchased the shuttered Showboat Atlantic City hotel and casino for $18 million, with plans to develop a full-service residential campus. However, a legal covenant prevented the property from being used as anything but a casino. In January 2016, Stockton sold the Showboat to Showboat Renaissance LLC.
Instead, Stockton looked south to a vacant parcel for which a series of ambitious casino projects had been proposed. It joined AC Devco in a $220 million public-private partnership that also resulted in a new headquarters for South Jersey Gas. Stockton’s share for its new 6.2-acre home was $178 million for the development and construction of the campus.
In the fall of 2017, Stockton University began constructing a new facility in the Chelsea neighborhood of Atlantic City, opening in fall 2018. The new campus marks a return to Atlantic City, 24 blocks south of the long-since demolished hotel where it was born. The campus budget was $178.28 million, is three stories tall and has an apartment-style complex for student living, called the Kesselman Hall. It also includes retail space along the Atlantic City boardwalk. Stockton Atlantic City also includes an Academic Center for up to 1,800 students, and a parking garage.
The new three-story academic building, with an atrium interior that subtly evokes a cruise ship, occupies the site of the old Atlantic City High School, where Kesselman did his student teaching. Across Atlantic Avenue, a 533-bed dorm with sweeping ocean views fills the Boardwalk block that had once been home to the Mayfair Apartments and the President Motor Lodge. The Atlantic City Campus Residential Complex can accommodate some 530 students.
Impact and Future
Stockton has brought almost 150 jobs to the city, and South Jersey Gas has added another 200. Additionally, AtlantiCare has opened an urgent-care center in a street-level storefront of the new parking garage the university and the gas company share. Several new neighborhood businesses have opened, including a pizzeria and an ice cream shop, and several others are expanding or renovating.
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Stockton University Atlantic City opened fall 2018 with more than 500 residential students and more than 1,800 students taking courses in the new Academic Center, built on the former site of Atlantic City High School. The project is a public-private partnership with Atlantic City Development Corp., or AC Devco, a non-profit modeled on New Brunswick Development Corp., which expanded Rutgers' New Brunswick campus. The project includes a parking garage topped by new offices for South Jersey Gas, with 879 parking spaces for use by the university, South Jersey Gas and the public; and an academic building that can accommodate up to 1,800 students.
As Kesselman stands at that wide window in the new building, he points across the street at O’Donnell Memorial Park, a triangle of green anchored by the rotunda of the World War I memorial. Now he is ticking off the bordering properties where he hopes Stockton might expand in the future. It reminds him of another city park, Washington Square in Manhattan, around which New York University grew.
Leading academic fields on campus include Business Studies, Community Leadership and Civic Engagement, Hospitality and Tourism, and Social Work and Organizational Leadership.
A Commitment to Sustainability
Stockton is an environmentally friendly campus featuring a geothermal heat pump, fuel cells, and photovoltaic panels. In 2002, Stockton installed a 200 kW fuel cell, which provides just under 10% of the total energy for the campus; Stockton has the lowest energy cost per student among universities in New Jersey.
Stockton's commitment to environmentally responsible design has resulted in "green" initiatives that have both saved energy and decreased greenhouse gas emissions. These include the development on campus of one of the largest geothermal heating and cooling systems in the world. The geothermal systems incorporate seasonal thermal energy storage so that waste heat or winter cold can be collected when seasonally available and stored for use in the opposing seasons. An aquifer thermal energy storage system (ATES), the first of its kind in the United States, began operation in 2008.
The ATES system reduces the amount of energy used to cool Stockton's newer buildings by storing the chill of winter air in the water and rock of an underground aquifer, and withdrawing it in the summer for cooling. As part of the capital plan, Housing V was built in 2009 to accommodate the rising demand for student housing. It incorporates geothermal heating and cooling using closed-loop technology, for a total of 450 tons cooling capacity.
Stockton's next green project was the largest single building project in its history. Green Building Council's LEED Gold Standard in sustainable design, the new Campus Center, completed in 2011, provides 153,000 square feet (14,200 m2) of space for dining, bookstore, pool, theater, lounges and offices. It will use 25% less energy than standard construction, and 40% less water. Other features include low-emitting adhesives, sealants, paints and coatings. Additional "green" features of the building include a storm water-collection system to irrigate an on-site "rain garden" landscaped with indigenous and adapted plant species.
Student Life and Activities
Stockton's Division of Student Affairs is organized to provide comprehensive programs and services to more than 8,800 students, including more than 3,000 students who reside in university facilities. Stockton University is home to more than 130 official student clubs and organizations including a Student Senate. There are student media organizations, including the Argo, a student-produced newspaper. WLFR 91.7 (Lake Fred Radio) is the student-run FM radio station licensed to Stockton in 1984. SSTV Ch. 14, Stockton Student Television, is Stockton's on-campus television station. Stockpot Literary Magazine is an annual literary publication featuring art, poetry and writing of Stockton students and alumni.
The team is part of the NJAC in the majority of sports. Stockton also offers a cheerleading squad open to both male and female students. Men's basketball coach Gerry Matthews is the winningest college basketball coach in New Jersey history. Two Olympic medalists held the position of athletic director at Stockton: Don Bragg (1960 pole vault gold) and G. Larry James (1947-2008), gold medalist at the 1968 Summer Olympics, was athletic director at Stockton for 28 years. In 2007, Stockton's track and soccer facility was named "G. Larry James Stadium".
Stockton has had a campus Art Gallery since 1973. Initially located in a classroom-sized space and relocated in 1979 to a former dance studio, the Art Gallery opened in a dedicated exhibition space in January 2012. In 2010, Stockton College entered a partnership with the South Jersey fine arts center Noyes Museum wherein Stockton would supply funds for needed repairs, and Noyes would provide access to their collections to Stockton.
Recognition and Rankings
In 2019 Stockton was ranked No. News & World Report. Stockton also ranked tie No. 17 in Best Colleges for Veterans and No. Military Times named Stockton in its "Best for Vets: Colleges 2019" listing, ranking it No.
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