Whatever you may know about George H. Cook, the Executive Dean's Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, November 5, 2014, is your opportunity to learn more. Drawing from the Special Collections of the Alexander Library, Thomas Frusciano, university archivist and popular expert on the history of Rutgers, will deliver an illustrated talk about the role that George Hammell Cook and others played in revitalizing Rutgers by winning the hotly contested effort to secure the Congressional land-grant designation for Rutgers.

This special lecture celebrates the 150th anniversary of Cook's successful campaign in 1864 to persuade the New Jersey legislature that Rutgers, not Princeton, should be the land-grant institution "to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts...."

The talk will take place starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Alampi Room in the Marine and Coastal Sciences building on the G.H. Cook Campus. It is free and open to the public; however, seating is limited and early registration is strongly suggested. Refreshments will be served. For more details and to register, please visit the Discovery website.

As we also ramp up to the 250th anniversary in 2016 of Rutgers' founding, the university is publishing a commemorative coffee-table book, Rutgers: A 250th Anniversary Portrait, and invites us all to be a part of it. Your name (or that of a family member or friend) will be included in a special section of this 300-page book if you order before March 1, 2015. And if you order before July 2015, you save $20 off the price of the book.

Rutgers 250 will kick off on November 10, 2015 (Charter Day), and the celebration will run through 2016. Learn more about the celebration and book.

We should have guessed that the "150 Alumni Stories" initiative (see Alumni Stories and Notes) would bring back fond memories and reintroduce long lost classmates to each other. It also has brought together former faculty and former students - as witnessed in the exchange between Ratemo Michieka and his long-ago professor Jorge Berkowitz, who is now senior consultant and vice president of Langan Engineering and Environmental Services. Ratemo, a professor with the University of Nairobi, was profiled in August. As he perused the other alumni stories posted in The Newsroom, he came across Jorge's story. He emailed:

Ratemo Michieka

"I have just read an excellent biography of Jorge Berkowitz who taught me a course on Environment Science, Toxicology, during my undergraduate years. He actually influenced me to continue with it, and I am now teaching a similar course! He was also, equally important, my Helyar House advisor for all the time I was at Rutgers. He might remember a young Kenyan boy who used to be in his class. Remind him."

Jorge Berkowitz

And Jorge's response: "Indeed!  I do remember him.  This is what I miss about my teaching days at Rutgers.  Love it!  Thanks for passing this along."

We'll report on more connections, as we hear of them.

October 4, 2014 - "The Third Season" fall planting class, Rutgers Gardens

October 23, 2014 - Russell Nutrition Symposium: "Nutrition, Body Composition and
                  Health Across the Lifespan," Neilson Rectangular Room (learn more)

October 26, 2014 - Scarlet Harvest Family Day, Rutgers Gardens (see story above)

November 5, 2014 - Executive Dean's Distinguished Lecture on George Hammel
                 Cook, Alampi Room, (see story above)
November 6, 2014 - Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
                  100th Anniversary Celebration, Cook Campus Center (learn more)

December 2, 2014 - Save the Date: Retired Faculty Luncheon, University Inn and
                  Conference Center